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

[reefgirl189]

Originally Posted by fishytime

my dumbest move was two years ago when I moved from one house to another, I decided to keep the 1" worth of sand that was in the tank.....I went from this

full on crash that killed absolutely everything except three hermit crabs in about 24 hours.....that was a large coleman extreme cooler filled half full of dead coral and fish......certainly my dumbest reef moment and my darkest saltwater days

I'm so sorry. That's tragic.

Luckily I haven't had any ridiculously dumb moves, I've been able to correct mine in time.

It's kinda why I joined this site, so I could learn from others mistakes and not make so many of my own.

[Coralgurl]

Since I bought my ro unit, I have flooded my kitchen at least 5 times, water pouring into my daughters room in the basement each time...she comes running up yelling what the he'll is my problem.....another reefer suggested I put the jugs in a rubbermaid just in case. Start doing that, then start using same rubber made for water changes....set the timer but still get the floods....moved ro to basement, hopefully that's the end of the flooding...as soon as we get the float valve installed....

[gregzz4]

If you want nearly flood proof, you could copy my setup. There is a float valve, but I still turn off the feed when the drum is full.

[dwerbs87]

I had my ro/di line run to my tank with just a ball valve I would turn on and then turn off after about 30 mins. I knew it was dumb, my wife told me it was dumb when I had a bit of a spill. I kept telling myself I would set up a proper float I just didn't really have space for it in our apartment. Xmas eve I see it is a little low so I turn it on and then start loading the car with gifts we are bringing out to my moms. Everything is all loaded, lock the door and leave. Xmas morning we are opening presents and I get a phone call from the building manager saying that there was water leaking down last night and they had to go into my apartment. So the whole main area of our place was wrecked, flooring, baseboards etc. The ceiling of the apartment below me was soggy and leaking through their light fixtures. And the main floor apartment had their breaker box explode after water got into it. I ended up selling my tank because all of the floor needed to be replaced and I didn't have the resources or drive to move the tank to replace the floors then move it back, and was out of the hobby for 2 years.
Now we are in our new house and I have the top off pump up from tanks in the basement, being controlled by 2 float switches connected to the apex, a solenoid valve in the line, PLUS a float valve in the tank in case the first two lines of defense fail.

[makana]

I dropped my diy light fixture into the tank and went in after it. The only thing that died was the bulbs. Still not sure how I escaped without being shocked.

[marie]

My dumbest move? Introducing Ich to my display after being ich free for 6 yrs

[NorthernCoral]

Moved my tank a couple of weeks ago, had most of my corals, inverts and a tomatoe clown in a bucket overnight. Put a new heater in the bucket and turned what I what I thought was the temperature dial to 79. Checked the bucket just before bed and everything seemed fine. Awoke in the morning to an awful stench and to find out that what I thought was the temp adjust dial on the heater was actually for calibration. Was too devastated too take pics...However after seeing fishytimes nightmare my problems dont seem too bad.

[Casey8]

Moving to another house, I was putting all the fish from a 250 gallon tank to a 90 gallon tank. Left the old house that night and brought the big tank with me into the new house, got it ready so I could transfer the fish back. The next morning when I got back to the old house to get the fish, they were all dead because the thermometer kept running up to 42C didn't stop. I was devastated looking at their dead bodies floating or sinking around at the bottom of the tank and I just coudn't even cry.

[Maverick00]

Originally Posted by Coralgurl

Since I bought my ro unit, I have flooded my kitchen at least 5 times, water pouring into my daughters room in the basement each time...she comes running up yelling what the he'll is my problem.....another reefer suggested I put the jugs in a rubbermaid just in case. Start doing that, then start using same rubber made for water changes....set the timer but still get the floods....moved ro to basement, hopefully that's the end of the flooding...as soon as we get the float valve installed....

Im not sure what size jugs your using, but I throw my 5gal's right into the kitchen sink so overflow is impossible except into the drain.

Havent come across any major problems yet other than some sps stn, bubble algae im too lazy to manually pick out, and the idea i can keep more than one chromis in a 33gal tank at once

[Finnegan]

Been in the hobby long enough not to have only one stupid mistake. I punish myself though.