What mistakes did you make when you started out?

[alleykat0498]

The biggest mistake I've made and probably will continue to make is not buying the biggest possible everything that has to do with this hobby from the very beginning. I, just like most if not all of you have spent countless fortunes on a little bit bigger filter (soon to be replaced after the purchase of just a lil bit bigger tank) and then the cycle repeated itself over and over again. I was fortunate enough that my lfs when i was a kid of roughly 12 or so was decent enough to give me good info on cycling a new tank, which has saved me quite a bit of heartache and of course money as well. If I would have just bought a 300-400 gallon tank at the beginning my wife probably wouldnt threaten divorce every time i mention the words (fish, tank, filter, lfs, etc.).

 

[alleykat0498]

BTW my wife is a wonderfully UNDERSTANDING woman, and she does'nt verbally threaten. Fellas face it we know the look.

 

[PrecisionAquatics]

Putting 5 oscars in my "huge" 65 gallon. Then going on my honeymoon and assuming everything would be ok. Needless to say it wasnt, i eventually lost all 5.

 

[ChannelCat]

overcrowding, overfeeding, never changing water, underfiltered, no cycling. Pretty much everything said before.

 

[ceeej31]

overstocking, no waterchanges, no quarentining, i didnt cover the tank properly and several fish jumped out, and i had no knowledge of fish compatability, i had a bala shark, a pictus cat, three tiger barbs, a pleco, and a few other fish in a ten gallon

 

[xiahaolong168]

overstock the hell outta my tanks

 

[Sandman334]

the biggest mistake i made was when i was 11...... i changed the water in my 10 gal one winter and i thought sent it was cold outside i should put hot water in the tank to keep my fish warm over the night............. bad idea......good thing they were only goldfish that cost about .23 cents

 

[snake_charmer]

the biggest mistake i made was when i was 11...... i changed the water in my 10 gal one winter and i thought sent it was cold outside i should put hot water in the tank to keep my fish warm over the night............. bad idea......good thing they were only goldfish that cost about .23 cents

That's a pretty funny one. I also like the one about the nemo fish!
My biggest mistakes have probably been...forgetting to unplug everything prior to draining the water out for a partial change. Well, when you leave the heater on it blows up pretty quick!
My 2 red belly piranhas suprisingly lived nearly 4 years in a 55gal tank that was never cleaned. I have to learn more about this cycling stuff and I definitly need to start cleaning the tank more often than once a month.

 

[Rakie]

My first mistake was kinda being cruel to a fish... I had a loud mouth buddy who had a "Siamese fighting fish" (Betta...) and he talked all kinds of **** about it, how it would tear me fish up and all this stuff (We were 12)...

I said fine. Put it in my tank, lets see what happens. He said fine.

about 3 seconds after hitting the water my 10" pike cichlid swallowed him. My friend cried so much, I never felt bad for the betta but now I do.

I didn't make any mistakes thankfully, the person who got me into this was my uncle, who took very good care of his pets, and was a monster fish keeper since the early 80's.

 

[supaoat]

The biggest mistake I experienced was a leak around the bulkhead fitting from the PVC pipe going down to the wet/dry filter. At first I didn't know that it was leaking out cuz the leak was at the hard to see spot and I left the cabinet door shut so I can't see it from the outside of the tank stand. I found out next morning when the fish room floor was flooding from the leak out of my 135 gallons tank and knocked down the external sump pump cuz the water got into the electrical part and short it out.