What was your biggest mistake with your aquarium?

Starting in this damn hobby in the first place! hahaha

 

impulse buying for me also in my early days
if the shop did not have what I originally went (always had good intentions)
I could not leave empty handed and yes I arrived home with a nice carpet nem , that did exactly what the experienced people on this site would have told me it would do

move and cause havoc


Steve

 

any details on that ? I have xenia growing all over around my frogspawn, which I believe is the euphyllia family ?

 

Reading saltwater aquarium books from 2000-2003 instead of getting on forums. I tried to do my research, the whole nine yards, "Do I need a grounding probe, what's the best salt, QT, maintenance, setup, lighting" you name it. Got all sound advice except for the lighting, I read that PC's where a lot better, putting out more than 200% more than what VHOs could. Guess what....wrong

 

Theres a bunch of em and I am not sure which is the biggest....
Danny

 

When I decided to go reef, I spent a lot of time reading on this forum, and some books too. I was most impressed by a fellow whose tank utilized no mechanical filtration anywhere. His rationale was that his water flow was so efficient, all detritus happened to collect in one or two areas in his tank, and siphoning it out was a simple part of his maintenance.

At the time I didn't know enough to catch that his was SPS tank, and his flow was really off the charts. With softies and LPS, such flow would kill the corals. My tank was LPS and softie dominated and I used his plan of no mechanical filtration, but my flow was insufficient to this route.

Things went well for about 6 months; but I'm certain it was the accumulation of detritus in the tank, and lack of maintenance in my sump which led the the tank's demise.

Now I use a wet/dry converted to a sump which affords me mechanical filtration, and I change the floss religiously at least once a week, if not more. I learned the hard way that maintenance is of utmost importance in this hobby. This is definitely not a spectator sport. You have to get your hands dirty.

 

Under engineering ventalation for a large tank....

Fixed now but would of been a lot easier to do it during the build before water was added.

 

That was bad. Wasted $75 on that disaster!

The other was not coming up with a canopy sooner. Losing the aurora goby and coral beauty to jumping was terrible.

 

Buying live rock that was full of bryopsis and then years later, taking a coral out of my bryopsis infested tank and transferring it to my sterile 180 gallon. Sigh.

 

my biggest mistake was switching over from hob filter to a canister filter.
i didn't realise the hob was the only source of oxygen for the tank. needless to say, i lost everything except my green brittle star and the velvet damsel (that is the toughest fish in the world---been through alot!!!)
RIP---yellow tang, clarkii clown, firefish, yt damsel, sally lightfoot
luckily i was at work and my wife and daughter got the honors of flushing everybody down the toilet. i was so devestated, i didn't bother replacing anyone for several months to almost a year later