ryknier said:
:thud: and to think, I'm nervous about have a 30g upstairs.
I'd have to agree with Remmy, biggest mistake so far is either not enough research or not taking my research material with me when I go looking for fish.
What's the biggest mistake you've ever made?
- Thread starter racingjason
- Start date
:thud: and to think, I'm nervous about have a 30g upstairs.
I'd have to agree with Remmy, biggest mistake so far is either not enough research or not taking my research material with me when I go looking for fish.
My biggest mistake was as a child - w/ our tank growing up. It is still a very traumatic memory!
We had a big tank w/ goldfish (3, one for each kid) and we loved feeding (although my dad did mantainance) - he was always very adamant about NOT over feeding (b/c it killed the fish)....but sometimes we would sneak and feed anyways (how can too much food kill you??? - they should just stop eating!!! - at least that is what our childhood logic said). Well, we accidentally knocked the whole thing of flakes into the water! Feeding involved one person standing on tip toes on a chair, while another held the lid up.....very complicated for kids aged ~ 3, 5.5, and 7!
In order to "destroy" the evidence, we decided (my siblings and I) to "clean" the tank and dump out all the water. So, we got a big bucket from the closet, put the fish in, and proceeded to make a huge mess, scooping out water w/ a mixing bowl from the kitchen and flushing it. Needless the say - the bucket was a cleaning bucket, we ruined the carpet, all the fish died and we were in BIG trouble for a) sneaking to feed, b) trying to destroy the evidence, c) killing the goldfish! It took me years to get over it!
Lesson learned: be very careful w/ children and fish tanks and explaining things at their level - or not let them "play with" or "feed" the fish!
PS A bad mistake as an adult - was 'being patient' with a dwarf gourami who was aggressive - thinking he would get over it. He killed 2 other fish - it really occurred to me that fish have personalities beyond their species descriptions! He didn't want to be a community fish - he wanted to be a oscar!
We had a big tank w/ goldfish (3, one for each kid) and we loved feeding (although my dad did mantainance) - he was always very adamant about NOT over feeding (b/c it killed the fish)....but sometimes we would sneak and feed anyways (how can too much food kill you??? - they should just stop eating!!! - at least that is what our childhood logic said). Well, we accidentally knocked the whole thing of flakes into the water! Feeding involved one person standing on tip toes on a chair, while another held the lid up.....very complicated for kids aged ~ 3, 5.5, and 7!
In order to "destroy" the evidence, we decided (my siblings and I) to "clean" the tank and dump out all the water. So, we got a big bucket from the closet, put the fish in, and proceeded to make a huge mess, scooping out water w/ a mixing bowl from the kitchen and flushing it. Needless the say - the bucket was a cleaning bucket, we ruined the carpet, all the fish died and we were in BIG trouble for a) sneaking to feed, b) trying to destroy the evidence, c) killing the goldfish! It took me years to get over it!
Lesson learned: be very careful w/ children and fish tanks and explaining things at their level - or not let them "play with" or "feed" the fish!
PS A bad mistake as an adult - was 'being patient' with a dwarf gourami who was aggressive - thinking he would get over it. He killed 2 other fish - it really occurred to me that fish have personalities beyond their species descriptions! He didn't want to be a community fish - he wanted to be a oscar!
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Awwww....Ilis 
.....too bad it was a cleaning bucket....you 3 might not have done too bad with that...mess and all.....lol
.....too bad it was a cleaning bucket....you 3 might not have done too bad with that...mess and all.....lol
LMOUTHBASS
My hypocrisy goes only so far
my biggest mistake, hmmmm so many well when i was a newbie i had a 20 gallon in my kitchen - it was over stocked anyhow but it had ick - i had been fighting it for a while - i had some scaleless fish i there so i was using scaleless fish ick med, which seemed to take longer to work but i was fustrated instead of carefully dosing the tank - i just sort of guessed how much should go in (i was late for work) and didnt have time to measure it - i came home and had 6 dead fish and all the others gasping for air at the top ! i was horrified i added an airpump and immediately did a total water change - everyone survived after that but i almost lost an ange; fish i liked!
let's see another time i did a water change on a small 3 gallon tank before going to bed and completely forgot to dechlorinate the water - all the fish were dead in the morning - i was so pissed at myslef-
another time i unplugged an air pump going to an air wand in my tank cause it was too noisy - somehow the water came back up the hose and emptied out half the tanks water in the middle of the night flooding my bedroom floor leaking into the basement! That really sucked i woke up in the night to get a drink and felt squishy water under my feet - uggghhhh what a mess
needless to say i am A LOT MORE cautious about things now and havent had any problems since then a few years ago - but i suppose when we're new we all make some mistakes
let's see another time i did a water change on a small 3 gallon tank before going to bed and completely forgot to dechlorinate the water - all the fish were dead in the morning - i was so pissed at myslef-
another time i unplugged an air pump going to an air wand in my tank cause it was too noisy - somehow the water came back up the hose and emptied out half the tanks water in the middle of the night flooding my bedroom floor leaking into the basement! That really sucked i woke up in the night to get a drink and felt squishy water under my feet - uggghhhh what a mess
needless to say i am A LOT MORE cautious about things now and havent had any problems since then a few years ago - but i suppose when we're new we all make some mistakes
LMOUTHBASS said:
If nothing else, that phrase right there is what everyone should get out of this thread. Many many people here have been doing this for a long time and have become very knowledgeable. Because of that it is easy to forget that we all had to start somewhere and most likely we have all made mistakes at some point. Hopefully you learn from the mistakes and the fish do not have suffer our ignorance again, but we are after all human.
This was utter stupidity. I wanted to quickly rinse the filter intake tube because it was mucked up. Just take it off, quick swish and pop it back on… idiotically without turning off the filter. Of course a guppy swam right by the intake, got sucked up and killed. I screamed and unplugged the filter… it took me a good 15 minutes of intense sobbing and (almost literally) banging my head on the floor to finally get enough nerve to take off the filter to get the remains out. My husband said he never heard such a commotion over a fish… he thought I sawed off my arm or something.
yeah my worst mistake was along those lines too, I had two tanks going and two filters, but the filter on the deeper tank (which was cycling, no fish yet) was missing the long attachment part with the grating at the bottom. so i was like oh i'll just take the long part off of the one in the smaller tank and put it on the one in the larger tank. the smaller tank isn't that deep so just the short open tube will do just fine right? so yeah. the next day my poor baby yellow lab was dead inside my filter. i still feel terrible thinking about it.
my other mistake was letting a baby blue johanni go in a pond because he was trying to kill all my other fish. I feel bad now because that is like just killing it because i couldn't keep it, which is terrible. I should have tried to get a fish store to keep him or just put him in a separate container until I was able to get a bigger tank and more tankmates... or just waited to buy him until i got the above...
my other mistake was letting a baby blue johanni go in a pond because he was trying to kill all my other fish. I feel bad now because that is like just killing it because i couldn't keep it, which is terrible. I should have tried to get a fish store to keep him or just put him in a separate container until I was able to get a bigger tank and more tankmates... or just waited to buy him until i got the above...
I bleach dipped all of my plants and forgot to put enough dechlorinator in the after treatment buckets.
Needless to say, I lost 5 fish that day: My SAE (Tai Mai Shu), Two Big Male Cherry barbs that were actually peacefull, a female cherry barb, and a zebra danio that jumped out in the night.
Bless their poor souls. For the next five weeks I used to look at my tanks and start cursing the day I decided to bleach dip. The algae did survive, btw, and is stronger than ever at taking over my tank.
The bleach knocked out all but a few strands of hornwort and anacharis, but the rest of the plants came through with flying colors.
Needless to say, I lost 5 fish that day: My SAE (Tai Mai Shu), Two Big Male Cherry barbs that were actually peacefull, a female cherry barb, and a zebra danio that jumped out in the night.
Bless their poor souls. For the next five weeks I used to look at my tanks and start cursing the day I decided to bleach dip. The algae did survive, btw, and is stronger than ever at taking over my tank.
The bleach knocked out all but a few strands of hornwort and anacharis, but the rest of the plants came through with flying colors.
My biggest mistake was buying a pleco for my first tank. I wasn't a total newb at the time - I had had my tank for a few years and was into breeding platies for an LFS. I was looking at the fish one time after selling some fry, and noticed some small plecos. I knew from research that common plecos would get to big for my 20 gallon tank, but an employee told me that this was a smaller variety of pleco, and wouldn't really get much bigger than it's current size (which was about 2 1/2 inches). I decided to take it home, and it began growing fast! Within a couple of years it was a foot long and had destroyed my tank.....I couldn't find it a home, so for another year or so it was the only resident of the tank. Finally I advertised that I had a free 20 gallon tank for anyone that had a bigger tank and would also take the pleco. Someone took me up on the offer, and that was the end of my fishkeeping for quite a few years. I learned the hard way to not believe anything a store employee tells me without confirming it.
Debra Mark
Wench Boots!
Quite a number of years ago we lost a blue eyed plecostamus - about 12-14"....my husband thought he could flush him down the toilet, and he did! Needless to say the next day he was busy taking the toilet right off the floor and snaking out the plumbing to retrieve a bloated & very stuck dead pleco! 
Any large fishes now get a "burial by dumpster" instead of "burial by sea".
Any large fishes now get a "burial by dumpster" instead of "burial by sea".