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

[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.

[asylumdown]

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]

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.

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]

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.

[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

[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.

[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.