DOH!

[cwolfus]

Reading a recent thread I was struk by how many crashed, tank failures, and near misses can be attributed to the little things we do/change or fail to do/change. It got me thinking that while I hate to flaunt my own stupidity this is the way we all learn.

So, how about posting the silly dumb things you've done to endanger your tank (or house)?

I'll start...

Blaming my hermits for killing snails, I rounded them all up and put them in my sump. After a few months all my chaeto was gone leading (in part) to a lot more algae in the tank. Joy!

Also, there was the time I decided to move the 1G jug of ALK to a stand over my sump. When the aqualifter kicked on the next morning my 70G tank received 1G of ALK! (FWIW, while I thought I killed my tank afew water changes later almost everything was fine).

What have you done?

 

[dswong01]

Dumb stuff I done filling the top off tank from my 50 gallon ro drum with ro water and get caugth up in doing something else on the tank and forgetting I was filling the top off tank.

 

[JAR]

Dumb stuff I done filling the top off tank from my 50 gallon ro drum with ro water and get caugth up in doing something else on the tank and forgetting I was filling the top off tank.

Ha! that's nothin'. I do that like twice a month!

 

[Plumstr8]

Taking algea from a bucket that has been in the garage for three weeks with not heat, no light and dirty water. Then puttingit in my new refugium thinking it would come back to life
Two days later AMMONIA is so high from the dead algea, I end up doing a 100 gallon water change in 18 hours. DUHHH!

 

[yardartist]

Forgetting to break the siphon, multiple times. First the overflow, then the return hose. I have now converted to a system where no hose can start a siphon.

Starting the return when the hose is not in the tank, twice. Correction, no more return pump or hose.

In the process I gained a room back as the noise is all but gone. This little change could be the silly dumb thing though as the NO3- export is not as heafty as it was. Ask me in a few months...

 

[CookieJar]

With a programmable thermostat for the living room, thinking that when I turned it 'on' it would turn off at a set temp, but instead of kept on *all day* bringing my tank temp up to 103F, cooking 1/2 of the live stock in my tank.

 

[JAR]

With a programmable thermostat for the living room, thinking that when I turned it 'on' it would turn off at a set temp, but instead of kept on *all day* bringing my tank temp up to 103F, cooking 1/2 of the live stock in my tank.

That is some furnace you have there!

 

[Gomer]

My worst was when I started out. I was dosing 2part and didn't pay attention to salinity over time. I think I ended up around 1.031 (decided to test one day). In the course of a day or so, I brought it down to 1.027. Way tooo fast. I bleached out everything.

 

[sfsuphysics]

starting up a reef tank...

 

[xcaret]

Well. hope this one wins "Dumb action of 2010"
Getting an infection for not using gloves and having a small cut where all started... :crown:

 

[Elite]

Paid a premium price for rocks that covered with red slim algae thinking it was coraline

 

[JAR]

OK, OK, well I was gluing frags to plugs and I went to pull the cap off the glue with my teeth. And well guess what? Surprise, the cap was already off! I got a mouth full of super glue. It mostly came out when I spit but it was stuck to parts of my teeth for a few hours. :bigsmile:

 

[anathema]

Last time I cleaned the sump I put it all back together and put about ten gallons of water in. Then I switched on the heater and went back to cleaning the rest of the system while the water preheated. I smelled burning electricals and freaked out, killed all power, took me a while to figure out the compartment in my sump with the heater had no water in it...

So I immediately dumped water in, shattered the heater, and realized I was an idiot but happily smart enough to have turned off the heater. Thought they were supposed to auto shut off.

 

[houser]

Where do I start?

I've had many blunders but I think for absolute simplicity and a prime example of "DOH" it's when you put water where it is not supposed to go. Overflow the DI tank, fill hose falls out of sump, etc... Happens more often than not. Good one in my old apartment when my diy hob skimmer had a snail block the return and the supply pump kept on trucking, sending a good 15 gallons onto the floor and through my downstairs neighbors ceiling. Oops. Told the landlord I had a large cooler full of ice that melted. Yeah, had to pay for that one.......

 

[GDawson]

Finished up a WC and was standing bare foot in a puddle of water when I plugged in the return pump.

-Gregory

 

[seminolecpa]

Dropping a glob of super glue in my tank and having my foxface eat it, subsequently gluing its mouth shut.

The fish is still with me more then a year later.

 

[JAR]

I remember that! Still unbelievable!!!!
And I know just how he felt...

 

[nudibranch]

One time someone (I still do not know who, my dad or I) left my heater on in my 25 gallon and I did not check my thermometer and it fried my tank full of livestock except my immortal mushrooms and my GSP that were later killed by some worm thing. Another time
I turned off power in my tank to stop the flow and see if a fire worm was alive; I decide to check the sump and it is overflowing. I must have lost at least a gallon; then to make matters worse the water got underneath my tank so my dad and I had to move the tank a little bit then back again.

 

[BigMac]

Not putting in a 11 dollar float valve cost me a new kitchen floor.

I put a bucket in the kitchen to fill up with ro di, spaced out and went to work. It's a 100gal per day system.

Dosing mag without a test kit.. duh

 

[tuberider]

Letting friends drink around my tanks and wondering why my skimmer was all of the sudden overflowing....