Mistakes you’ve made that you will never make again

Just for fun...
What’s everyone’s worst aquarium/fish keeping mistake?

 

Carefully measure 5ml of tank water with a syringe, put it into the API test vial. Carefully put 8 drops of Ammonia Test solution 1 into the vial. Reach over to pick up Ammonia Test solution 2 --- and knock over the vial.... ARGGGGG

 

I guess another prominent mistake was stocking my first tank (the 40 gallon breeder) with the "Those look cool. Give me three of them" method instead of doing research and taking my time. I have since re-homed most of those fish, and have the tank where I'm pretty happy with it, but it took a while.

 

A lesson that I have to relearn more often than I should have to, is to keep your mouth closed when you're working in your tank.

 

Carefully measure 5ml of tank water with a syringe, put it into the API test vial. Carefully put 8 drops of Ammonia Test solution 1 into the vial. Reach over to pick up Ammonia Test solution 2 --- and knock over the vial.... ARGGGGG

Just happened to me, yesterday.

 

A lesson that I have to relearn more often than I should have to, is to keep your mouth closed when you're working in your tank.

???? Please explain

 

I’ve had MANY...

Got my first aquarium in I want to say 17 years ago? Can’t remember the exact year. Anyways, I bought like ~5 Angels and put them in a what looked like a 5 gallon tank (wasn’t even cycled). This was by recommendation of the pet store, and barely anyone had proper knowledge back then. Needless to say, they died the very next day.

After my Angelfish incident, I bought a Beta which I miraculously kept alive for 3 years in a 5 Gal without any heating or filtration before donating him to a friend.

Fast forward 12-13 years later, I bought my first 55 gal (without doing any research) and kept a Flowerhorn and Silver Arowna together. My FH absolutely demolished my Arowna, and I ended up donating him to a LFS like 1 year later. I got fascinated by guppies, and even though they were considered ‘beginner’ fish by many; they were my absolute favorite. I started doing a ton of research and watching a lot of YouTube videos and been keeping them for ~1.5 years now. I love their colors and personality and they’re super fun to breed. But yeah, my profile says 1.5 years of experience but I’ve been in the hobby for 17 years. I’m really glad that information is widely available now, because back then barely anyone knew what they were doing and we just trusted the big brand stores blindly.

 

Not really a lesson but the expensive stores here sell a lot of sick fishes.

 

???? Please explain

Could be anything from scrubbing wood off, to fish splashing you. Lots of ways for fish tank water / grossness to end up in your mouth. I've ticked off a few, the siphon water in your mouth isn't the worst.

 

I guess some 15 years ago when i put those tetras in my tank with my eclipse catfish and then one would get ate at night when the lights were off...that was a mistake.

 

I never heard of tetra eating catfish but there are those that are related to piranha. Then again maybe they were piranha after all they are a type of tetra

I guess some 15 years ago when i put those tetras in my tank with my eclipse catfish and then one would get ate at night when the lights were off...that was a mistake.

 

I never heard of tetra eating catfish but there are those that are related to piranha. Then again maybe they were piranha after all they are a type of tetra

Well...my neighbor below me at the time did have a pirahna. It really hated his roommate.

 

Could be anything from scrubbing wood off, to fish splashing you. Lots of ways for fish tank water / grossness to end up in your mouth. I've ticked off a few, the siphon water in your mouth isn't the worst.

Ohhh. I see. I thought you mean't you said something you shouldn't have in front of your significant other such as "$200 filter" lol

 

A lesson that I have to relearn more often than I should have to, is to keep your mouth closed when you're working in your tank.

Keeping my mouth closed is often difficult for me in other situations also.

 

A lesson that I have to relearn more often than I should have to, is to keep your mouth closed when you're working in your tank.

*This*

 

Carefully measure 5ml of tank water with a syringe, put it into the API test vial. Carefully put 8 drops of Ammonia Test solution 1 into the vial. Reach over to pick up Ammonia Test solution 2 --- and knock over the vial.... ARGGGGG

I do that literally every single time I test water. Thankfully I don’t have to test often.

 

Carefully measure 5ml of tank water with a syringe, put it into the API test vial. Carefully put 8 drops of Ammonia Test solution 1 into the vial. Reach over to pick up Ammonia Test solution 2 --- and knock over the vial.... ARGGGGG

Drop vial and watch it shatter.

 

I added in my very picky krib to a planted tank that already had TONS of hides that were the perfect size for it. The cave was supposed to be facing forward... 8 hours later I found this


That krib somehow managed to FLIP OVER the cave AND move over a ton of sand within the maybe 8 hours it was in there?!

 

Forgetting to turn my heater back on numerous times. Last time my GBR was all huddled in the plants looking pretty pathetic. She was fine when she warmed back up.

Reading this post, I just remembered that I didn't plug my heater back in after the water change at 10:30 this morning (it's 8:17 now). You're not alone!!

Fortunately, our home temperature is pretty stable and it's a 55 gallon tank, so the temp is at 74.7. Usually is at around 78-79.

 

Kind of funny/ tragic.
I had just boughten a colony of blue dream shrimp and finally got them acclimated and into their new tank. Well it turns out that night I did not put the lid back on the shrimps tank and I was woken up by my cat enjoying a very very expensive shrimp dinner. He was just sitting dipping his paw in and removing them one by one. I should have offered him some cocktail sauce.

 

And finally, today, I learned the hard way that zebra danios are jumpers. Found a little guy shriveled on the floor. Ugh.

I learned that the hard way too! They also can jump through small openings too!

 

My biggest aquarium mistake was allowing myself to acquire multiple tank syndrome. My addiction has been incurable since then.

 

My biggest mistake so far though...plants in my betta tank were struggling. So I bought a full spectrum light and all the other products from seachem's flourish line. Did a bunch of math and followed seachem's schedule.

2 weeks later I had a massive algae problem that took a month to get under control.

 

When I first started and used a dirty mop bucket to drain water from tank. The one time I got distracted and grabbed the mop bucket and poured the dirty water back into the tank. After realizing it, I drained about 95% out quickly to add the clean water. the next day I bought a new bucket. Luckily, I didn't lose any fish.

 

I drop my aquarium lid a lot

 

I forgot to close the valve on my intake line for my canister filter one time while pulling it apart to clean.
6 weeks after moving into a recently built home my water level got low in my 5 gallon betta tank and the way I had the outlet pointed with out the tank being full the outlet started shooting water out all over my dresser and carpet while I was at work. Luckily my fish had enough water to survive

 

One time I almost burned my house down by making the air pump back siphon

 

I killed two porkchop rasboras by overdosing API algae fix because I misread the directions.

 

What’s a pork chop Rasbora??

 

It's a type of rasbora that's closely related to harlequin rasboras.

 

Ok

 

its our worst nightmare. share some of your stories.

here is mine, last night I forgot about a piece of airline tubing hanging out of my 50 gallon. I woke up this morning to it half empty, and my carpet nice and juicy

 

its our worst nightmare. share some of your stories.

here is mine, last night I forgot about a piece of airline tubing hanging out of my 50 gallon. I woke up this morning to it half empty, and my carpet nice and juicy

For me it didnt necessarily happen to my tank but I was boiling a rock to add to my tank and it blew up.
I would say your lucky though. All night the whole tank could have been empty

 

oh scary, was it loud? I was lucky my heater didn't break.

 

I managed to shatter both of my tanks in the span of a single day while I was moving them. One was my $40 rimless cube that met its end face first on the concrete. Luckily I had a ten gallon in storage that I could move my deco and fish to. The other was my brand new 29 gal. I had to go and get a replacement the next day

 

What’s one mistake you’ve made with your aquarium that you will never make again?
If my post is in the wrong section please move it

Happy fish keeping,
Anna

 

not quarantining my tetras

 

Buying fish on impulse (not sure how long this will last LOL)

 

Not quarantining my fish. I could’ve saved a lot of time and effort by just quarantining my fish and plants for a few weeks, but I was impatient and ended up introducing some parasites to my tank.

 

buying an expensive snack(shrimp) for my dwarf cichlids

 

Buying MTS to clean up after I over feed the fish... ended up buying assassins and loaches to control the numbers after I started getting sea-sick from looking at the substrate!ops: I have definitely dialled back the feeding!