Ugly, horrible and scarey aspects of the hobby...

After being out of the hobby for several years due to the military and not being stationed in one place long enough to set up a reef, I am finally back on track.

Anyway, I was talking to a childhood friend of mine recently and we were discussing the hobby and how things have changed, mostly for the better, now that I am back in the game. We were talking how marine fish are being captive bred more than ever and the new technology available. We got to talking smack back and forth and he reminded me of the horror he encountered with his reef in the late 90's...

To make a very long story short, my buddy had a birthday party lined up at his house that his new wife was hosting. Being he is my lifelong friend, my wife and I showed up early to help out his wife with food and whatnot while waiting on him to get off work. He had a pretty amazing 150gal and it was cutting edge at the time. He was growing hard corals while most of us were trying to keep them alive.

Now to the horror. After a hour or so of getting things prepared for his big day I noticed his wife, who had been told not to mess with the DT, ever, had her arm in the tank with a sponge cleaning off the days algae. I asked what she was doing and she told me she was just doing her best to make the tank look great for the guest that would soon show up. She made it clear that the sponge was brand new that she just bought at the commissary (grocery store on base) as she didn't want to chance hurting the tank with a old sponge.

Need I go on?

I leaned over to my wife and told her that we needed to leave right that very minute because it was about to get ugly. Said sponge was infused with anti-bacterial soap and sure enough he lost everything. We joked later that his skimmer finally started working properly. Bubbles everywhere. As a matter of fact, no, they aren't married any longer but for other reasons. She did in fact blow several thousands of dollars just trying to help.



Anyway, just a story i thought I would pass on about how easily the fit can hit the shan.

 

Wow.... That really stinks... On a second note, welcome back into the hobby!

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It could be worse. My ex-wife Cloroxed 1100 gallons worth of my harmless critters just because she was mad at me.

 

OMG, I would of bleached her.

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HOLY crazyness welcome back to the hobby. I currently am in the militray myself but will be stationed here for a bit so my tank building cont.

 

Wow crazy stories.

Karma is definitely lurking for Inwall's ex. I hope she doesn't find herself in the ocean anytime soon.

 

ya, I had a buddy that through a party and some one decided the fish needed to get drunk! I still can't believe there was not a fight that night, if it was my tank we would have been brawling!

 

Leaving the water running for 15 hours turned out pretty bad.

My worst experience was when I saw my stand was twisting.

 

I don't understand

 

I believe he was referring to an auto top-off.