Stupidist things you've done as a reefer, I'll start

[pledosophy]

Stupidest thing I've done as a reefer that I'm willing to share. . .

I topped off with salt water for a year, thought I was supposed to.

Didn't do a water change for the first 6 months, didn't know I had to.

Glued myself to the tank, a few times.

Installed a duroso and glued into the bulkhead, before putting the bulkhead on the tank.

Had a clam shoot me in the eye, three times.

Sucked in a bristle worm while starting a syphon, that was painful.

Paid someone $90 to install a MH ballast cuz I was scared to do the wiring. Paid the emergency room $150 after the guy screwed it up and wife found me on the floor. ( I think it's funny now, wife doesn't yet )

First time I plumbed a tank I was so proud of myself. Didn't think to do a water test. Filled up the tank and found out that PVC needs glue. Who knew.

Bought myself a brand new heater, dinner was ready shut the garage door, on the heater.

Got a magfloat, thought wow my sandbed is dirty I bet this thing an clean it, time for new tank after scratches.

Your turn.

[reefnetworth]

"Murphys Law" lives within you!!!

[reefer1024]

Pledosophy that is a very impressive list. I bow to you.

The stupidest thing I have done is give myself a nice electrical shock, because I didn't learn from the 2 times before that I electrocuted myself.

Electricity+Water+my hand=ouch!

[Mr31415]

@pledosophy - Ouch!

Let me think.... A couple of times I performed water changes and allowed the heater to be exposed - thus cracked.

I filled my new 480g full of saltwater to leave the next day on a 10 day holiday 1500 miles away from home, by car. Next evening the tank cracked lengthwise and all water flooded my living room.

[dendro982]

- Bought the biggest tank I could afford (by available space), 20g HX, instead of eyecandy pico, that everybody wanted,

- bought the cute messy fish, that grows big (1 ft), with follow up acquisitions: 90g tank with full setup, put in a basement, where no one can see it,

- bought the biggest skimmer, that (my) money can buy (ASM G-3)

- set refugiums to lower nitrates and phophates, in turn, ranging from chaeto in the high flow, through DSB, up to Duplex - everyone become the source of the red cyano, acoel workms and some - dinoflagellates. The main tank was in much better shape.

- the last, but not least - got involved in rat race of improving equipment: this doesn't work, as described - may be the other, more expensive kind will be better.

Laugh or cry.

[Shagsbeard]

I was cutting the PVC drain from my tank and caught the electric cord to my lights in the cutter. No shock, since I was insulated, but the cutters exploded in my hand.

Bought a skimmer that was too tall to fit in my stand.

Other than that, it's been a pretty good year for me... thanks for a truely impressive list of mistakes to make mine seem small by comparison.

[Mr31415]

Oh wait my biggest mistake by far was when I added that cute pink hairy balls of algae to my refugium as nutrient export mechanism.... Until they spread to my main display and not I cannot get rid of the pink hair algae.

[USC-fan]

listening to a girl at my LFS. Told me that a basket star would work well in my 30gal tank...after months of huge target feeding it was taken back to the fish store.

At least this enforced the fact you need to do a lot of research before you add anything to your tank.

[clekchau]

thinking the advice given on internet forums are gospel, man was i wrong

[kathainbowen]

.... accidentally sticking myself with a long spined urchin in a dusty tank and assuming I'd just been popped by a "deadly, deadly conesnail." I was most ashamed when I realized this blunder when I spotted the spine still lodged in my finger, as I was running, screaming my head off towards the kennel and as the other staff were running in horror towards me.

.... dumped a vat of liverock curing water into the back parking lot behind work because I didn't feel like dumping in down a floordrain or kennel sink or like carting the vat down the road to the rock pile we used as a dumping grounds specifically for liverock water (*it kept the smell far away and kept weeds from growing through the rocks). The back lot smelled like butt for a week during an Atlanta heat wave. I told everyone it was out neighboring store's fault, but I don't think they believed me.

Assuming that a big blueline trigger hiding in the back of the tank wasn't going to come out at me.

Trying to both refill a tank after a water change, using my magdrive pump, and scrape the glass with a razor, forgetting the foxface. I jumped when it jumped at me and watched in slow motion as I couldn't stop my hands from falling back an the razor putting a good gash in my left middle finger.

In another "I-cut-myself-at-work" accident, I had already sustained the cut to my left ring finger and had tried to wrap it as best I could. I was told I couldn't touch the tanks for the rest of the day or handle fish stuff, for fear of infection (my manager had once cut himself when one of the glass panes for the betta shelves shattered when he tried to set it down, and it very quickly developed a nasty infection). Forget the fear of infection! I'm so right hand dominant that I just went about my day and accidentally got chemicals on it! Ack! It burnt!!!

Listening to someone when they said, "Ew, gross! Hey, smell this!"

Putting a small softie in with a racoon butterfly to pick off some aiptasia, getting caught up in something else, freaking out when I remembered the coral, coming back to find that the racoon had been a model citizen. The chocolate chip star that I hadn't realized was in the tank, however, was helping himself to a coral buffet.

Teaching butterfly fish that anything entering a tank on a certain side had aiptasia on it and conditioning them to come and immediately scour/snap at such things.

Indigo hamlet in an open topped tank.




But the worst.... the absolute worst.... was the store floods. Yes, you heard that right FLOODS, as in plural. I, personally, flooded the store TWICE.

The first time was not that bad and was reef involved. The RO/DI unit fed into a 350G vat in the back room with a pvc valve at the base. There was a second tank for mixing saltwater set up similarly, and the two were used to both fill clients' water bins as well as our buckets and a big Brute trashcan we used to replenish water change water. I didn't FULLY close the freshwater one and slowly, over the course of a whole night, the entire freshwater batch (about 200G) leaked out onto the store floor. I don't know if you're aware, but that's a lot of square feet of water on the floor. It was awful to clean up.

So, you'd think I 'd learn my lesson, right? Well, our freshwater tanks had an auto-top off system. They all had float valves to cut off when the sump was filled, but I wasn't aware that some of them didn't work all too well. All I knew was that I'd been instructed to NEVER forget to turn off the refill system...... I forgot one night. The sump I cut on was fine. The sump I didn't even touch flooded the store. It when from the back of the fishroom, into the backrooms, the kennel, the office, BOTH of the neighboring stores, out of the fish room and up the 120 ft. length of the aisles to the front of the store..... that morning, a preschool class was coming on a visit.

[Ephraim]

Using a dremel with wet hands. When i was shocked i almost ended up taking a finger off with the diamond wheel.

[timi hendrix]

the stupidist thing ive done was unscrewing the bulk head on the bottom of my 90g to see what size hole to drill in my new 120 and i found out the size but the whole 90 gallons ended up draining into my laundry room while the wife was getting me buckets to save as much water as i can .what a joke i ended up doing about 80% water change the next morning

[filmoholic]

You guys are champions! all I've ever done is continue to let my skimmer overflow down into my wall socket and starting a small fire.Imagine a fire behind a tank you cannot get to!I only had it happen Twice before I just moved the skimmer!

[kathainbowen]

..... you have scuba listed as one of your hobbies, as well as your interest in films.... I've hung out with divers and film makers, so I'm CERTAIN you've done some pretty foolish things in your life in at least ONE of these three hobbies/professions/interests, so I'm going to call pot-to-kettle on you!

My filmmaker friends, btw, enjoyed busting spare sheets of candy glass and wondered why their hands hurt.

[CruzinKim]

Quaranting a $15 wild caught Percula for 2 weeks and then putting into a well established 240g FOWR tank. Wasn't long enough QT time, the clownfish brought in a disease that first wiped out all my tank raise clownfishes, then spread to wiping out all the tangs and last, wiped out all the angelfishes. Everything else lived, but lost my most precious fishes despite over $600 in reef safe medications to try and stop the disease, was a total waste of money. Ended up coppering the tank and never being able to use any of the live rocks in any other setup except fish only. Totally stupid and expensive lesson and what's worst, all recommendations were given by the LFS owners in the area. That was the last time I listen to LFS about combating disease.

[sabbath]

Listening to lps on what animals, corals, filters, additives and food to get.

[zukihara]

Hmmm. My LPS have never spoken. What did yours say?

[airinhere]

I had just recieved 2 Acan Bowerbanki Colonies (Very large, very nice colonies). While placing them into my tanks I first set one in place and then gingerly picked up the other. Carefully, I positioned it and checked where the coral skeleton touced my rockwork. Using healthy amounts of glue, I made my final adjustments and prepared for vertical placement. (It actually worked, sorta...)

Glue held for about 5 seconds.

My hand was still in th tank, so I swiftly reached underneath the colony. It landed firmly in my hand.

I added some more glue and then with my palm flat against the colony, I pressed firmly back in place and held for 30 seconds. My hand was getting poked in about a hundred different places, but I held firm pressing solid against the colony. It wasn't going to fall again!

Ever look at the skeletal structure of an acan? Bowerbankis have rows of sharp ridges (that just shredded my poor colony). I instantly realized I had done something horrible. My palm was lightly bleeding from the sharp ridges, and completely covered in Acan slime. The polyps I had been pressing against were cut into thin ribbons of flesh. They swayed like tentacles in the current.

I didn't kill the whole colony, but there is a huge swath (hand sized) of dead space in the middle of my colony.

And of course, it was the nicer of the two colonies.... (Red and baby blue)

Amazing how much a guy can regret his actions from the last 30 seconds.

[airinhere]

Oh yeah, and the dremmel with a diamond wheel.
"Sure I am fully capable of holding my rather bulky, adjustable speed dremmel in one hand and a Duncan colony in the other and freehand all my cuts."
"Just to be sure its as easy as possible, I will try to cut towards myself only."
(I think my brain was trying to hurt me.)

Made 2 cuts and havent used the Dremmel since. Maybe I need a tabletop vice-clamp or something, because I almost lost a fingertip or two.

Anyone else ever "discovered" you had a bad heater by getting mildly zapped when you put your hand into the tank, but its so mild that you end up zapping yourself like another 10 times just to be sure?

[hyperfocal]

Not noticing a leaky bulkhead, saying instead "Boy, the tank sure is evaporating a lot... Better top up the ATO reservoir again." Ended up with squishy carpet and too-low SG.

[gummyworms]

Originally posted by hyperfocal
Not noticing a leaky bulkhead, saying instead "Boy, the tank sure is evaporating a lot... Better top up the ATO reservoir again." Ended up with squishy carpet and too-low SG.

I got a similar story. Came home one day to see that the fuge water sure was low and the pump was almost running dry. Added a gallon of water and walked away, going about my business. Half an hour later, I noticed that the pump was again shooting bubbles into my tank. Instead of doing the smart thing and checking for leaks, I thought, "Wow, it evaporated a gallon in half an hour" and added another gallon. This continued for several hours and I ended up adding 5 or 6 gallons into my fuge. Before I went to sleep at around 9pm, I walked over the carpet near my tank and found it nice and squishy and bubbles once again shooting into my tank. Panicking, I checked everywhere for leaks and there were none to be found. It was then that I noticed my filter sock. The edge of the filter sock was just barely over the lip of my fuge. It turns out the filter sock overflowed and water slowly tricked out into my cabinet and then into my carpet. Took two and a half hours to get it somewhat dry and the water that I couldn't get out took two days to evaporate.

[Hypo]

.........after starting in this hobby, I stayed in this hobby...........

[sabbath]

Originally posted by zukihara
Hmmm. My LPS have never spoken. What did yours say?

My LPS ( local pet shop ) say's too much.

NO my large polyped stony's won't talk to me ethier. I'm out if they do.

[xenon]

My biggest mistake was spending crazy money on lights, 4way closed loop setup, corals when really I had no time in my schedule to manage water quality.

I downgraded to a FOWLR tank and lost boat loads of money.

Live and learn.

[uscharalph]

Originally posted by zukihara
Hmmm. My LPS have never spoken. What did yours say?

LOL!!