What's The Biggest Mistake You've Ever Made In The Aquarium Ho

[fry_forever!]

Had an oto caught in a filter today, a neon caught behind a filter today and various neons/bettas/corys/snails have unpleasant run-ins with filters in the past. I try to block them with mesh but the little creatures always find a way to get hurt. I can't help but blame myself.

Try a filter sponge. Slit a hole in it and slip it on the intake. I don't even have problems with fry. (Unless of course they wedge themselves in between the intake and the sponge, but they have to be pretty small to do that).

 

[theclarkfamo]

hmmm the silly mistakes we made are ....

my fiance was testing the heater out and somehow managed to MELT IT !! .. this was in our old tank .. lol .. wally alert !!

just yesterday .. we woke to find the air pump had backlogged and was now waterlogged .. my fiance had a minor electric shock from it as its a new tank and the pump was on the floor little did we know it would do this as on the built in timer it cuts the power to the bubbles ..
we since replaced it with our old model and placed it on top now lol !! ..

 

[BettaCrazy7]

I was 7. They were my first fish. 2 common goldfish in a 1/4 gallon bowl.

 

[PRW1988]

I had a small community tank (20gallons) and I was going on a vacation. Instead of getting a vacation feeder I decided that a spare auto-feeder I had would be good. Turns out I set the auto-feeder to feed ever 6 hours, not only that I never ajusted the feeding portion from when it was used on a cichlid tank.

I used slow sinking fish food and when I got home a week later I had a pile of fish food on the bottom of the tank, the feeder was completly empty and the tank was so foggy I could've cut it with a knife. Funny enough the only fish that died were of all things the Zebra Danios(12 of them). The cory catfish I had survived, as did the 2 Angelfish and 6 black skirt tetras.

Live and Learn, now I always check the feeding time and feed amount on auto-feeders.

 

[roadmaster]

My biggest mistake was after setting up a new 80 gallon tank with sand substrate, I placed a clamp on the side shop light on the side of the tank to help me see to place hardscape. I had yet to order a light for this tank and was just gonna use the shop light for a few minutes.
After placing everything just so,, I filled the tank and plugged in the Two Emperor filters.As soon as the flow of water from the filter closest to the light hit the surface of the water,,it splashed and drop, or drops of water hit the bulb of the shop light and it shattered into a couple hundred pieces.
I then got to drain the tank and start all over again. Was no way to ensure all the glass could be removed by netting it or picking it out by hand.

 

[BethK]

my biggest mistake was this week, thinking after a tank upgrade and water stats were showing fine for 3-4 days, i added 3 more fish, hit a big ammonia spike and goodbye vienna to 12 fish

next time, wait longer grrrrrrrrr

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

^That sucks.
First mistake wasn't really my fault, was in the bath and my SEN son climbed onto the windowsill behind a small glass betta tank we had. He fell, landed on the tank, which fell onto the floor and smashed. Glass everywhere, fish had slid behind a nearby 30g tank and my daughter was screaming. Came downstairs to find the mess and frantically scrambled through the glass searching for the fish. Found him and scooped him into a fish bag with water from another tank. I was cut up and utterly naked, so dashed upstairs, slung on a dress and dashed to the lfs and bought him a new tank....just in that dress, whilst my panicking daughter held onto him. It is the only time I have been to a fish store somewhat compromised in the lingerie department.
Another incident happened to a 35g I used to have which was attached to a tower power extension. The cutout was on the top of it and someone caught it accidentally. Didn't notice for over 24 hours only to find half the inhabitants dead or dying. Moved the remaining fish to another tank but lost my beloved syno decorus. That was the worst accident ever. Haven't used that tower extension since.
One that was entirely my fault was floating a new fish in a tank he wasn't going into and finding he had columnaris! I lost my entire group of betta girls as a result. That was awful and a horrid way to learn such a lesson.
I stopped breeding bettas about 6 months after that incident.
P..

 

[fry_forever!]

Ouch.

I guess I sort of made a mistake not too long ago.... I was refilling my 10 gallon fry tank, and I guess I poured the water too fast, which caused the cory fry to freak out - well, all of them got somehow caught in the mass of java moss, and they're all dead now. I feel horrible.

 

[Ste_1]

I accidentally put one of my turtles ontop of my 6ft tanks lid whilst giving him a physical. He managed to get past me (you'd be suprised how fast they can move when they want to) and decided he fancied a swim and went straight down the hatch, by the time id pulled the lid off and grabbed him he'd managed to scoff 7 neon tetras my Red Fin Black shark, a tiny bristlenose plec and he savaged my Geophagus Red Head Tapajos tail fin, one of my angel fishes long fins and half killed a dalmation mollie that had just gone in after being in QT for a month!!!!

He must have been in for no longer than a minute aswell. Needless to say I wont put him on there again!

And when I first setup my new tank I had two other tanks beneath, but my bed was infront so I had limited space. I lent on my convicts tank a bit too hard and ended up causing a leak that I had to fix as I came in from a night out a 3am! But the convicts got a swim in the bath and I found out the perfect hangover remedy.

 

[rdp50734]

Buying a new tank, setting it up, filling with water, putting the filters on and then the mrs says "did you treat the water?" I'm now watching water levels and doing hefty water changes! After so long its easy to make an error!

 

[robryb]

1. Buying a BiOrb aquarium. It is now on the scrapheap

2. Buying some new fish and introducing Ich

3. Leaving the aquarium lid open and 5 of my Amano shrimp going walkabout

4. Leaving the aquarium lid open and 1 of my Amano shrimp freaking my wife out in the shower.

Actually, no.4 is debatable

 

[BethK]

everyone is entitled to make mistakes, it's the way we learn. Unfortunately, i think the most common mistake is fish being killed off in one way or another

My friend had just had her tank cleaned, her otherhalf filled the tank up and she told him to stop the water level at 3" from the tank's top........unfortunately, he didn't and filled it up near enough level to the top, didn't put the lid on and went from a crafty cig. He apparently got chatting to a neighbor for a while, came back in to find 7 out of her 16 fish, had nose dived out the tank

She says her mistake was letting her fella get his hands dirty

3. Leaving the aquarium lid open and 5 of my Amano shrimp going walkabout

I did that, only way i found out that amanos scutter along like c*ckroaches

Mind you, it was my sin trying to squash it with a shoe, that alerted me to the 'great escape' but he did fail and i returned the wondering lady back to the tank

 

[blue acara]

I had 6 healty Altum angles, I added another 6 Altums from anither source without putting them in a hospital tank. Within a month they were all dead. cost me over £300 and I lost some of the best looking fish ive ever had. I still think about it and hit myself.

 

[OldMan47]

Let's not go there Beth. I have not become familiar with potential fish issues without making many of the same mistakes myself. The only advantage I have is that I learn from my mistakes, I don't try to make excuses for my failings. The end result is that I have learned something rather than walking away saying that someone else is at fault or that I simply lost out on an arbitrary roll of the dice. My mistakes are mine alone to resolve. They are not depending on someone else to figure out. That means that I learn from my mistakes and improve my fish care as a result. If you look today at some of my earliest posts here on TFF you may well find that I was trying hard to learn and was just missing the boat on most of my posts. I am the first to admit it, I am here to learn and will give advice based on what I have learned so far. My advice is not the ultimate choice anyone should choose as gospel, it is merely the best I can do with my present understanding.

 

[BethK]

ohhh oldman, don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming others and i have defo learned from my mistakes.

My new fish are in QT and looking very well, it may take time but it's working out better