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Ran my RO unit while drinking margaritas....woke up to a big flood!
Reef Darwinism: Stupidest thing you did to your reef tank.
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With my first reef tank I bought a huge chocalate star without doing any research because a fish store (not in ATL) told me it would be safe.....he came home to my first reef tank filled with delicious snacks. After killing a bunch of stuff he got stuck in a power head and lost part of his body....I felt so sorry for him, even though I was still pissed, that I kept him in the tank to heal. Of course, he grew a nub and kept on killing just to spite me :shout: ....
I gave him back to the store and never went back again.
I gave him back to the store and never went back again.
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Wow good stuff people! 
It's hard to decide for me as well, but one of the dumbest things I did was trying to feed flake food to my xenia... my very first coral lol.
It's hard to decide for me as well, but one of the dumbest things I did was trying to feed flake food to my xenia... my very first coral lol.
Decided to clean the U tube in my HOB overflow box. Then turned on the sump return pump and left for a few minutes. Came back to an empty sump, overflowing tank, mini snow-storm, and soaking carpet. The ATO in the sump kicked on when the water level dropped, trying to refill the sump with kalkwasser. Derp!
Mental note: start HOB siphon BEFORE</em> turning pump on.
Mental note: start HOB siphon BEFORE</em> turning pump on.
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My favorite one so far.
After working on, correcting, and learning from soooo many different setups over the years I could probably write a book on just what not to do. There are two things in my mind that stand out, however.
1. Building my own fluidized media chamber for aluminum oxide. I didn't take into account how soft Al2O3 was and tumbled probably 400ml of it into powder which badly clouded the water. You can't image how quickly I scrambled to get a water change done. I didn't lose anything, but yeesh.
2. Not QTing some trade-in f/w african cichlids while working retail. A lady was bringing them in and they spilled in her car, so in trying to save them, I just dumped them in a system holding 50+ species. They had columnaris. It's like the brookynella of freshwater in that it will kill in 2-3 days, only it's bacterial and nearly impossible to treat. Once the fish is showing sings, they're doomed. I was only able to beat it after triple dosing nitrofurazone while running copper and droping the temperature to 74 degrees, but not before losing ~$2000 in cichlids, several being quite rare.
After working on, correcting, and learning from soooo many different setups over the years I could probably write a book on just what not to do. There are two things in my mind that stand out, however.
1. Building my own fluidized media chamber for aluminum oxide. I didn't take into account how soft Al2O3 was and tumbled probably 400ml of it into powder which badly clouded the water. You can't image how quickly I scrambled to get a water change done. I didn't lose anything, but yeesh.
2. Not QTing some trade-in f/w african cichlids while working retail. A lady was bringing them in and they spilled in her car, so in trying to save them, I just dumped them in a system holding 50+ species. They had columnaris. It's like the brookynella of freshwater in that it will kill in 2-3 days, only it's bacterial and nearly impossible to treat. Once the fish is showing sings, they're doomed. I was only able to beat it after triple dosing nitrofurazone while running copper and droping the temperature to 74 degrees, but not before losing ~$2000 in cichlids, several being quite rare.
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DannyBradley;252313 said:My favorite one so far.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ace1204 http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/showthread.php?p=252159#post252159">[IMG]http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/images/buttons/viewpost.gif" alt="" /></a>
[I]glued my fingers together instead of frags</em>
my favorite too! i have super glue all over my fingers after fragging and it takes a day to wear off
I have 2 major 'OOOPPSSS'.
I had bought some cheato and put it into my sump. Now me knowing that it will need some light, I head to my local Home Depot and pick up a small florescent light. I figured the best spot to place it is about the sump. I attach it using stick velco that we had at the house. Worked like a charm too....for 3 days. I come home and wonder why no light is on. Open it up and the thing loosened because of the moisture and it's inside the sump. I turned the power off and yanked it out. The breaker never flipped because it's low voltage so it had been feeding electricity into my tank for hours. Now what I didn't know is that a salt water tank can be like a large battery and can store electricity for weeks. I lost every invert I had in the tank but all the fish survived.
My other mess up doesn't invovle any fatalities. I had turned on my RO unit to make some water. Well I forgot to turn it off before going to bed. Get up the next and go to work. I get home and realize what I've done thinking that's good waste of water. One problem. The hose that leads to the third stage (don't even know what it's called) had popped off and had been spraying water in the basement bathroom for hours and hours. Turn it off and clean everything up. One problem...because I had my shoes on, I never noticed that the carpet was also soaked. That sat for 2 more days. I had to call in professionals to get the carpet all dried out and to kill for any mold. Good news is that I finally got around to properly fixing my RO unit. heh
I had bought some cheato and put it into my sump. Now me knowing that it will need some light, I head to my local Home Depot and pick up a small florescent light. I figured the best spot to place it is about the sump. I attach it using stick velco that we had at the house. Worked like a charm too....for 3 days. I come home and wonder why no light is on. Open it up and the thing loosened because of the moisture and it's inside the sump. I turned the power off and yanked it out. The breaker never flipped because it's low voltage so it had been feeding electricity into my tank for hours. Now what I didn't know is that a salt water tank can be like a large battery and can store electricity for weeks.
I lost every invert I had in the tank but all the fish survived.My other mess up doesn't invovle any fatalities. I had turned on my RO unit to make some water. Well I forgot to turn it off before going to bed. Get up the next and go to work. I get home and realize what I've done thinking that's good waste of water. One problem. The hose that leads to the third stage (don't even know what it's called) had popped off and had been spraying water in the basement bathroom for hours and hours. Turn it off and clean everything up. One problem...because I had my shoes on, I never noticed that the carpet was also soaked. That sat for 2 more days. I had to call in professionals to get the carpet all dried out and to kill for any mold. Good news is that I finally got around to properly fixing my RO unit. heh
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Anyone else?
I'm going to pick my fav5 and start a poll based on those. My sense of humor is a lil off so don't be offended if I don't pick yours. The prize will be a nice lil rainbow acan frag.
I'm going to pick my fav5 and start a poll based on those. My sense of humor is a lil off so don't be offended if I don't pick yours. The prize will be a nice lil rainbow acan frag.
-Didn't do nearly enough research before taking the plunge and ended up with a non drilled tank and HOB equipment. While its working decently, it's just not pretty and there's no additional water volume.
-Added a 6 line wrasse becuase my wife like the coloration.
-Last month while changing water I decided to just drop in new premix right from containers in my garage not once thinking "hey didn't it get way colder recently?". I'm sure my fish felt like somone had just flushed the toilet while they were in the shower......
-Added a 6 line wrasse becuase my wife like the coloration.
-Last month while changing water I decided to just drop in new premix right from containers in my garage not once thinking "hey didn't it get way colder recently?". I'm sure my fish felt like somone had just flushed the toilet while they were in the shower......
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I do not have any moments... I am the aquarium GOD, don't you know...
Alright maybe I have had a few mortal moments:
I was in a rush to frag some stuff and get out the door one day. Jen was helping me bag and tag some stuff. After we were finished, I started to move our hood back into place. It sounded like my ballast for my T-5s had come loose from the hood. I reached back, with salty wet hands to grab the ballast so it would not fall. The ballast was snug but my hand just happend to hit the two power wires. A nice spark sent an arc across my chest to the metal hood I was holding. When I let go of the hood, it shot down to my knee that was against the metal handle for the tank. In one loud pop, I flew back and hit the floor. I do not have the best heart in the world. and there I lay twitching on the floor. Jen thought I was dead until I started to squirm. I learned NEVER to touch the ballast with wet hands.
Alright maybe I have had a few mortal moments:
I was in a rush to frag some stuff and get out the door one day. Jen was helping me bag and tag some stuff. After we were finished, I started to move our hood back into place. It sounded like my ballast for my T-5s had come loose from the hood. I reached back, with salty wet hands to grab the ballast so it would not fall. The ballast was snug but my hand just happend to hit the two power wires. A nice spark sent an arc across my chest to the metal hood I was holding. When I let go of the hood, it shot down to my knee that was against the metal handle for the tank. In one loud pop, I flew back and hit the floor. I do not have the best heart in the world. and there I lay twitching on the floor. Jen thought I was dead until I started to squirm. I learned NEVER to touch the ballast with wet hands.
<span style="font-family: Arial">When deciding to get in to the hobby…I wanted to have a Nano but also wanted two 10G to have some kind of flow going. </span>
<span style="font-family: Arial"> </span>
<span style="font-family: Arial">Being one who refused to buy something off the shelf, I began sawing and painting, drilling holes in 10 Gallon tanks from Petsmart and finally after months of work I had what I thought was the perfect tank set up :yay: . So I threw in some fresh water to see if it holds and make sure there we’re no leaks:thumbs: . </span>
<span style="font-family: Arial"> </span>
<span style="font-family: Arial">Everything was perfect…for about 15mins and then I heard a small cracking sound and before I knew it the tank busted and water was all over the apartment:doh: . 10 Gallons doesn’t seem like much when it’s in tank…but when it’s all over the floor…it felt like a flood.</span>
<span style="font-family: Arial"> </span>
<span style="font-family: Arial">Needless to say, I bought a tank that was thicker than my prototype and had the holes pre-drilled… </span>
<span style="font-family: Arial"> </span>
<span style="font-family: Arial">Being one who refused to buy something off the shelf, I began sawing and painting, drilling holes in 10 Gallon tanks from Petsmart and finally after months of work I had what I thought was the perfect tank set up :yay: . So I threw in some fresh water to see if it holds and make sure there we’re no leaks:thumbs: . </span>
<span style="font-family: Arial"> </span>
<span style="font-family: Arial">Everything was perfect…for about 15mins and then I heard a small cracking sound
and before I knew it the tank busted and water was all over the apartment:doh: . 10 Gallons doesn’t seem like much when it’s in tank…but when it’s all over the floor…it felt like a flood.</span><span style="font-family: Arial"> </span>
<span style="font-family: Arial">Needless to say, I bought a tank that was thicker than my prototype and had the holes pre-drilled…
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Installed and relied upon inline check valves.
3 floods later, over 100GAL all over the basement no more check valves!
3 floods later, over 100GAL all over the basement no more check valves!
When I was hooking up my main return pump -- nothing happened -- no water flow at all. Figured I had a dud -- wanted a new pump ASAP -- got a bit pushy with the person I bought it from -- then finally looked real close to find the gray plug still in the inlet -- what an idiot!!!
Installed a huge check valve because the former tank I had, it had the returns through the bottom. Mag 18 got some sand in it one sunday evening and froze up, well the check valve also got sand in it and it hung open aswell. "Hey hand me that beer over there" wife looks at the tank.."Why the water level low".. Guess where this is going.. Lost about 65 gallons in one shot.. On a sunday around 10pm.
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I cleaned the tank and forgot to plug the heater in. Temp dropped to 68, but nothing died.
Shortly after we got our first tank up and running I decided to do a water change one Saturday. We had our tank on the same wall as the new flat screen TV my wife had just got me for Christmas. The thought was HD tank , ,HDTV. Actually it was only about 2 feet away from it. I was just about done and held the vacuum up too finish draining the water out of the hose when the hose came loose from the vacuum and splashed saltwater all over the TV. I promptly cleaned it off and thought everything was ok. Wrong. The next day we had several "splotches" about 4" around all over the screen. Thank God it was under warranty. We had to break down the tank and move it before the guy from Circuit City came out. They replaced it but it took several weeks before we could get the return authorization paperwork. Needless to say we found out the hard way that saltwater and HD televisions dont like each other.
Now this one didnt happen to me but it did happen to a friend of mine. He had a HUGE, and I mean huge, carpet anemone in one of his tanks. Said anemone died and became rather........really no way to describe what it became......I think we all can get a good mental picture. He decides its time to get the tank cleaned out so in goes the siphon hose. He takes one big suck to get it going into the bucket and was treated to about half of the deceased anemone going straight in his mouth:yuk:.
And yes, I have learned not to drink and run my RO unit. Basement floods are no fun.
Now this one didnt happen to me but it did happen to a friend of mine. He had a HUGE, and I mean huge, carpet anemone in one of his tanks. Said anemone died and became rather........really no way to describe what it became......I think we all can get a good mental picture. He decides its time to get the tank cleaned out so in goes the siphon hose. He takes one big suck to get it going into the bucket and was treated to about half of the deceased anemone going straight in his mouth:yuk:.
And yes, I have learned not to drink and run my RO unit. Basement floods are no fun.
this one wasn't my fault but this is back when I had a freshwater tank.. I had a 29 gallon with about 15 or 20 fish in it.. 11 black neons, 3 guaramis, 3 rainbow bosemanis, and a discus... My girlfriend decided to surprise me while I was at work with a new fish, a pretty new fish named "oscar".... I come home to a 29 gallon fish tank with 1 fish in it... "oscar" was hungry
This is when I decided to start over as a discus tank
This is when I decided to start over as a discus tank
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