What's The Hardest Lesson You Learned?

[rdd1952]

Regardless of our current experience and knowledge level, we were all newbies at one time. We all had our knocks, trials and tribulations. What is the hardest lesson you learned as you got into the hobby. It could be that you left the filter unplugged after a water change and didn't realize it for a day or two causing problems or just how to use test kits. And "hardest" could mean most difficult to learn or the thing that was more serious (loss of a favorite fish due to something you did).

And, please, if someone posts that they did something that seems really stupid and caused deaths, don't start lambasting them for it. If they're posting here, it means they learned their lesson from it and that's what life is all about, learning from our mistakes.

For me, I can't really think of a lot. My son was in the hobby so I got a lot of advice from him from the start and I also found TFF about a month in so lots of good advice there too. I suppose it was just the sudden realization that a lot of tanks takes a lot of time. We all get the newbie bug and multiple tank syndrome sets in. After getting my first tank, I think it was less than 3 months before I had 5 running. It suddenly dawned on me a while in that it took a while to keep the maintenance up on them and that they needed attention daily, not just when I had time.

 

[star4]

My hardest lesson was loosing my female frontosa, something that I did I didnt realise would kill them, and no amount of research told me it would happen. I had 4 females holding young I gave them a treat and fed them prawns, I knew they held food in their mouths for their young, what I didnt know was they young couldnt or wouldnt eat prawn (It was very finely chopped too) and all 4 females died from ammonia poisoning due to the rotting prawn in their mouths.

 

[furry catfish]

hardest lesson would have to be about a year ago,mountain minnows and axolotls don't mix,enough said

 

[MOW4T]

overstocking, underfiltering... all the main ones, i did move out of my old house and got a phonecall 2 weeks later that there was a betta found in the bathroom in a bucket with 3 inches of brown/black filter water. Wondered where it went... it survived aswell

 

[Bebobb]

Not to add full stock at once... I did this twice before I realized.

 

[-Craig-]

My hardest lesson would be going on holidays and turning the heater of when i was a child, luckily all the fish survived.

 

[chrisrm]

lettng someone look after your fish while your away who dosent understand fish

 

[5teady_2012]

Cool thread....

When i was 15 i setup a tank for some goldfish, knew nothing about cycling for one, and to top it off, i filled the tank with very warm water, put the goldfish and they darted around at very high speeds and later died.

Had a 4ft tank in my garage last year, water changed it and left the heater off overnight, (no deaths though) and the tank went down to very low temps.

Got ready for a night on the town one night and splashed my face with aftershave, noticed one of my plants had floated to the top and re planted it without washing my hands, fish started dying 1 by one, had to fully re start the tank from fresh.

For about the first 3 months of using api liquid tests, i thought my nitrate level was perfect, til i found out that you should give bottle 2 a good shake, then i realised after a re-test my nitrate was not all i thought lol.

First ever tropical tank, put in gravel without washing it, stood there for ages wondering why my water was so cloudy lol.

when i first tried my hand at breeding livebearers, had 5 males in one tank and after a while of still no babies, i went in to the local fish store and said they wont breed can i exchange them, they said no wonder they wont they are all male.

First time i tried to syphon water with a pipe, i sucked up so hard i nearly choked to death lol.


I darent say no more lol i guess i was a very poor newbie.

 

[fishnovice]

Put some small 1inch innocent looking jewel fry in my livebearers tank, thinking they were harmless babies. Within 48hrs they killed and ate my male swordtail. Cichlids are mean killers

 

[Paradise3]

Mine would probably be:
1) Putting a sailfin pleco in a 2ft tank.
2) Putting 1m and 1f guppy together. He later stressed her soo much she died.
3) When i was younger we had a very big tank with goldfish in it. One morning i decided to go fishing in it. Most fish died, bar 1. I had them out of water to long and they practicaly dried out. One decided to go down the back of the tank and i couldn't reach it, we later found it still alive after about 5 hours down there.
4) We also had a 4ft tropical tank when i was about 5 or 6 and one morn i decided the fish would like a drink...... of milk. I poured 2 pints of milk in the tank. All fish survived.
5) Putting an angel fish in a 2ft tank with platies, mollies and guppies. NEVER AGAIN.
6) Putting guppy fry into an uncyled tank. All 23 later died.
7) Putting a male fighter with male guppies. It wasn't that he attacked the male guppies but he killed all his female tank mates 1 day after the guppies were added. He had lived with them for 2 years with no probs.

My list is endless i no no gonna say more.

Xxx~misscosmo~xxX

 

[flix_cw]

Not quarantining new guppies - camallanus outbreak ensued...

 

[Paradise3]

I can't pick a worst out of mine because they are all bad.

Xxx~misscosmo~xxX

 

[markandhisfish]

fully stocking my 1st tank pretty much as soon as it was filled, and subsequently losing all my fish bar 1 cory ( which i still have to this day) not gravel vaccing etc. slightly less serious but still hard was when i got my 100g tank i positioned it and filled it only to stand back to admire it and see it wasnt square to the wall so i had to drain , move and re-fill , having done this i run the filter pipes etc out thru the back of the cabinet and into the top of the tank thru the back of the hood only to realise the cutouts in the glass condensation cover were at the front cue draining the tank again then getting my mate to help me take it off the cabinet and put it on again the right way round.

 

[Paradise3]

fully stocking my 1st tank pretty much as soon as it was filled, and subsequently losing all my fish bar 1 cory ( which i still have to this day) not gravel vaccing etc. slightly less serious but still hard was when i got my 100g tank i positioned it and filled it only to stand back to admire it and see it wasnt square to the wall so i had to drain , move and re-fill , having done this i run the filter pipes etc out thru the back of the cabinet and into the top of the tank thru the back of the hood only to realise the cutouts in the glass condensation cover were at the front cue draining the tank again then getting my mate to help me take it off the cabinet and put it on again the right way round.

I bet you had a bad back after that.

Xxx~misscosmo~xxX

 

[markandhisfish]

yep and very blue air in my living room