Your dumbest reef related move? Here's mine....

[waynemah]

Messing with a biopellet reactor, left the pump in the sump with the hose attached (aimed right at my power bars). While waiting for pellets to rinse off I decided to label some switches, couldnt figure out what one was for, switched it on and watered my electronics. The sound of zapping and popping is pretty scary.

[spawn]

Yeh I redcently bought some new to me, used halides. So naturallty when I got home I set them up to see that they worked & to see how they made the tank look. They worked & looked awesome. Trouble was that the fish room is not finished wiring yet so I used extension cords. I had to unplug the deep freeze to plug in one of the ballasts. Then after I unplugged the ballasts I forgot to plug the freezer back in. I didn't find out until about a week later when my wife was at yoga & I needed frozen pizza for dinner. Then stench that came out of that $#%! freezer was enough to make me puke literally, & had to have a shower because of the smell. Also The dogs were running after me cause they liked the smell. Always plug the freezer back in. & agree with Brads comment about filling tanks with sps.

Originally Posted by Cugio

Yesterday, went to safeway and bought a bunch of frozen stuff. Took the bag of fish food out and set it aside. Forgot to put back in. There goes $80. I'll never stock pile frozen food again.

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by waynemah

Messing with a biopellet reactor, left the pump in the sump with the hose attached (aimed right at my power bars). While waiting for pellets to rinse off I decided to label some switches, couldnt figure out what one was for, switched it on and watered my electronics. The sound of zapping and popping is pretty scary.

So do you have some GFIs?

[gregzz4]

Being a newb, my dumbest move so far is kinda boring for the rest of you ...
Don't drill your sump
I bought a 50g for a sump and drilled the face of it for 2 external pumps. Since then I have reconfigured it twice and have wished both times that I had never drilled it as I have gone with internal pumps.
I suffered one external leak, and have since spent time and money messing with the irregular shapes due the the patches I placed over the holes I cut. Each time I re-designed it, the baffles ended up right where the holes are
If I only knew now what I knew in November .....
It just failed a baffle test ( minor ) and if it fails again, it might get smashed and I'm starting over with a brand new tank
I've spent over $100 on plumbing and glass so far ....
I'm ready to spend another $200 on a new tank and glass just so I can tell the world to ......... yeah I'm upset

[reef-keeper]

Me l bought a RO/DI unit turned it on forgot about it flooded my basement. THREE TIMES. Once was bad twice is just embarrassing but three times is just get out of the house and go buy your water stupid or finally install a float valve

[MMAX]

I've overflowed water jugs so many times that it doesn't really bother me anymore. Just sucks that I'll eventually have to replace a wall in my basement because of water damage. The dumbest thing ever? Setting up my dosing pump and chemicals, was going to put in my sump room. Had my 1 gallon alk jug filled with the lid off when I heard one of my kids crying upstairs. Knew I shouldn't have done this but I set the open container on top of the sump. I even said to myself "take it off there" and then figured that it would be ok. When I came back down, guess what was in the sump? Was extremely lucky that a 1 gallon dose of alk did nothing, everything survived.

[fishoholic]

I once left my automatic top off hose just resting on the edge of the tank, normally held into place with a zip tie. The hose fell into the tank, back siphoning water from the tank into my RO top off container then over flowing from the container onto the floor.

I had a 6 bulb T5 light over my QT tank, it rested on two pieces of wood that sat on top of the tank. Had finished with the QT tank (a few weeks ago, at the time) but hadn't got around to cleaning the water out or putting the lights away. Came home after work and found the T5 lights inside the tank of water, no idea how long they had been in there for, but needless to say the lights didn't work after that

[doch]

Having the excellent attention span that I have, I have (several times) turned an output from my controller on or off to test it, or add some chemicals, or... who knows... and then gone to bed. I've managed to drop my temp as low as 70, bring my alk as high as 19dKh (I think thats the right scale), and Ca as high as 600. I've also poured 8 hours worth of RO water all over the floor of my basement.
UGH.

Ooooohhh.... butterfly!!!

Oops, back on track... I think that I've learned my lesson... I think.

[Reef Pilot]

I have a Vertex In-280 skimmer in my basement sump, and just before I drain and clean it, I raise the water level up a bit, to get rid of the rest of the foam, before dialing it down and removing the top piece. However, I have to be careful not to raise the water too high, or it goes into overflow mode, and spills out the top.

Well, one time, as per usual, I raised the water level, and went upstairs, planning to return in a few minutes to drain and clean the skimmer. But left it a bit longer this time. And then I heard a screeching sound coming from downstairs. I rushed down, and my fire alarm was going, with a strong smell of something burning, and water splashing out of my skimmer.

My skimmer is tight against the side of my sump, which is also against the wall there. I also had a power bar hanging there with a timer and plug for my refugium light. And sure enough, some water splashed onto that timer and plug,and shorted it out. It was all black and melted.

Interestingly, though, it did not trigger the breaker for that circuit. And no, I did not have a GFI. You can beat me for that, if you want, but I had my reasons.

Since then, I stay present when raising my skimmer water level, just prior to cleaning it. I also added a lexan splash guard to the side of the sump, where my skimmer is, so the worst it can do is just overflow back into my sump. And I moved the power bar.

[Reef Supplies]

haha these are soem great DOH! moments....some are also tragic :-(