The "I can't believe I did that" thread...

[Tom Blevins]

ok close here, I just finished a pint of beer and it was feeding time for the reef, I washed the glass out and added my frozen food to it added some warm water
while I as watching a movie, well pored another pint while a commercial was on and decided to take a look at the corals putting my nice new pint next to the
frozen cube pint and took a swig of chum not my IPA, Yah!

 

[Wiz]

A friend of mine had a lot of coral melt on him. Couldnt figure out why. After talking to him for a bit he mentioned he tops his tank off with "ocean water" from the pet store because he knows not to use tap. I said "you mean for water changes not top off right" and the instant I stated that his face turned very red. Very very red. Lol his salinity was off the charts. And he had been reefing for a bit. Just a change in his habits and the salt slipped his mind. Lol

 

[Rasengan]

Ahh, you got me on that one! Done it so many times. Luckily never for 8 hrs. where it could do damage. Most was an hr. wood floors survived. Now I make mine with the bucket in the bath tub and RO/DI unit hooked up to the faucet. Now in the tub I left it for 8hrs once.

You know, I feel even dumber now after reading your post. The spot in the bathroom where I usually make my RODI water, and consequently the spot where I usually forget to turn off my RODI, is literally 2 feet away from a shower stall. Why didn't I think of making the water in there? Wow I'm an idiot...

 

[tyler1503]

I asked my then-girlfriend to help me during a large water change (50%!) We haven't done a water change in probably 4-5 months! Glass was scraped, rocks were blasted, and sand bed was stirred up.. So all poop, detritus, and algae now settled on the sand ready to be sucked up. I told her to start the siphon but she was worried that she would accidentally swallow some poop water. I said, "you're fine! I do it all the time!"

She sucked hard and next thing you know she started gagging! I couldn't help it but I littlerally started laughing my butt off on the floor! Hahahhha

After that, she broke up with me

Hahaha been there. My girl has had quite a few fishy water drinks from siphoning. It didn't matter how much I told her not to breathe so hard it still happened. Still made me laugh every time! Now she makes me start the siphon and she holds the other and of the hose and we have to fumble around and swap positions while trying not to spill water all over the carpet.
Good to know she didn't actually break up with you, I would have felt terrible laughing at the story then reading that lol.

 

[eagle]

My wife got smart. Bought a hand pump to start siphons.

 

[Skydvr]

Stand up and keep the end of the hose higher than the water level in the tank when starting a siphon by sucking on the tube, then cover the end of the tube with your thumb before lowering it into the bucket, or whatever you siphon into. Prevents you from sucking water or spraying water everywhere as you try to get the end of the hose into the container.

Even better, submerge the end of the tubing in the tank and coil it in the water as the tube fills with water to get your siphon started. You do not have to actually fill the rigid part of the vacuum with water. Reef aquariums have a lot of potentially toxic creatures. Paly toxin is the second most deadly toxin in the world, many other creatures in the reef excrete noxious chemicals as well. Typically you won't have an issue, but if something goes haywire in the tank and toxins get dumped and you suck in some of the tank water, or even just put your lips on a tube that was exposed to those toxins/chemicals, you may find yourself in the hospital, if you are lucky.

We recently had a bunch of club members almost end up in the hospital after helping move a large tank and set up a new system. Scraping the tank glass that had dried out a bit during the moving process caused paly toxin to go airborne and caused everybody to get very sick (only conclusion as even the people wearing arm length gloves got sick).

 

[jmarcink91]

Stand up and keep the end of the hose higher than the water level in the tank when starting a siphon by sucking on the tube, then cover the end of the tube with your thumb before lowering it into the bucket, or whatever you siphon into. Prevents you from sucking water or spraying water everywhere as you try to get the end of the hose into the container.

Even better, submerge the end of the tubing in the tank and coil it in the water as the tube fills with water to get your siphon started. You do not have to actually fill the rigid part of the vacuum with water. Reef aquariums have a lot of potentially toxic creatures. Paly toxin is the second most deadly toxin in the world, many other creatures in the reef excrete noxious chemicals as well. Typically you won't have an issue, but if something goes haywire in the tank and toxins get dumped and you suck in some of the tank water, or even just put your lips on a tube that was exposed to those toxins/chemicals, you may find yourself in the hospital, if you are lucky.

We recently had a bunch of club members almost end up in the hospital after helping move a large tank and set up a new system. Scraping the tank glass that had dried out a bit during the moving process caused paly toxin to go airborne and caused everybody to get very sick (only conclusion as even the people wearing arm length gloves got sick).

Wow I did not know paly toxin could go airborne. That is wild. Good tips for the siphon though!

 

[Skydvr]

Yeah, neither did the club members that got sick. Well, they knew it could happen from boiling rock, someone killed their dog and sent everyone in the house to the hospital a few years back, but they wouldn't have believed moving a tank and scraping the dried stuff off the tank walls could have done it.