Let's share our blunders!

[pufferpuggirl]

I think one of my worst blunders would be installing a divider into my tank so I could have my Baileyi on one side and my little miurus puffer on the other. It was a big enough tank with space for both even with the divider in. So I put the divider in, looked good, thought all was well and went upstairs for a shower.
When I came down I did not see my little miurus swimming around, as she liked to do. Then I seen that the divider was twisted and had come away from the side of the tank. Talk about freaking out!
I looked and looked and did not see my miurus. I was thinking that maybe with it being so small the Baileyi did not see it. Then I thought the Baileyi ate it and made her come out of her terracotta pot so I could see her tummy. Tummy looked normal. Then I thought maybe the miurus hadn't been seen by the Baileyi and there was a bit of hope.
The hope went and horror set in when I seen my miurus sitting on top of the filter. I thought she was okay and netted her out. It was only when I moved her that I seen the horror of the situation. The Baileyi must have come up from underneath and basically had bitten out the poor miurus' belly. There was no way it could have survived, and it did not. It died a little later. I cried and cried for my stupidity of not making sure the divider was in properly. It was the tank with the Juwel bark background, and I guess it wasn't flush enough for the divider to sit right.
What a lesson learned on that one. I still feel horrible to this day and cannot forgive myself.

I've got other blunders, but none with such a horrible outcome.

[xrayjeeper83]

my biggest blunder some days was getting into this whole thing lol

[ironbone]

i have a couple here recently,not that catastrphic kind of funny but still.first one my 5 yr old daughter likes to help feed the animal,fish we have a little 60 g koi pond inside with a comet ,koi i ffed them pond sticks less mess,we do this every day they get 5 sticks each in morning/night done this for awhile thought she had it under control turned my back do my routine come back over see how things going ughhhh what happin well dad they looked hungry so i put the other food in there 3oz flakes whole can i have for backup water big mess
fish just chowing filter and water fall just sputtering fish happy tank maid not impellers all plugged up .needless to say they didnt eat for a couple days..

[ironbone]

oh oh oh i have a nuther dummy move clean my power head every month,whoops forgot to plug it back in after water change,hearing water hit floor hmm cats geting allng in a little cirleoh crap half the tank drained onto floor cats just sittin over there sucking it up no meows nothin little ingrates forgot to plug it in draining out air tube..what a boob
dont know why cats luv that salty fishy water but wow only time ive seen them get along in close range atleast a meow we have a problem over here would have been cool

[ryverrat]

Just last week was doing a water change on Hoover's (my congo) tank. Got a panicked call from a friend trying to do the front brakes on their Acura (I use to be a mechanic). So I jump on the computer while telling them how to do the job (different caliper setup than the usual but nothing hard to do). I sent them instructions with pictures to their IPhone and all was well- except in the meantime I had left Hoover's tank drain completely. I find Hoover on the sand struggling to get into a little pool of water to breathe. Poor fish. I rush to get the fill hose (had set it up before), add the Alpha (more concentrated version of Prime) and get water back on Hoover. He was sooo mad he did not eat anything until Thursday (he did swim against the glass showing his beak- does this when mad). I even gave him the male mollie (I breed mollies just to feed him along with shrimp, clams, etc.) to eat- no - the mollie was in the tank until Friday when Hoover decide it was just more tasty than the shrimp on Thursday.

[JRC3]

Last Friday evening I did a 50% water change on my F8/BBG tank just like I always do. Everybody was swimming around enjoying the low nitrate water as usual after a WC and I enjoyed it thinking "good for them".

I woke up from a dead sleep because I had a dream or something remembering that I forgot to add dechlorinator to the tank afterward. I added the dechlorinator and took roll call and everybody was accounted for. I was so mad at myself because I always double check myself mentally and this was the first time I ever forgot. They spent about 7-8 hours in the chlorine water and luckily everyone is doing great despite this. I'm sure the fact that they are normally kept in such healthy conditions didn't hurt.

At least I won't have to worry about accidentally doing this again in the future because I have set up a mixing/aging vessel for my brackish water and it will run all week between water changes...So if I forget again the chlorine will dissipate on it's own. I was mixing stronger SG water in a bucket overnight and slowly adding that as I filled the tank up with tap water.




And I didn't have cocktails until I was done with the WC so I can't even blame that.

[xrayjeeper83]

Some how I managed to lose 9 serpae tetra's in a 5 hour time frame this weekend. Did a water change, for got the prime till about an hour after. Water was fine, the betta and oto and crayfish in the tank all lived no problem. Oh and betta is out of tank now

[~reefchik~]

These aren't my only ones, but they are the most notable:

1. When I remarried in 1988, I had an empty 55 gallon tank that I was just dying to set up again. When we bought our first house, inside the front door was a brick planter with skylight overhead. I didn't care much for the planter idea but did think it made a dandy built-in base for my 55g tank. Free lighting, no less

I will always and forever remember that not all brick layers use strict leveling techniques when building non-structural brick items.

Tank's set up for maybe a month, or more. Lots of wild crawdads breeding, (kids caught them in a creek and brought them home) and a few assorted SA cichlids, at that time, my favorite fish du jour.

One day - shortly after replacing all the horrid orange shag in the 70's vintage house with brand new french blue carpeting - I'm vacuuming. I turn off the vacuum cleaner and from across the room I hear this loud sort of *pop - crack* and then watch in horror as 55 gallons of water, fish, plants, rocks gravel and at least a thousand baby crawdads come whooshing out onto the new carpeting in my new living room. You would have thought someone smacked that tank with a baseball bat the way it exploded. New husband did not allow new wife any fish tanks for at least 5 yrs.

2. Fast forward to approx. 2001. New house again. First one we built for ourselves. Now I have my first SW tank. You would think in all those years of having smaller tanks, I'd have learned the importance of setting up any aquarium with a drip loop from the filters and lights to the wall plug.

Nope.

DH minding his own business, putzing around the house in the middle of the day because he works nights and I work days. He smells something burning.
He checks all the usual suspect locations: kitchen, bathroom, garage.....ah ha! The computer room/slash/reef tank room>> Smoke!! Sizzling, popping noises coming from inside the tank stand (again, a 55g tank). He opens doors and is greeted with a whoosh of flame as the bag of filter floss suddenly catches fire.

I had positioned an AquaClear HOB filter directly above the wall outlet behind the tank that had a powerstrip plus light timer plugged into it. The filter developed a leak around the motor gasket at the bottom (if you own one, you know what I mean) which dripped salt water onto the entire power strip and timer which then...well, you know.

After calling me at work and explaining that I would need to come home early that day....he didn't speak a civil word to me for approximately a week. Which is about how long it took to get the last of the soot cleaned out of the upper story bedrooms...ETA: and the burns to heal on his hands from grabbing burning melting plastic and wires out of the wall