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

marie · #1 03-15-2012, 01:43 AM

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

NorthernCoral · #2 03-15-2012, 01:54 AM

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 · #3 03-15-2012, 02:05 AM

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.

asylumdown · #4 03-15-2012, 03:56 AM

Went out of town for 5 days. Normally, my auto-top off container was a 2 gallon pale in the cabinet under my 90 gallon, but it could hold a max of 4 days of worth of water, so I filled my 20 gallon water change rubbermaid and put the top off pump in it. I didn't move the output of the osmolator pump though, which was clipped to the side of my sump in the cabinet. What I didn't realize was that having 10 times the normal amount of water above the pump in the rubber-maid combined with the extra height the hose gained going up and over the top of the bin was enough to start a siphon the first time the osmolator pump kicked in. It emptied about 15 gallons of top up water in to the sump on the first day we were gone, and since it was only 5 days, I didn't have anyone coming to check on the tank.

Thankfully nothing died, but it overflowed the sump, filled the cabinet with salt water, and spread out across our finished concrete floors. By the time we got home, it had mostly dried so there was a huge salted patch that had eaten through the finish of the floor. The argument that started nearly spelled the end of that tank.

asylumdown · #5 03-15-2012, 03:59 AM

oh, and probably even worse - after i set up my very first salt water tank for the very first time, I looked at one of the pieces of live rock near the sand and said "OH WOW! There's like these cool little anemones starting to grow! So awesome!!!"

The correct response should have been to have taken that rock out, locked it in a shed, then set the shed on fire.

#6 03-27-2012, 12:59 AM

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.

waynemah · #7 03-27-2012, 01:41 AM

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 · #8 03-27-2012, 01:55 AM

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.

Quote:

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.

doch · #9 03-27-2012, 03:32 PM

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.