Dumb things we have done

[Shane]

No matter how long you have been in the hobby we have all made "dumb" mistakes.

The below 29 has been suffering an algae outbreak for the last two weeks. Even my daughter noticed and asked why. I told her I couldn't figure it out.

Yesterday morning at 6am I ran down to the fishroom to get something and noticed the 29's lights were on. I looked under the tank and realized the timer had jammed against another cord with the result that the lights had been on 24/7 for two weeks!

99% of algae outbreaks are caused by a combination of too much light and too many nutrients. As there are currently no fish in the tank, I should have deduced it was a lighting issue in one minute... Not two weeks.

What mistakes do you look back on and laugh at yourself?

-Shane

[fishguy1978]

That is a beautiful tank

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Yesterday morning at 6am I ran down to the fishroom to get something and noticed the 29's lights were on. I looked under the tank and realized the timer had jammed against another cord with the result that the lights had been on 24/7 for two weeks!

99% of algae outbreaks are caused by a combination of too much light and too many nutrients. As there are currently no fish in the tank, I should have deduced it was a lighting issue in one minute... Not two weeks.

What mistakes do you look back on and laugh at yourself?

I've managed this one as well, I wouldn't feel too bad, I'm a graduate botanist with another degree in horticulture and I failed to work out what was happening for a lot longer. From <UKAPS: Is it disastrous >:

......... I had some very yellow frogbit in one of the tanks in the lab. and I couldn't work out why. I started feeding them more, I gave them different iron chelates etc. but all with the same result, reasonably large rosettes of very yellow leaves. The plants didn't die, they just looked horrible and sickly.

I was only ever in the lab. when the lights were on and I could see that the mechanical time switch was keeping time, and that the timing pins were in position. One evening I was working late and when I came back past the lab. at ~20:00 and I could see the tank lights were still on.

The lights had (and I still have the same) time switch with a button on the side for "timer" or "on" and at some point it had been changed from "timed" to "constantly on". I don't know when exactly, but the Frogbit had been yellow for several months, so I imagine it was several months of 24 hours light.

When I changed the timer back to "timed" the plants greened up over the next few weeks......

cheers Darrel

[Jools]

On a related note, forgetting to close the freezer door in the fishroom and so heating many pounds of bloodworm and attempting to otherwise freeze the fishroom....


Jools

[ElTofi]

06.30 am, back washing a filter directly into the waste waters... and leaving for work... 2 hours later, by chance, my wife called me : is it normal that your big tank is half way empty ???

Gave emergency procedures, went back home (only 20 minutes from work) and didn't loose any fish... this time...

I have plenty of other stories... and some with a less happy ends...

[Shane]

Thanks @Fishguy1978
I copied it from the creek in my backyard.
-Shane

[Lycosid]

The heater needed to be at 78 degrees (F, obviously). I'm looking at the low-contrast numbers etched in the thermostat control on the heater and carefully set it for the one that ends in 8. A month later I have my arm in the tank and it's a lot warmer than the tank next to it, which is supposedly at the same temperature. I pull the heater out of the complicated heater guard I had made and see that I've set it at 88.

[Bas Pels]

After emptying my 4 meter tank, to get rid of a plague of Amatitlania nigrofasciata, the convict cichlid, but this was a rather nice looking variety from Guatemala, bangfull of corour, but 50 or more was way too much, I put Neetroplus nematopus in the tank, resultikng in another plaque.

Both species are rather agressive, good parents and adapable, so I could have foreseen this

A year later the tank had to be emptied again. The thing is, it takes some 20 hours in total, to empty and redecorate this tank

[fishguy1978]

Some of the faucet assemblies on the market use push-on connections with an o-ring seal. I used my faucet adapter to connect my fill hose and start filling an aquarium I service in a private home. Go to check the connection and find the bathroom flooded as the back pressure was to much for the connections. Cleaned up the mess and used an alternate method to refill the aquarium. Came back a month later and repeated the process of flooding the bathroom a second time.

[fishguy1978]

Thanks @Fishguy1978
I copied it from the creek in my backyard.
-Shane

Very cool. I have a pile of rocks waiting to be used for a background on my empty 260g tank. Hopefully, it will look so good.

[TwoTankAmin]

I have am honorary degree from NUWC (Noah's University of Water Changes). I was awarded this for my outstanding work in both emptying 20 gallons into a five gallon bucket as well as refilling multiple tanks with at least 30% more gallons than I removed from the tank. I was also given the further distinction being awarded the degree with Water Wings for having flooded more than one floor in a house in a single incident.

[fishguy1978]

I have am honorary degree from NUWC (Noah's University of Water Changes). I was awarded this for my outstanding work in both emptying 20 gallons into a five gallon bucket as well as refilling multiple tanks with at least 30% more gallons than I removed from the tank. I was also given the further distinction being awarded the degree with Water Wings for having flooded more than one floor in a house in a single incident.

Wow, I’m sorry for laughing at your flood but that’s really funny

[TalenT]

We were moving to another part of the country. Arrived and start getting unpacked in the new apartment. After some days we started to feel this horrible smell from the bathroom. We investigated if there was some broken pipe connection from the toilet seat or something, but everything seemed ok. The smell got worse and worse by the hour.
Next day the smell was almost unbearable, so we started rummaging through all the boxes and bags from the move. And opened a 50 liter plastic container and it almost made me throw up.
Somehow, several packages of frozen fish food; blood worms, brine shrimp, cyclops etc had been packed in this plastic container and then left out in room temperature to start to decompose.
Not recommended!

I still feel a sting of nausea just remembering it, more than a decade later.