Horror stories

Hi gang. Since I am fairly new to this hobby, I was wanting to hear from more experienced hobbiest. I was curious to what some of your beginner "horror stories" were. Things that went terribly wrong when you first started and how you kept the motivation going to succeed at the hobby. Can't wait to hear them all. C'mon, don't be shy. I'm sure everyone has at least one story to share. lol

 

WTF?!?!
My Marineland Eclipse 12gal saltwater tank BROKE!!!!!
LITERALLY BROKE!
I've had this tank set up now for a little over 8 months now and had a very nice set up going on.
Ah, the beginning...
My tank was cycled first with 3 tiny hermit crabs
(not to mention the stow aways hiding in my live rock, glass anemone, peacock freatherdusters, bristle worms, amphipods)
I eventually added 3 peppermint shrimp to the tank to rid my pride and joy of those nasty glass anemone.
{Shrimp=> <=Anemone}
After the risk of my fishies dying from the anemone, i slowly added 4 pretty little damsels.

*************************************

My Horrible Discovery...
I walked into my dining room to gaze upon my wonderous (yet tiny) undersea playground....then i saw it....not a knick...not a scratch...

You know that grotesque thing that happens to a window when a rock hits it....

Yeah...that delicate crackle pattern....

Conclusion...
I dont know how it happened.....
I dont know what to do....
All i know is
I feel SICK!

 

where should I begin!!!!
First big problem....my 29g biocube. New to hobby. Tested water with a hydrometer, found it was way to high, so I dumped in RO water to correct it. Well, woke up to find all inverts dead next morning, along with a dead fish. Tank looked horrible. SG was 1.019 or something. Make matters worse, I had a cucumber in there that died and caused WWIII. Had to GRADUALLY bring the water back up and all my stuff went to LFS to be held.

what kept me in the hobby....I was getting a 75g tank for my B-day a couple weeks later. I thought if I cant keep this then how am I going to keep 75? Store talked me into keeping the 75 as it is easier to run...which was true.

Second big problem......I bought a 55g tall tank for FOWLR tank. That was just one big mistake. That tank did nothing but cause me trouble and money! Lost everything I had in there 2 seperate times. I did the whole run freshwater through system to kill everything, tore tank down and restarted it...still nothing but 1 green chromis could stay alive in there. Worst thing I lost was a majestic angel ($130 fish) along with a couple other expensive fish. I was stupid the second time.....after it cycled, I bought the angel. Should have stuck with cheap fish for a while, so when it crashed 2nd time I would have only lost maybe $100, instead of the SEVERAL hundred that I lost!

Water everytime tested PERFECT. There was never anything off, except towards the end when it developed ick and I had to treat it. That threw EVERYTHING off....plus killed everything . I can tell you what medicine NOT TO use!

I think stray voltage????

what kept me in this time.....I got rid of the tank! (of course it was the tank that killed everything!) and got an even bigger tank!

That whole 55g was a mess. I had a canister filter, and I forgot to take the little "dipstick" out of the water. (dipstick also meant me here!) and so I opened up the canister and probably 8 gallons of water gushed out onto the carpet before I could stop it. I then bought a skimmer that EVERYNIGHT for the first 3 nights went crazy and drained a ton of water onto my floor (It was Remora C skimmer...got rid of that thing for something else on 4th day!). Then when I took tank down, I had an external refuge...had drained most of it. Went to unscrew it from back, and the thing crashed to ground, and guess what....MORE WATER plus some very expensive MUD!.

I swear everytime I am going to quit this hobby, I talk to somebody who conviences me to stick with it. I then see some cool looking fish or coral and then decide I dont want to quit. Besides I spent too much money at this point to walk away....plus when everything is going great, it is awesome!

 

Wow Schackmel, You're a real Trooper! Kudos to you dude.

 

OK, 1994. 29g tank. Put the pretty blue stuff at the bottom and some fake plant life in as well. I mixed the my salt in a pale I had lying around (probably used for mopping). I added the water to the tank. I turned on my HOB protein skimmer, turned on my thermometer and let it sit overnight.

The next day I bought something like 4 damsels and a large maroon clown. Smart. The clown died pretty quickly (it was pretty good sized). One by one the damsels died.

Back to the LFS. Got a coral banded shrimp and a chocolate chip starfish. The SF started to rot in front of me within a week and died. I bought another one. It died.

I purchased more damsels and a yellow tang. I did tests. Ammonia/nitrites were high. Nitrates were low as I remember. Damsels died. Velvet damsel died. Tang died. Got a Moon wrasse and another velvet damsel. Moon wrasse died. Got another yellow tang. It died. Velvet damsel died. They all died.

What an idiot. In the end, I left for a few days and so did my wife. She left the sliding glass door open in the middle of winter. Guess what was next to the sliding glass door. My remaining few sea stars were beyond help. The hermit crab was dead. God knows what the numbers in that tank were that day. I still have my old diary somewhere.

However, that coral banded shrimp I bought at the very beginning never had any trouble at all. I think the water temperature was sixty degrees. I took it back to the fish store and tore down the tank.

Fourteen years later, I am doing this again. SLOWLY. SLOWLY. SLOWLY.

Why am I doing it? Because I know I can do this right and need to shake those demons of the past. A successful reef tank is one of the most beautiful things around IMO.

Oh, and when I did my water changes. I would mix the salt and pour in the mixture before it fully dissolved. Didn't think it mattered. And there were a few other casualties as well. I think I am just starting to forget it out of shame.

Good luck. John.

Oh, did I mention go slow?

 

OMG am I digging this thread. I thought I was the only one who made mistakes in the past!!!! KEEP 'EM' COMIN'!!!!! It's making me feel better!!!

 

About 8 weeks ago, I too started off in this hobby. It was a nightmare. My LFS had me believe my tank was "cycled" because he set it up and brought over his water. He even had me convinced there was no need to ever test water parameters because his water is perfect. Needless to say, he put in about 9 fish the same day he set it up. In 48 hours, 75 percent were dead. They died a horrible death. I know this because I read up on 3reef and purchased a test kit. It showed my parameters were way off... nitrates through the roof. I spent the third evening online on this very forum with people all over the country who helped me save the remaining few fish. To this day... they are still alive... and I've since expanded. I thank everyone who was helped me along the way. Knowledge is power... don't believe me... read this thread... I think it's one of the only ones on this site that has generally got people so up in arms they wished harm on a lfs owner!!!

http://www.3reef.com/forums/asap/fish-aren-t-swimming-help-49149.html

Good luck!

Ryan

 

OK Ryan, that thread was not amusing in the least. There are stories that you can laugh at and some you can't. Your's is definitely not amusing. I read through it and am happy your set up is doing better. If I were you, I would get a hold of the better business bureau. I'm not one to narc people off, but that was outrageous. If they did not give you a refund, something is wrong. OK, I'd better stop, I feel myself stepping up on a soapbox. Later dude. John.

 

My only prob/mistake was using a swing arm hydrometer. Those things are so inaccurate its not even funny (I think you might actually be better off tasting the water and guessing the salt content!). Anyway - salt levels got too high and killed my first two fish (a clown and a 6-line).

Only found out what problem was when I took some water to my LFS to test. Have since invested in a refractometer (best piece of kit you can buy).

All my inverts survived unharmed and I now have 3 shiny new fish (a pair of clowns and a springeri dottyback).

 

my biggest mistake i ever had was to listen to a couple local fish stores for advice.they had me put red lavarock in a saltwater tank with 2 puffers.they were slowly poisoned to death but i replaced them and went through many fish before i found out why.i let my skimmer go without adjusting it then turned it off for a month and the fish jumped out cause the toxins built up.i put too big of a clean up crew and the hermits went to battle.little hermit arms and legs laying all over the sand.lfs told me i could have a cc star fish in a reef and it ate everything.i handled liverock with my bare hands when auquascaping and bristleworms stung me.the next day my hands felt like they were on fire and red.i bought a carnation coral without researching it.i beleived the store that it would live in my tank lol.they have a lifespan of a few months in captivity.i mixed lps soft corals and sps together and the sps all died.i bought a light fixture that sounded like a box fan when the fan was on.i used a fresh water pond pump to save money.i used a hydrometer that went bad and had my salinity at 1.031.having the salinity that far off caused false tests for mag,calcium,alk,and ph so i tried to correct it by adding additives.i added a rock with hundreds of beautiful purple zoos on it right into my tank.i later discovered it also had dozens of zoo eatting nudi's on it and lost the whole rock.i dis a large water change using a new brand of salt.i placed my tank in front of my ac unit in the winter and had to move the whole tank 6 inches to the right when summer came.it took 10 hours.most mistakes can be avoided by not trusting your local fish store but doing you own research,and not buying cheap equipment.my end results.i'm glad i hung in there.it just takes some time and every penny you have lol.


my gf has a bad horror story.someone prank called the electric company and told them to shut of her electric while she was at my place for 5 days and she lost everything.she never had the heart to start her tank up again.she just can't afford to.