Just For Fun: The Dumbest Mistake You Ever Made With A Tank

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

CatoeSc

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Dec 23, 2012
Messages
654
Location
Dallas/Fort Worth
I thought this would be fun and would help all the new aquarium hobbyists to peek behind the curtain of all the great advice offered here to see what mistakes even the best have made.

So, with that in mind, what is the dumbest mistake you've ever made with an aquarium? Did you know you were probably making a mistake or were you totally blind to the results that were right around the corner?
 
hmm lets see, 4 common plecos in a 55 gallon tank works right? lol mixed with about 30 other fish (tiger barbs, bala sharks, blue gouramis, pictus catfish, and corys) all bought from petsmart, feeding tropical flakes only with no test kits of any kind, oh and doing 100% water changes with the outside hose once a month....needless to say that tank did not last very long.

im glad that was 6 years ago and ive learned so much since then.
 
Ugh, the dumbest mistake I probably ever made was starting a siphon by sucking on the tube, not being quick enough, and having dirty tank water come gushing into my mouth...gross
 
I have 2

Not QT'ing
and Not Cycling

When I first started in the hobby, I didnt have a clue what a cycle was....had 2 goldfish in a 10 gallon and only changed the water 1x a week....they only lasted for a month or two.

After they died, got some new fish, didnt QT them and caught columnaris in the entire tank and lost everyone again!

I'm so glad I know better now!
 
Not doing weekly water changes and for some reason thinking my fish would be okay... Also over medicating. Also letting two cories loose all barbels and fins to finrot and torpedoing around the tank before realizing it was fin rot. Luckily they are both going strong in a very clean tank nowadays. ;)
 
Well, back before I really got into this hobby I had 4 tanks all connected to re same filter system, and I added one little guppy with columnaris and wiped out my whole system and tanks! Had to restart :(
 
Not QTing got me in big trouble, too. I lost my very loved pair of angels to a new addition with some sort of infection.

When I was a kid, I made a lot of bad stocking decisions. At one time I had a 10 gallon with maybe 7 or 8 fancy goldfish in it. And a community tropical tank in the same 10 gallon that included a red tailed shark that killed everyone else. Changed my filters pretty regularly, too. And I changed all of the water maybe once a month.
 
First got my 10g tank, Mother told me I was responsible for cleaning it, and feeding the fish. It was all my responsibility. (I was 14)

Pffft I didn't know what a water change was, I'd just add some if I noticed a few inches evaporated out... And I'd use a Scrubber on the sides.
Oddly, those fish still lasted years....


OR using those Pellets for Pleco's... (We had only one Pleco)
Every day....
For a month...
Tank was a little cloudy.
THAT was I think the only time I ever did a water change, and it was a 100%
 
I had 3 goldfish in a bowl that could not have been more than a gallon, an I only changed the water when I couldn't stand the smell anymore. They survived about a month.
 
Actually, I just made mine tonight. I mean I have done some dumb things, but tonight tops them all. I'm new to the whole "water changer" python. I was draining about 30% of the water to add clean water. So when I turned the water in the sink off, I got distracted by my daughter for a few minutes, not realizing the suction was still going on even with the faucet off. I almost drained my whole tank before I realized!!! I heard a fish flopping in the low water and freaked out. Needless to say, I won't get distracted again.:banghead:
 
In the beginning..starting out with our very first tank ever..bought a 30gal .. Stocked it with two baby oscars (the size of my thumbnail) and believed the sales guy when he said "oh don't worry they'll only get as big as their tank." Looking back though I can't really blame him he did tell the truth. They DID grow to be the SAME size as that tank! Lol! Needless to say that was my lesson in research anything and everything and don't trust the opinion of only one.
 
I put 3 neon tetras and 2 male guppies in a brand new hexagon 2 gallon tank. I was sold a 50 watt heater and an UG filter. No thermometer. Water was like bath water, and none of the fish lasted very long. After that I added 5 neon tetras since they like to be in schools... They didn't last long either. So I finally went online and was shocked at how wrong I was doing things, so I bought a couple amano shrimp, and they are still going strong in my 25G tank :0
 
I frequently still forget to turn my filter valves back on after water changes -.-
 
I frequently still forget to turn my filter valves back on after water changes -.-

Not a huge mistake, but one time last summer I did a water change and then left with my roommate to go get dinner, and I only realized after we got home like two hours later that I forgot to turn the filters and heater back on.
 
I've left a sponge filter unplugged in my fry tank for 24+ hours before, didnt lose anyone from it, but definitely had to keep a VERY close eye on the water parameters after! Such a pain!
 
You know something? To be honest, with my previous 60 gallon, there's just so much to list I wouldn't have the hand strength to type it all...

Back when I kept tropicals with my dad as a boy, it was a horror scene as well (you just live and learn I suppose); instead of "treating" tap water even for top-offs, I would just let water levels evaporate and fill it back up with jars of water I left out on the bathroom counter because I was told just letting water "sit" for 24 hours or more lets all the "toxins" out...lol...this was also during the period when the "Silent Giant" air pumps were all the rage, so you know how far I'm going back here...

We also didn't really have a "lid" on this tank back then, which was part of a chrome-trimmed "wall unit" piece of furniture my dad sold in his furniture stores at the time; the fish tank was part of this piece, and he kept them on display in his stores, with fish, and got me one for my bedroom...the only "cover" this tank had was the glass shelf from the shelf above it -- leaving plenty of room for "jumpers" to get out...

Thus, we found fish the next morning dead on the carpet, notably the exotic "Elephant Noses" which never lasted 24 hours in this tank...we also mixed species that really weren't supposed to be mixed (aggressive Gouramis with Angels who ripped apart the Angels so wildly we would wake up to floating torsos in the tank)...

Fast-forward many years later to the last 60 gallon goldfish tank I kept -- what a disaster almost from day one...we didn't keep on top of water changes, I misdiagnosed a case of Ich in which I treated the whole tank with that blue melachite medicine which caused a nightmare of scenarios to begin, due to the lack of water maintenance we got horrible diatom outbreaks we could NEVER fix and patches of toxic gasses built up under the substrate to the point a bacterial infection came over the tank, I constantly rinsed my filter media under scalding hot water thus killing the BB colonies, I added salt directly to the tank making mounds of it on the gravel, I burned our carpeting when I left a heater on and walked away (I bought the heater for the misdiagnosed Ich breakout because I was advised to raise the water temp and use salt), I cracked MULTIPLE glass lids from stepping on them when I had the lids off for maintenance...

This list goes on and on...:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:

Suffice to say...we learned A LOT before setting up this new 60 gallon...
 
Your suppose to wash the bio filter every time it looks dirty with bacteria, right?
 
o_O and filling tanks I get distracted by shinny things like fish... That's a weekly mistake tho.
 
I'm surprised I haven't stepped on or broken any glass tops yet. I have beoken tons of test tubes though. I might have three left...
 
I'm still just a year into this hobby, so I'm sure I'm doing dumb things right now that I don't even realize yet.

For me, there are a couple of things that stand out. The first tank we ever had was a little 5 gallon hex tank my son got for his birthday. It was a Marineland and had the bio-wheel filter. Once I learned about water changes, I became diligent about keeping that tank clean. So diligent that I scrubbed that bio wheel every week! If you aren't familiar with a bio-wheel, let me explain my mistake. The bio-wheel is designed to accumulate bacteria necessary for a healthy tank. Its the key element in the tanks bio-filter. By doing this, I never let it do its job and never was able to get that tank stabilized. Lost lots of fish in that tank before I figured it out.

The absolute dumbest thing I did was with some fish I bought. My son really wanted to get some GloFish. So I went to one of the big box stores to get a couple. I was impatient and just wanted to get them bought an get them home, so I overlooked something very important. The tank they were in at the store had at least a half dozen dead fish in it-and those are just the ones that I could see! I bought them anyway?. Needless to say, I lost the fish I bought and everything else he had in his tank within about 2 or 3 days. Since then I've never bought fish from a big box store-only the LFS. I also investigate the tank and surrounding tanks for problems before I buy anything out of it.

Right now, I'm making new mistakes with plants! When I figure out what they are I may re-introduce this thread?
 
Back
Top Bottom