common sense lessons learned the hard way

[reefrash]

Get that load off your chest/back wherever it is. Tell us a look back and laugh story that initially brought tears to your eyes, and now brings you joy to think of how far you've come in the hobby (it could be something that happened to you two days ago or years). I'll start, and I've got quite a few so don't be shy.

When I was a teenager, I was completly obsessed with fish. At points in time I had up to 25 tanks not including random vessels of water with killis, gouramis and the like. The only space issue I had was with tanks over 20 gal. At one point I was offered a 50gal Metaframe with a slate bottom (I wish I could get my hands on one now) free no strings. I was really stoked, yeah free 50gal "I'll rig up my DIY PVC filter and blah blah blah...." When I went to pick the tank up, I notice a clean BB or pellet hole in the tank, you know the kind that is small on one side, big on the other. Well the Einstein in me said "nothing a little silicone and a glass patch couldn't fix", famous last words. As you can imagine I patched it up real quick, and had it full of water quicker than I could eat a bag of Cheetos. It was great, I now had 5 tanks over 50gal. I put in some baby A. rhytisma and grew tham out in a few months no problem. After that I received my dream fish (at the time) Theraps regani, wild fish, very expensive. I set up the tank with lots of hiding places and some Buenos Aries tetras to keep them busy. A few months went by the fish were doing great, at one point I knew I had a pair. Then all hell broke loose I was at work (LFS), and came home to find a large crack that had formed from my botched repair job, bummer. Not only that, but the crack extended to the bottom of the tank draining the entire thing. Fish dead.... my prized possesions gone (of course a few tetras survived). I was so upset I waited forever for those fish, got them from Don Conkel right after a collecting trip. I couldn't bring myself to tell him what happened. But.........

I learned to put my best fish in my best tank, and basement floor drains are a godsend.

 

[Blinky]

Confession time, yay! I'll play

I got my first real tank at sixteen (the 5g goldfish tank I had as a little girl doesn't really count, does it?). My grandmother told me I could have anything I wanted (within reason) for my sweet sixteen, and I chose fish. We visited several shops, asking them what I'd need, and unfortunately the last store we stopped at must have seen us, and my grandmother's chequebook, coming.
We left with a 35g tank, a bright red stand, red gravel, a heater, UGF with powerheads, lava rock, misc. conditioners and foods, and a few live plants. My parents helped me set everything up that night (who can wait?), and we planned to get the fish the next day.
Big Mistake #1 - we set the tank up and didn't level the stand. There was a 1" difference from right to left in the water level, but no one thought it was a big deal.
The next day we relied completely on the LFS owner to tell us what fish were suited to the tank (I find this odd now, as my parents are the type to research ANYTHING before getting into it, and have always encouraged me to do the same). I went home with two large blue gouramis, a pink kissing gourami, a very expensive African cichlid, an angel and a few other fish. I had no idea how to acclimate them, or even that it was required. The store was on a municipal water supply, our house was on a well. Our house was always freezing and the heater was small; I doubt the tank was at more than 72F. Those poor fish. Somehow, they all survived the first week. We lost the cichlid, but the others were fine for a while.
Big Mistake #2 - no research on fish size, compatability, acclimation, cycling...
When we told the store owner that one of the fish had died, he told us it was likely our water, the pH was probably high. Well, he was right about that - we had the world's hardest water, but ...hello? Nitrogen cycle anyone? I don't think it was the pH, lol, other than the fact that ammonia is even more poisonous at a high pH. He sold us test kits, medications (just in case it was a disease - I believe EM and QuickCure were what we used), pH Down... of course the fish kept dying off despite all the potions and medicine, we were at a complete loss.
Big Mistake #3 - we replaced the dead fish with more fish. This was, of course, at the advice of the LFS.
And then... Big Mistake #1 came back to haunt me. My family had a puppy at the time (he's a lovely older gentleman now, I wonder if he remembers this?), and my boyfriend and I drove home from school to walk him at lunchtime. We found water POURING from the living room light fixture, onto my mother's brand new sofa. The unevenness had caused a huge diagonal crack across the front of the tank. We skipped school, drove to a Big Al's and bought a new tank and saved the fish, and we leveled the stand this time. Finally, I was learning something!
Shortly after the rest of the fish kicked the bucket, I started reading books on the hobby and collecting fish and crayfish from local rivers, developed MTS (multiple tank syndrome), even bred some fish (danios), found a new LFS with decent advice and was well on my way. What a rocky start, I'm so glad I stuck with it and started reading so I didn't continue killing fish or, worse, throw the tank in the garage and forget about it. I still tease my grandmother about how if it wasn't for her present getting me into this hobby I'd have enough money to buy her a new house

 

[mrsdorothy]

When I was growing up, I went fishing almost ereryday if the weather permitted and never thought about aquarium fishkeeping until about 4 years ago. My oldest son had a 29g fish tank when he was smaller that was given to him by his aunt who put a frog in it because she knew that I was afraid of them. The tank was already established. She had it in her house for about a year before she gave it to him, so, I had no idea what it was to cycle a tank.

Then about 4 years ago I went to my oldest sisters house. She had a 55g goldfish tank in her living room that absolutely captured my attention. For christmas that year one of my gifts from my hubby was a small 5g. I went to petco talked to the guy in the fish department, I told him what size tank I had and picked out some tiger barbs. He told me that I needed at least 7 to make a school. Then hubby asked him how many more fish I could keep, he said about 10 more small ones. So, I got 4 black mollies, a beta, a common pleco, and 4 sepra tetra. I went home with 17 fish and a bottle of stress coat for a tank that I still needed to set up. I don't think I need to say that they all died. I got a few more tiger barbs that I did manage to keep alive in this tank, but now they are in a 29g.

My next tank was a 55g that I purchased about 2 months after the 5g. I was told that 14 gouramis would be ok in this tank. With a lot of water changes, I managed to keep them alive, but the tank was holy terror after they got bigger. I began to do some research on the internet. I took all but 2 of the gouramis back. AC was the first forum that I joined. I began to read and learned a lot. After I began reading and saw all of the mistakes that I made, I was too embarrassed to make a post and ask question. But, I did learn from all the reading I was doing. Now I have 9 tanks set up that I am proud of.

Never, ever, ever, listen to your lfs unless you go in there armed with knowledge.

 

[Mooch28]

That's the one thing with me. I never start something im not educated on. Even before starting my first freshwater tank a year ago, i did a ton of reading and research, and then started.

Even for my reef tank now, ive done a ton of reading before i got started. Pays off in the end!!

So i really have learnt the "hard way"

 

[Pineapple]

I was a wee kid. My parents had a 30g. I found this minnow in a lake. My parents said it was ok to put into their system. That fish grew up. It turned from white to a brownish color. It was two inches when it started to eat the Neon Tetras. :rant2: We found out that fish was a pike. I guess the lesson here is not to put weird lake fish in your system. Also pikes can eat flakes.

Second bizarreness was the dog food, but already posted that. The lesson to that was, saltwater fish can eat dog food but they stay at the bottom after.

 

[jjirsa78]

I guess the lesson here is not to put weird lake fish in your system.

We had caught something we thought was a baby bluegill one time - brought it home, put it in a tank, and as it passed 2", we realized it was probalby a smallmouth bass. As it passed 5", we realized we needed a bigger thank than the 30 it was in. When it passed 18", it had outgrown its 80, and after consulting with various experts, was released into a fishing-free lake.

Boy that guy was expensive to feed.

 

[frobie]

Lesson 1

my first tank was a 55 gallon with a metal stand. It was awesome, except all my fish kept dying. They were fine for a little while but after a couple weeks I lost one, then I slowly started losing more and more. I finally figured out that when I dumped the first dead fish into the toilet, I actually put the net into the toilet and I guess it had been cleaned earlier. The chemicals from the toilet got into the net, and when I put then net back into the tank to do who knows what, I spread it. Slowly but surely the fish started dying off.

Lesson = don't put cleaning chemicals into your tank

Lesson 2

I have a zebra moray eel. He enjoys shrimp. They were frozen together, and I could not break them apart individually. I would use warm water to soften them up and take some individual shrimp for the eel. I did not realize I had thawed some of the shrimp out. The eel would keep throwing up about 6 hours after eating. I bought him fresh shrimp that has not been thawed and refrozen, he eats and is happy.

Lesson = don't accidentally thaw out food and refreeze. Your fish will eat it, then throw it up later

 

[sinder255248]

Skimmer

Well mine is probably something that loads of people have done, but here goes. Setting up my first Saltwater, everything was running smoothly, all piping/filters/powerheads in place. Then came the skimmer. It's a Berlin XL, and looks pretty straight forward, being a techy my first thing to do was take it out of the box and have a play with it. I hooked it all up without reading the instructions. The moment I turned on the pump and the chamber filled it started p*ssing water everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Yes thats right I'd stuck the skimmer on the floor next to the tank, and managed to put a pretty nice puddle on the front room carpet :duh: . After reading the instructions I realised that the return pipes couldn't be below the water surface otherwise I'd get back pressure, and sure enough I did.

Lesson: After a good beating off the missus I learned to always read the instructions first, or make sure you have enough towels on hand to clean up after yourself.

 

[reefrash]

I just learned this one two days ago, and boy this was no fun. As some of you may or may not know I do maintenace for a living, which is actually quite fun and rewarding. However you are in peoples homes, most of which are much nicer than your own. On this paticular date I was in the nicest of all my accounts (pool going in and out of the house, exotic animal skins etc.). I was ready to do a water change algae scrub, your basic maintenance. My client who likes to hang out and talk, was by my side asking questions making observations. My basic routine is to scrub/h2o change/clean filters. I use NSW so I have containers filled with water, and some buckets to syphon into. I stack the buckets one inside another (stacking buckets believe it or not, is a whole other common sense lesson more on that later), top bucket having all my cleaning supplies, towels etc. bottom buckets empty. The day before I had worked a long day, unexpected problems arose and by the time I had missed dinnertime, and happy hour I was finished. Not ready to follow through when I got home. Sleep when your dead they tell me but I didn't live by this ethos that night. The next day, while separating my buckets, my client and I were overwhelmed with the smell of sulfides. The smell about knocked us on the ground. Mind you this person has never worked a day in her life, has never been across the tracks, and probably has never smelled such a smell as a rotten mushroom. You see when I was about to leave my last client of the night the previous evening, I noticed a frogspawn had stung a mushroom to the point of no return. Sitting there was a large pile of brown jelly, I knew I had to get it out. So open the tank up (300g PITA tank with the worst hood setup possible). Quickly syphon and I'm gone, I just didn't think to take the dead mushroom jelly out of the bucket when I got home....

Good news is yesterday I called my client to apologize (again), and she laughed and said the smell went away quickly and she really likes the toadstool I put in there.

Lesson, if there is potential for something to smell bad be proactive, even if it means missing happy hour and dinner.