Dumbest thing you ever did as a newby

[aquasport24]

This is a funniest thread by far..

 

[superkat]

going away for a week.....and.......

 

[superkat]

letting my S.O. get closer than 10ft to the tank. i've since installed underground fence material and put a collar on him.:uzi:

 

[wildman6809]

added salt right to the tank to bring up salinity. killed half of my plate coral. also bought a used skimmer once and assumed it was put together right. now i know why he got rid of it. flooded the basement at 2 in the morning.

 

[Emoney]

Trying to use a external pump as a internal pump!..LMAO..fried a $250 pump!

 

[rale2001]

I did something stupid the other day... I did my weekly 5 gallon water change in my 30 gallon set up I unplugged my powerheads to check my salinity. Well it was time to leave for work so I shut the lid shut the canopy. Well I get home from a 10 hour shift and my two little damsels are at the surface gasping for air. Wifey is like yeah its been weird they been up there all day. I plugged the powerheads back in and they had an attitude and didn't want to eat and hid in the rocks. They are ok and back happy.

 

[pIankton]

Cutting out my center brace (while the tank was full) to install new equipment...

 

[BigandUgly]

Finally, the biggest noob mistake.....

8. I told my wife how much some of this stuff costs.

I didn't actually tell my wife. I just let her come to the LFS with me one day. Now she doesn't believe me when I say I spent about $20 on something.

Now she wants a "bunch" of tangs and doesn't understand why I can't just throw five or six in the new 20 gallon tank. I told her I would gladly set up a tank for tangs but she'll have to let me spend a few thousand on the set up.

She's decided a Yellow Tail Damsel looks enough like a Hippo Tang.

 

[shermdawg]

Well I will jump on the overfilled RO bucket bandwagon. I think anyone with salty tanks has done this one before. At least the kitchen gets mopped this way. LOL

Biggest mistake though was buying cheaper brand halide lights. Just fork out the extra hundred or two and get quality....especially in lights. IMO

 

[shermdawg]

Trying to use a external pump as a internal pump!..LMAO..fried a $250 pump!

Ouch lucky thats all you fried. That's a good one. LOL

 

[Kingumar]

#1. Trying to catch a fire fish goby with hands and a plastic cup in a 55gal tank. Spent and hr till i realized i need to go to shop and buy a net.

#2. Bought an anemone the 2nd day i started my tank.

#3. listening to my local fish store employee.

Which one is the worst?

 

[Thorndunes]

OOOOHHHHH that looks cool!

OOOOHHHHH that looks cool!

I stocked my first SW tank with whatever looked cool. I had a 30 g. with a picaso trigger,an octopus,a yellow tang and a porcupine puffer!!!!!

I was so disgusted with my stupidity that I gave up on the hobby for several years until I did the research.

 

[AquaMonkey]

Well, the dumbest things I ever did As a noobie!

We bought a large saltwater hermit crab when we first bought our live rock.

We named him Hans, because he liked to climb rocks all the way to the tops. ( aka swiss alps climber), we thought he was cool and we both kinda got attached to him like you do all your pets.

Weelll.. I had no idea about these crabs at all.

Some time later we put Hans into my 10 gallon tank because he was knocking things around in my 55. A few days later the wife and myself felt sorry for him because he seemed lifeless and wasn't moving around much.

We assumed that this was because he was in a tiny tank and didn't like it. So we( I ) moved him back to the 55. He still wasn't moving around and looked like he was dying. A morning or two later I found his carcass floating in the tank, pinchers tail eyes and all. And I get it out fast and put it into a cup of saltwater.

Well its dead I can tell by looking at it. The wife gets upset when animals die. So I thought I would try to cheer her when she got up by making him this tombstone. and buried it in our flowerbed.

So the wife gets up and comes into the fish room I tell her I have bad news, Hans had died. she looks in the tank and says, No he is right there sticking out of his shell. I look and sure enough there he is.

Apparently the hermit crab molts and the carcass looks just like a body. So I feel real stupid and show her where I buried *Hans*.

And months later I still get to hear her tell the story to friends and relatives, about the day Hans died.

Here is the happy crab alive and well

:bum:

 

[joeychitwood]

AquaMonkey, that's one of the funniest reef-related stories I've ever heard.

 

[lougotzz]

It was 1999, went to lfs told them I had a 20 gallon with ugf and wanted to try saltwater. They sold me a bag of crushed coral, a bag of salt, a hydrometer and a four stripe damsel on the same day! Well the damsel lived. A couple weeks later told them I wanted another fish for spiffy new 20, came home with a huma huma trigger.

lol

 

[jherrin215]

I had the same thing happen with a sally lightfoot crab, without the tombstone. I told the wife, well the sally lightfoot died and I threw it out. The next day I saw the sally lightfoot and I thought I had gotten a nice hitchiker that looked just like a sally lightfoot with less colors that had died. Took me about a week to realize it was just a molt!! Funny how they look.

 

[danceswithfish]

I fed this cool new thing in my tank shrimp every day.

Now I have a hundred of them. Aiptasia

 

[dudley moray]

buying a hawkfish !!!
using incandescent lights: early 80's
letting my wife name feeders
not qting !!!
going to the lfs on pay day
coming home from the lfs broke
buying a serpent star .... killed a 6 line ,2 damsels, 2 gobys

 

[Pimps]

I didn't actually tell my wife. I just let her come to the LFS with me one day. Now she doesn't believe me when I say I spent about $20 on something.

Now she wants a "bunch" of tangs and doesn't understand why I can't just throw five or six in the new 20 gallon tank. I told her I would gladly set up a tank for tangs but she'll have to let me spend a few thousand on the set up.

She's decided a Yellow Tail Damsel looks enough like a Hippo Tang.

:lolspin:

Leaving my stand unlocked, and my 2 year old at the time wanted to feed the fish.. So he gave the sump cereal.

AHhahahahahahahaha

 

[themastr]

When I first started to hatch brineshrimp I used normal table salt and aerated it. I never realized that I needed brineshrimp EGGS. LOL ! That was a long time ago.