Silly mistakes, we've all made a few

[minerwilly]

Hi, was wondering what decisions or purchases you've made only to realise pretty quick that you made a boo boo?

I'll start, today I bought some dwarf suckermouths (otocinclus) to go into my 2 foot with some tetras and my sajica as my saj will bully any thing that is bigger than an inch or two. Quickly realised that he wont bully the new fish, but would just eat them. I must of caught those otocinclus in record time and moved them to my wives tank.

Still you live n learn, so come on - what's your biggest DOH! moment?

 

[SimonL]

Cheap Jardini arowana....there's always a reason when somethings cheap lol.

 

[navygirl76]

this one falls under dumba** decisions for me-- about 4 yrs ago i had a 90 gallon stocked with lake malawi cichlids and decided to do my weekly cleaning. Well, i suctioned all of the gravel really well, did at least a 50 percent waterchange, AND changed ALL of the media in the only canister i had running.

i didnt know any better then.

so within 4 hours, all of my fish were gasping and in the next few days i managed to kill off 17 of my 19 fish. the other two that survived (and are still alive!) were swimming upside down, foggy eyed, fins and tails were shredded. Oh and their tails and gils were blood tinged. I managed to save those two (one of them is my now beautiful male Venustus).

At the time, i never knew you COULD overclean a tank.

 

[muckieman]

bought my two muskie on impules but i'll still be able to give them a prper home, and another is i buoght my fisrts sand fish on impluse too now i know to do resure. took aloot of str not to buy the 16 rtc x tsn for 45$$$ just wanted so bad but held my self they've had it for 1 year now.

 

[Arizonagrace]

I didn't know you can overclean a tank either. I do water changes at least once a week. Is there something I should know before I kill everyone?

My mistake was letting a lfs guy pick out a pleco for me. Told him it was going in a 10 gallon so I wanted the smallest they had. I got one about 5 inches! I didn't realize until I got home and by then my hubby wouldn't let me take him back. So, we had to keep him in the 10 for a few days and then transfer him to a 20.

 

[Dr Joe]

I didn't know you can overclean a tank either. I do water changes at least once a week. Is there something I should know before I kill everyone?

Yep... If your going to clean the substrate well, only do half one week and the other half in an other week or two. Never replace all the filter material at once.

Dr Joe

.

 

[grmanrocks]

dumb thing #1

Large Mormyrid (12"s)with large preds(8-10"s)....lost the mormyrid in a few hours......sucked

#2....

Tiger muskie + American Eels....lost the muskie in 2 days

#3....

throw the eels into a 10 gallon stocked with a nece selection of rarer oddball loaches (horseface, 2-3 differnt hillstreams, oddbarred clowns, yoyos, ect) only to have them violently kill them one by one...


#4...

throw the largest of the anquilla from said 10g into the 100 (it was 8"s), to have it gulped by the pbass.....

needless to say that was a bad day...esp since i had to ship the muskie, mormyrid and eel across country to get them to myself....

 

[minerwilly]

hehe, glad i'm not the only one then

 

[navygirl76]

right on Dr Joe.. i realized too late i removed most of my bb..

 

[Mystix212]

AND changed ALL of the media in the only canister i had running.

You avatar explains a fair bit.

As for me, one of my dumb mistakes is on my first ever tank (first ever attempt at fish-keeping) I didnt do a water change for 6-7 months. The tank only recieved top ups and the only form on nitrate reduction was a small bunch of Anachris/Elodea that lasted 3-4 months before my clowns viewed it as food.