Argh! Simple aquarium oversights

[TheGus]

So I came up on a 20 gallon sump box and a CPR CS90 overflow box a couple months back for $50. Wanting to make the combo my own, I added some DIY baffles into the sump box, constructed a bio-tower that is going to be filled with nylon pot scrubber thingies, bought a 9x9x4 Cell-Pore media block from a friend for $30, and finally get to hook up the 40W UV Sterilizer that was given to me!

The only problem with all of this you ask? When I originally setup my 75 gallon loach tank, I had never even heard of a sump so I hadn't planned upon ever needing to hang anything off of the back of my tank besides the two Penguin 200B's that I currently have. The Penguin's have a clearance of about 3" while the CPR CS90's need about 4.5"...

That's right folks, I had the utter displeasure of draining my loach tank filled with 20+ loaches just to move it out from the wall about 2" and re-level the whole thing. All things considered, it went rather smooth but was definitely something that I would have rather not done if it wasn't necessary.


In the same token, what other simple aquarium oversights have other member's of this forum experienced and what needed to be done in order to remedy the problem?

 

[guppy]

You could have just chopped out part of the wall
I once set up two side by side 55g tanks in a hallway and got as far as having them 1/2 filled before realising the hall had no power outlets. I poked a hole through the wall into a bedroom so I could plug in a powerstrip.

 

[feizhai]

now thats hardcore! my most common oversight would be to not overfilter and not have big enough tanks. Also, making the assumption that just because a fish won't eat a particular fish doesn't mean it will also extend the same courtesy to other similar sized fish, esp if they were added later.

time to go check on my delhelzi, whom i found with its head in my endi's mouth when i got back home just now.

oh and of course, always look at your tanks when you can, even if its just for a min or so. Once, i didn't check one of my tanks for 36 hrs, only to find that one of my nephews had shut off one of my filters during his visit in the afternoon earlier.... not fun fishing out prized dead fish because of a stupid oversight.

 

[ewurm]

Thats a pain! My tanks have plenty of clearance for additions.