what is the worst problem you've had

Had my Angel fish get ick as soon as I put in the Blue Tang. Treated for a few weeks and got everything ick free but as soon as it was gone the Angel got fluke/flukes. We'll since I was hoping to keep it isolated gave it a fresh water dip. Problem was it was before I had an RO unit so I had to declorinate the water.

Felt awful once I figured out the water wasn't dechlorinated. It wasn't taking the freshwater dip to well and then I noticed the Prime still on the shelf. Got it out, it literally laid on top of my Calerupra bed for three days facing the flow. Cured the outbreak of flukes and the 4th day he was swimming again. Still have him 7 years later.

 

I remember my first attempt back in 1995 with a 55 gallon tank. Went and bought live rock and immediatly introduced ten fish and two BTA's. Needless to say I was very upset that everything died with in a week. The guy at the LFS told me that adding everything at one time would be ok. He must have saw me coming or something. So I emptied all the water as one would do with a fresh water setup and tried again with the same results. Then I got this magic box that used my phone line to connect to the internet(pre broadband) and started researching. Didn't even know saltwater cycle. Needless to say the LFS made probably 1000 bucks off of me in two weeks. Thats really expensive for the time period. Hehe could have saved everything by reading a book.

 

green hair algae. grrr

 

whats up with wives and bleach, the same thing happened to a guy at my lfs.

my worst problem was a electrical fire

 

For me, it was by far the anemone death. Wiped out nearly everything in my tank, forcing me to pretty much start over from day 1 again.

 

well aside from the cyano problem that kept coming back i think my biggest loss was when i added a blue tang when my tank was in its early stage and i had a good amount of fish in there lil did i know it had ich it wiped out all my fish about 8 fish total

 

well, I just set up a sump and filled it with freshly made salt water. Didn't make sure it had the same parameters as the main tank so I pumped 15 gallons of the water in the sump into my DT in about a min. I lost 3 chromis, a bunch of crabs and snails, my monti, my tumpets and possibly my leather and clam. Sudden changes DO affect your livestock! I lesson learned the hard way.

 

Nice thread ressurection. My worst problem (So far) was adding new powerheads. I have no idea what happened.. opened up a pocket of problems or maybe just too much flow too fast and gave everyone a heart attack (wasnt stray voltage), but the results were devastating... All died but one goldstripped maroon clown that i still have today.

 

The first time I prepaired water for a water change after I got my new tank I gave myself a hernia! I didn't feel a thing when it happened but I noticed it a few hours later. I was reaching to fill and lift a bucket of water out of my rubbermaid RO/DI reservoir to dump it into my salt mixing container. At the time I realized I was doing a stupid thing the way I was lifting it because I had to reach over the mixing container and it was awkward.

I knew the hobby would be expensive when I got into it but .....

I now use a pump and hose to pump the RO water into the mixing container. I still haul buckets of saltwater up the stairs for water changes but I try to be careful. Doc said I should get other people to lift stuff for me. Yeah right... That only worked for so long.

The other bad thing that happened was when I hooked up my float valve to the RO container I forgot to put a little white plastic thing in the end of the hose so it always dripped a little. The evaporation rate was always greater than the drip rate so, in my book, it wasn't officially a leak. Got tired of it and tightened everything up. A few days later I had to get something out of my wife's office in the next room and realized the carpet was wet. RO unit was dripping like crazy and flooded half the room. Saved the carpet by peeling it back and had to replace half the padding. I later found out that the small piece of plastic had to be installed in the end of the hose. Hasn't leaked since. My wife took it in stride (don't think she'll bleach the tank). She had to since a few years earlier she overflowed the washing machine and flooded the family room and the crawlspace. We had to replace carpetting on that one and move my cichlid tank to the basement.

It's always flooding with me. I have a love hate relationship with water. Have bought several water alarms and now have an alarm that stops the washing machine from filling if water is detected on the floor.

 

explaining to my wife what I spent all the money on.