Reef Darwinism: Stupidest thing you did to your reef tank.

[FutureInterest]

I thought it might be interesting to share some of the lamer things we've done to our tanks over the years. It doesn't have to result in a fatality of sorts but if it does that's fine too... If we get enough interest in this, we can start a poll and I'll provide a prize for the winner!

Jin

 

[jetchris]

When I first started doing water changes about 2 years ago, I would put a garden hose in the tank and hang the other end out the window. Then I would go downstairs and out the door to the other end of the hose and suck on it to start the suction, then run back inside to suck the water out of the tank. I did this about 1 year before I realized I could start the siphon by simply putting the end of the hose on the return. Now I just hang the hose out the window and start the siphon with the sump return. :lol2:

 

[glxtrix]

Worst thing I've done was put sand in my tank....LOL

 

[strapingyunglad]

just a few days ago i put my heater in a small container to help mix some RO water turned up to full blast to speed things along, and then put it back in the tank without turning it down again......crashes are NOT fun.

 

[delaneymohr]

When I started in the hobby in 95. I put dead starfish smuggled home from Florida in my huge 20 gallon tank... Killed everything..... I thought that it wouldn't stink once I put it in the tank... When I got home from work the smell was putrid.

D.

 

[gwhiz]

Forgetting to turn the fill water off and waking up in the morning to 2" of water in the room--for the 2nd time! Luckily it's a tile floor in the basement or it'd been a real mess. I only had to do that twice before I set up system for ATO and making change water!

 

[kelloggreef]

Put a filtersock on the skimmer outlet and hung it higher then the sump was. A week later the filter sock got dirty and the water overflowed out of the sock and down to my power strips. Almost burnt the house down and blew out three pumps.

 

[raisingtwo2006]

Here's our list- I can't pick which one is the worst-

First, we bought 50 pounds of gravel (the driveway kind) from walmart, came home and dumped it in our brand new tank.

Then we killed off two tankfulls of fish because we didn't know there was a cycle - that was freshwater though, so it may not count..

Hmm.. We've added a whole bag of salt directly into the DT and STRAIGHT DOWN onto our 3 ccstars... They of course melted like slugs.

We've left a heater on in a 5 gal bucket of fish while moving- didn't remember it until we saw steam coming from the closed lid-

We've fed our puffers (2 porkies in a 55) microwaved seafood Dont know if that contributed to their utter demise or not.. but it was stinky!

That's all I can think of at the moment- but I'm SURE there are more..

 

[leslie]

20+ years ago I moved a 50 gallon from one apartment to another. I kept 1/3 of the water AND the fish in the tank thinking the sloshing from the car movement would just be like a wave in the ocean. I might have been wrong.

 

[linda lee]

http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/showthread.php?t=8347">This</a> was undoubtedly my dumbest stunt.

Checked my tank before going to bed. Didn't look right, so checked the PH with our new PH pen. The reading was WAY low. Added reef buffer (well, I was still new, okay??) and the reading was the same. Added more. Still the same reading. In a panic, and thinking my tank was about to die anyway, I dumped the whole container into my 55g.

When the PH reading <u>still</u> didn't budge, I ran upstairs and woke up Loren.

Loren came downstairs and checked the PH... after, uhhhh... <span style="font-size: 11px">after removing the cap from the PH pen...</span>.

Of course, the PH was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay up there and we spent hours after that changing water, posting on the forum, changing more water, etc., etc., etc.

And what did I initially see? Just an anemone going poopies and the rest of the tank inhabitants holding their noses and waiting for the water to clear. And then, newbie human reefer steps in to save the day and darned near wiped out their little world.

Amazingly, nothing died.

 

[ralph atl]

1) I didn't understand that if my nozzle on return was too low in my tank, my itty bitty sump would overflow a gallon or 2 every time my power was out, or if I shut off my return.
This happened for like months, over & over & over again.

2) during water change I pumped water to the tank from a bucket. when it was empty, I just shut the pump off, and I went to go do something................................D'oh!

 

[ace1204]

First tank i ever bought was a 15 gallon cube established already of course, went over to the guys house broke it down and moved it home. Little did i know that i needed a heater to keep the water at 76 or above. Found this out about a month after i had the tank running with no heater whatsoever. The tank only had one false percula and he must be a champ bc he didnt budge or act funny one bit until i tested the temp and saw temp in the 60's and ran to buy a heater lol. still have that fish today by the way

Drained water for water change in AIO tank with out cutting the power to the return pump off.

Found out how much back siphon it takes to fill up a 10 gallon sump when you kill the power on a 46 gallon with the lockline pushed 12" deep into the tank. lol

glued my fingers together instead of frags

Smelled a snail that i pulled out of a tank that my mantis had been nibbling on for a week. WOW never do this please!!!

Floated frags in my solana, left the room came back with the bags stuck against the overflow drain and water pouring over the edges of my rimless tank.

Bought 7 tanks without the time or money to set them up

 

[derek_s]

I used table salt one time to try and bump the SG in a small tank...

 

[scubagirl12]

ha these are hilarious! and very useful information.

the only thing I can think of is that when I tried to regenerate my purigen in bleach, my roommate put the cup in the cabinet and i forgot about it for a few days. so my tank had a lot less filtration. i think that caused my alkalinity to drop way low and killed several things. im pretty recovered now and thanks to several generous reefers i replaced what i lost.

oh and onetime i was gone over the weekend right after i got some new fish. my roommate did NOT want to touch the frozen mysis so I said "well I won't feed them for a couple days then you can just pop a whole cube in there..." i think thats what killed my six line. everything else was fine though.

 

[theplatypus]

:shout:I passed on increasing the width of my tank by 6" for the same price.

 

[lees]

Bought a nano-skimmer

 

[lees]

Oh. bought a small yellow tang that someone at LFS told me would be okay in my 5G hex tank until I get my 55 set up. That was really stupid.

 

[genesisblue]

When i had my first 55 gallon saltwater tank I found some "Live" oysters or clams at the local Publix...So, being the intelligent fish keeper I was, I bought about 8 of them and dumped them into the tank. As they started to die, a disgusting slick of grease formed on top of the water and the fish and corals started to stress. I couldn't figure out what was going and kept doing water changes. I figured it out finally as the 2nd to last oyster started to die. Needless to say, I learned alot...and I promise that drugs weren't involved

 

[rostato]

We used to have a heater in our 12G tank that had a seperate temp probe that controlled the heater. Well some how, one day when we fed the tank the probe got pulled just out of the water so the heater thought it was 70 degrees, and just cooked the tank.

I came home that night and looked at the tank and I could just tell something was wrong. Once I figured it out the tank was at 92 degrees!

So me in my infinate wisdom (drunkeness) decided I was going to fix the problem by throwing some ice cubes in it and waiting to see what happend.

After about 15 minutes the 3 ice cubes cooled the tank down like 2 degrees! So, I added a little more and waited, repeat, repeat. 3am rolls around and I am ready to go to sleep (again drunkeness setting in) and the tank was still at 85 degrees. So, since I wanted to go to bed I just threw in a bunch of ice cubes to speed up the process.:yay:

I watched my cleaner shrimp just stop dead in his tracks...instant death!:sad:

Somehow my nems, clowns, and all corals still made it, though it took a weekl to recover. The only dead coral was my kenya tree...:doh: :doh: :doh:

 

[acura_rob]

When my first set of clown fish caught ich. I thought the clowns had some kind of fish chicken pow.........lol