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Nobody's perfect. Share the shame

Carbondioxide

Carbondioxide

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UKAPS Team
Joined
26 Aug 2018
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Location
Scotland
As it's Friday, we thought we could hear some of the biggest mistakes you guys have made with your aquariums. It's important to laugh and learn about these things. Nobody is perfect and we should always be looking to learn more.

This photo shows what happens when you're running a high-power light unit on a planted tank without a timer. The big mistake was when this light was left ON for almost an entire week. Luckily this type of algae bloom is a mixture of cyanobacteria and slime algae which is easy to remove and get the tank back to normal. The lesson to learn here though is that a light unit should always be set up on a timer. Either use a socket timer or a light with a built-in timer and establish a regular photoperiod. Consistency plays a massive part in your plant growth - especially if you are running CO2 at the same time.

What's the biggest mistake you have made?Untitled design-208.png
 
Garuf said:
Boiled a tank when a hydor heater failed. Tank was so hot I couldn’t put my hands in and smelt like death.

Killed absolutely everything.
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Oh, that's pretty heavy. I have heard so many people have issues like this with their heaters. I now personally change my heaters yearly to be safe. I know that's probably over the top but the thought of discovering a massacre like that scares me.
 
As a kid with a fishtank and some money to spare, and no internet yet, I went to a fish store and spotted a rope fish. It looked so cool and amazing, so I asked the owner if that fish went well with other fish. He said sure! So happy with my new purchase I added it to my tank with neons, guppies, platies and so forth. The first night it went for a walk where my mom nearly had a heart attack encountering it on the stairs on its way down. I quickly put it back in the tank, plugged all holes in my hood with filterfloss to prevent further escapes. Needless to say fish started disappearing one by one, till I caught the culprit with a neon tail still sticking out of his mouth. I quickly returned him to the store, who didnt even bother refunding my money or apologizing. Never went to that store again.
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When we moved into my parents house we inherited a 6ft tank. Knowing nothing about fish at the time they bought 12 Neons. The two enormous Angels ate them all bar one overnight... there was one hanging out of an Angels mouth when we turned the light on.
 
My biggest mistake was to get distracted trying to prime a filter whilst still filling the tank with a pump. Ended up with a shower on my head as the tank overflowed and a very unhappy partner as I mopped up the mess.
 
Wolf6 said:
As a kid with a fishtank and some money to spare, and no internet yet, I went to a fish store and spotted a rope fish. It looked so cool and amazing, so I asked the owner if that fish went well with other fish. He said sure! So happy with my new purchase I added it to my tank with neons, guppies, platies and so forth. The first night it went for a walk where my mom nearly had a heart attack encountering it on the stairs on its way down. I quickly put it back in the tank, plugged all holes in my hood with filterfloss to prevent further escapes. Needless to say fish started disappearing one by one, till I caught the culprit with a neon tail still sticking out of his mouth. I quickly returned him to the store, who didnt even bother refunding my money or apologizing. Never went to that store again.
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Oh my!! i made a similar mistake myself with this fish. The victim in my aquarium was a tiger barb.
 
Courtneybst said:
Recently actually! I put my filter hoses on the wrong way round after cleaning and a fair few fish got sucked into the filter through the "outlet".

That was the last straw for me so I got double taps and electric taped the pipes so I'll never get confused again.
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Yikes! That sounds pretty brutal. clever move with the tape though. it can be dark under that cabinet and in the midst of a hectic water change.
 
Wolf6 said:
I went to a fish store and spotted a rope fish. It looked so cool and amazing, so I asked the owner if that fish went well with other fish. He said sure! So happy with my new purchase I added it to my tank with neons, guppies, platies and so forth. The first night it went for a walk
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I had the same - loved it, and bought one. Unfortunately mine climbed out and slithered under the fridge, where it was found dead the next morning 🙁
 
NatalieHurrell said:
When we moved into my parents house we inherited a 6ft tank. Knowing nothing about fish at the time they bought 12 Neons. The two enormous Angels ate them all bar one overnight... there was one hanging out of an Angels mouth when we turned the light on.
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Oh No! We all make mistakes like this when we are beginning our journey. I remember catching a cherry shrimp hanging out my Angelfish mouth one time. It managed to get back out again and was actually unharmed. Maybe they were friends...
 
Had a blue crayfish, it grew to 25cm on a 60cm tank! Had a large rock in the middle of the tank that it used to dig under the gravel and hide under the rock, one day dug too much and the rock dropped into the bottom glass and cracked it in half, you can imagine the rest!!! Did not have a spare tank for it so it went back to the LFS! They were happy to have him 🙂
 
In a large empty plastic ice cream tub I once, at age five or six, did set aside as a tank for my first pets, a pair bought from the local fish shop: one cute goldfish and the other, a cool terrapin. Naively thought these two shall be good mates; you know what sh*t happened that next morning.
 
Several years ago my wife and daughter were going out for a full day shopping. I usually do w/c plant trims etc total maintenance separately but because I had a full day decided to do the lot .🙂Firstly I did a filter clean impellor etc I then went make a brew while l sorted the buckets out. I heard the front door went into the living room the floor flooded my wife and daughter came back forgot something at the porch entrance. I had not aligned filter head proper and water was spewing out. A look like thunder from my wife and amusement from my daughter
 
Taken this morning!

Fortunately both I and my girlfriend hate this carpet. And it's good to learn about safe water levels in a sump-filtered tank through practical experience, right?

If anyone needs a dehumidifier recommendation, this one is a trooper
 

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I once bought a rather cheap stainless steel heater and forgot to unplug it while doing a water change... At first glance, nothing happened and I didn't notice and I refilled the tank. It was a stainless steel tube with a plastic cap and seemingly it got so hot the cap and the seal melted and started to leak and moisture got in the heater. Days later I was doing some maintenance did put a finger in the tank water and touched a water pipe on the wall next to the tank and I got zapped a little.

Lesson learned, make a habit of it to unplug everything before doing maintenance and or even before toughing the tank water. And I'm cured of the idea of buying Stainless steel heaters they are dangerous attributes. If you make this mistake with a glass heater it will crack. The stainless steel might only leak and or also cause electricity charge leaking into the water. Then touch the water and touch some ground and you might end up with a nice Coupe Ravage.
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After this experience I thought wouldn't a DC 12 volt heater be nicer and safer to use? So I found myself an immersible DC 12 volt 120-watt heater cartridge and build a PVC tube housing around it and I made a DIY inline DC 12 volt heater with an external thermostat and all wiring outside the water. Worked like a charm, but the one mistake I made was I did put the thermostats thermistor in the tank. One day I unplugged the pump and again :arghh: forgot the unplug the heater. Thus there was no flow and it measured the temperature from the tank. The heater cartridge kept heating to a point it started cooking the water the PVC housing got soft and exploded with a WOOSH! sound from the build-up steam. I had to redesign and remake the housing and make it with a build-in thermistor to solve this issue.
 
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"Just temporarily borrowing a filter from a running tank for a day or 2"

RIP group of Betta coccina due to (suspected) ammonia spike. They literally melted in 24 hours...

The stupidity of said act still p*sses me off to this day. Utterly shamed.
Filter fumbles or minor spillage doesn't even get close.
 
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