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Biggest Mistakes?

pacu mom said:
Getting distracted during water changes is an on-going problem for me. Because water changes involves only opening and closing valves, even a momentary distraction can result in hundreds of gallons of water on the wood floors. Over the years, thousands of gallons of water have been dumped on the floors. We have left the filling holding tank unattended for many hours forgetting to turn the water off. One of the worst distractive events I had was when I was doing a water change. As the main tank was draining, I made a quick phone call to the Polygem technical support specialist.. I heard my husband bringing in and stacking firewood in the living room. After finishing a long conversation, I walked into the living room. Unfortunately, my husband had not been bringing in and stacking firewood. The thumping sounds I had heard were my two fish flopping around on a dry tank floor for 15 minutes. :( :( They were both bleeding, and one was alive but unresponsive. :( :( :( Because the tank was completely dry, we were not able to pump in water from the holding tank. Instead we had to dump water with a 5 gallon bucket until there was enough water in the tank to prime the mechanical pump. 30 minutes later when both fish were swimming and eating, I stopped kicking and berating myself for nearly killing them. It was a heart sickening experience which I do not ever want to repeat.
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I swear I have had water flooding PTSD at times lol; I'll be sitting quietly doing something, then my mind flashes to my tanks and I will half jump up thinking for a split second that I'm refilling one and forgot to turn off the water. After reading this thread I've decided to get another water level alarm, which makes a loud sound when the water reaches the level you have the sensor set at. I used one for a bit years ago and I know it will be a great help. I know it might not work in everyone's situation but if it works for you then it may be worth you getting one. This is probably the one I will get: Water Level Alarm Sensor.
 
My most recent mistake was introducing a dwarf angelfish, wrasse, and several large crabs to a growing clown trigger in a 200g tank. I had heard all the warnings about their psychotic killing sprees but thought the fish was still too small at around 4" to be a real killer. I was trying to set up a new tank for the other fish and just needed to put them somewhere for a month or two.

Long story short, i got hung up at work for a few days on emergency blizzard duty, unable to return home and feed the beast. When i finally did get home the trigger was floating belly up in the tank, engorged roughly to the size of a baseball, with various fish and crab remains scattered about the tank.

Other big mistakes involve not quarantining new arrivals for long enough and then spreading the infection to my other tanks with cleaning equipment. Gah, that velvet outbreak still haunts me. Im much more careful now, much more reserved in adding stock.
 
Reading through this thread it has just struck me that I fall into an extremely niche bracket, in fact it would seem that I may be totally unique within the hobby, the only one!!

What I'm referring to is overfilling tanks during maintenance and flooding the floor.

I have never ever, in my whole two stints in this hobby, spanning decades, ever accidently overfilled a fish tank whilst refilling during a water change. Ever!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a poke at anyone who has, because, if you get distracted seriously enough, then you're in trouble, and some of you still bare the mental scars, lol.

A serious flood in our house would finish my hobby off. My wife only just tolerates it as it is, even though she now has a little tank of her own. There will be no second chances for me, and maybe this is what makes me so anal when it comes to water changes.

Surely I can't be the only hobbyist who is either such a professional at water changes, or just downright lucky!!
 
Well, I agree to a certain extent, Esox: you're definitely unique! :thumbsup:

I'm extremely lucky in that I have suffered only one big flood that actually damaged a finished portion of my home at that time, as opposed to embarrassing and messy ones in unfinished basements that were really just huge inconveniences and didn't really cost me anything more than clean-up time and loss of dignity. And that one was not aquarium-related in any way, just an unfortunate combination of breakdowns and malfunctions amongst the countless pumps and gadgets that keep a rural home humming along.

If I had such a living-area disaster caused by aquariums, I suspect my matrimonial bliss would likely feel the strain just like yours would. But my wife knows about a couple of previous girlfriends who forced me to face their ultimatums long in the past...and she knows that's why they are in the past. My standard answer to those "It's the (fill-in-the-blank) or me!" confrontational demands has always been "Well, the (fill-in-the-blank) was here long before you showed up...and will still be here long after you're gone!" :)

It's like that country song, in which the guy is singing about his wife who is complaining about his constant fishing; she tells him if he goes one more time, she's going to leave him. The next line is something like "I'm gonna miss her...oh, looky there...I've got a bite!" :ROFL:
 
esoxlucius said:
Reading through this thread it has just struck me that I fall into an extremely niche bracket, in fact it would seem that I may be totally unique within the hobby, the only one!!

What I'm referring to is overfilling tanks during maintenance and flooding the floor.

I have never ever, in my whole two stints in this hobby, spanning decades, ever accidently overfilled a fish tank whilst refilling during a water change. Ever!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a poke at anyone who has, because, if you get distracted seriously enough, then you're in trouble, and some of you still bare the mental scars, lol.

A serious flood in our house would finish my hobby off. My wife only just tolerates it as it is, even though she now has a little tank of her own. There will be no second chances for me, and maybe this is what makes me so anal when it comes to water changes.

Surely I can't be the only hobbyist who is either such a professional at water changes, or just downright lucky!!
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That’s exactly what I’m trying to say. I’ve been in the hobby for over two years now, and I’ve NEVER overfilled a tank or pond during a water change either.

Could it be because I’m still considered a “noob” compared to you guys?
 
AR1 said:
That’s exactly what I’m trying to say. I’ve been in the hobby for over two years now, and I’ve NEVER overfilled a tank or pond during a water change either.

Could it be because I’m still considered a “noob” compared to you guys?
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In my case, I believe it's my meticulous and steadfast approach to the hobby. My unwavering single-minded commitment to the cause has, no doubt, played a significant part in ensuring my carpets remain dry!!

In your case?......just lucky I guess!! Lol.
 
I have overfilled tanks so many times, I consider it it common place and don't worry about it., or even considered it worthy of calling it a mistake
When I sold my house I considered replacing some floors was just part of the hobby.
After a while though, I added check and float valves to every sump to lessen over flow regularity.
https://hosting.photobucket.com/alb...ghres/053.jpg?width=320&height=320&fit=bounds, https://hosting.photobucket.com/alb...sce2e70ad.jpg?width=320&height=320&fit=bounds
These days, because my tanks are outside, they overflow almost every night during the rain season, and I look forword to it, and the . extra dailyn water changes
There are built in overflow ports to send water a couple feet away.
IMG_2606.jpeg,
IMG_6683.jpeg
 
jjohnwm said:
Well, I agree to a certain extent, Esox: you're definitely unique! :thumbsup:

I'm extremely lucky in that I have suffered only one big flood that actually damaged a finished portion of my home at that time, as opposed to embarrassing and messy ones in unfinished basements that were really just huge inconveniences and didn't really cost me anything more than clean-up time and loss of dignity. And that one was not aquarium-related in any way, just an unfortunate combination of breakdowns and malfunctions amongst the countless pumps and gadgets that keep a rural home humming along.

If I had such a living-area disaster caused by aquariums, I suspect my matrimonial bliss would likely feel the strain just like yours would. But my wife knows about a couple of previous girlfriends who forced me to face their ultimatums long in the past...and she knows that's why they are in the past. My standard answer to those "It's the (fill-in-the-blank) or me!" confrontational demands has always been "Well, the (fill-in-the-blank) was here long before you showed up...and will still be here long after you're gone!" :)

It's like that country song, in which the guy is singing about his wife who is complaining about his constant fishing; she tells him if he goes one more time, she's going to leave him. The next line is something like "I'm gonna miss her...oh, looky there...I've got a bite!" :ROFL:
Click to expand...
When I kept Discus was the time when I became more consumed with the hobby due to work intensive nature of Discus keeping. I found my wife on the phone and browsing the internet; she was looking at full-body fish costumes and telling her friend she was considering wearing one so I would notice her more around the house. We've been together 24 years and she's very much ok with my tanks so long as they look like nice and flow with the rest of the home.
 
ken31cay said:
But I when I think about all the fish I've kept through the years and I'd estimate 95% of those met an untimely demise sooner or later due to one mistake or another on my part... there are too many mistakes to really mention them all. What's important to me is that I don't make the same mistake twice. Except for the water change flooding of course.
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This ^ is an important point. Fish in nature die, generally speaking, from natural causes. Mankind causes the death of many, to be sure, but most simply are eaten by predators. Very few fish, or any animals, live long happy lives in nature and then die of old age; those that do are very lucky.

Fish in aquariums might die of old age, but again, those are rare. Most will die due to our silly mistakes, neglect, bad luck, ignorance, or other "unnatural" causes. A tetra that is eaten by a pike cichlid in nature has died a natural death; when the same thing happens in one of our tanks, it's our fault, because we put those two fish together in the first place. Same thing with disease; in nature, a certain amount of disease-induced death is inevitable...but in a fish tank the diseases usually hit as a result of poor water conditions or lack of quarantine or some other circumstance the we have unnaturally created.

In fact, I'd wager that very few fish actually die in nature due to disease; rather, they become slower, weaker, less able to escape predation...and thus are killed and eaten before the disease runs its course. It's only in our tanks that diseased fish are "lucky" enough to get the opportunity to suffer through the entire prolonged painful disease process until it kills them.

I owned a large Jelly Cat once upon a time for about a decade; I was one of a short string of owners that fish had during a captive lifespan that stretched out over at least 30 years...and even that fish died during a botched transfer attempt from one owner to another, rather than succumbing to the almost-mythical "old age".


AR1 said:
That’s exactly what I’m trying to say. I’ve been in the hobby for over two years now, and I’ve NEVER overfilled a tank or pond during a water change either.

Could it be because I’m still considered a “noob” compared to you guys?
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Yup! :)
 
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