What was your biggest mistake with your aquarium?

What was your biggest mistake with your aquarium?


Mine was overstocking.
I had a couple years of success with my 20 long then I did a brilliant combo of overstocking with fish and staying away with a new job. This led to it's downfall.

What was yours?

 

One word: anemone

 

I would have to say mine would be introducing a copperband butterfly to my tank that at the time was a home to a powder blue tang and a scopas tang.

Lets just say the tangs mauled the copperband. Copperband had an ich breakout. Needless to say all my other fish had a break out. Ended up sellin all my fish to somebody who could care for em on craigslist. Went fishless for 2 months which was a hard thing to do.

 

Not using a QT tank

 

Mine was having someone mislead me to buy equipment that was not rated for my 220. When I went from fresh water to salt I went from a 180 fresh to a 220 reef tank. When i did the guy at the lfs that I did years of buisness with sold me underpowered lights because they were on Sale then he sold me a sump and skimmer magically on sale too. and hey dont worry about any motion in the tank you dont need it he tells me. Excited I set it all up and guess what between an underpowered skimmer and underpowered lights it made a mess that took 8 months to cycle then I figured out what the problem was upgraded the lights and the sump and skimmer and have not had a problem since. Point of the story is that I went cheap first mistake in salt water tanks, and second listened to someone who did not care about my tank, and third went into salt water knowing nothing.

 

Using tap water for 8 years and cursing all that hair algae.
The anemone in the powerhead wasn't pretty either.

 

my biggest mistake , and its pretty minor. was buying and killing a goniopora and blueberry gorgonian. i didnt know the proper care for them and feeding. one of those impulse buys because i liked their look. didnt research and was also before i found 3reef. i much better in those regards now

 

using tap water till I got my ro/di unit, many months later and still paying the price.

 

Anenome in a new system with underpowered lights. Slowly bringing back to health.

Blueberry Gorg. These should really not be for sale.

 

For me it was keeping MH bulbs WAAAAYYY too long while using Prime in tap water and paying the algal bloom price; GHA, green bubble, cyano...you get the idea. RO and bulb maintenance was the answer for me.