what is the one thing you wish you DIDN'T do?

starting buying fish,corals, online. Reason is you can get just about anything you want online and its delivered right to your door. should be illegal
 
Always thinking the tank I have is big enough. They never are and it costs way more to start another tank, even though I am.
 
about 24 years ago I set up a 150g tank (6x2x 20") that was to be my reef tank. While it was cycling, an unidentified Eel came in on fish day at the LFS I worked at. It was (at ~20") bigger than they wanted in any of their tanks, so it was given to me. Conventional wisdom of the time said that a marine fish living more than a year or two was uncommon, so I figured, what the hell.

Hannibal is now ~ 48" long, weighs in at ~ 15lbs, and, being a Gymnothorax Undulatus (Undulated Moray) one of the meanest critters in the ocean. He has eaten everything I have tried to put in with him (hence the name). Oh - and it turns out his lifespan is somewhere in the 30 to 50 year range.

Guess that reef will have to wait.

That's incredible. Only about six more years if he's a short-lived one! (And even though they're tough as nails, congrats on keeping any marine creature for 24 years.)
 
Tough as nails??? You don't know the half of it. He has been on the floor several times, a couple of them to the point he was dried up and stiff. Picked him up, plopped him in, went to work. Came home to a hungry Eel. I'm pretty sure he's immortal.

I do like to feed him when people come over. Or better yet, con them into feeding him. He will gobble up 3 or 4 hand sized filets in about 5 seconds. You gotta be FAST!!!
 
buy my first tank....that was in 84...29 gallons....still waiting for my new beast (130 x 36 x 36) to get here...should be about 3 weeks away...
 
All very interesting! I would love to hear from some of these guys in the Large Reef Tanks section with huge builds going on.. Peter (nineball) and Chingchai especially!!
 
Putting a 6 line wrasse in my reef - it is the worst behaved fish I have ever owned - I am convinced it is actually spiteful. I added a peppermint shrimp the other day and it killed it immediately then brought it to the front of the tank to display it to me, and proceeded to poke the shrimps corpse with one of the legs it had detached all while staring me in the eye. It is also uncatchable (spent a good part of a day fishing for it with a trout hook).

Never again...
 
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