$150 in prizes! Best/Worst Mistakes Contest

[brooklynfish]

About 8 months ago, when I was a newbe (?) (Still am one ), I decided to start a 10 gal. I bought everything I needed and had it all set up within 2 hours. I let the filter run for a wopping 3 hours. However, I become impatient and added my 2 beloved fantail goldfish, Mugo and Wiz . Unfortunetly, both died in about a week.

In the next 4 months, I lost several more goldfish. If I had known what cycling was, I would not have lost so many fish. I'm prolly going to blasted for:

Keeping 2 goldfish That would grow huge in a ten gal.
Not cycling my tank.
Getting more fish when I should not have.

R.I.P...to the goldfish who died
for me

Good luck to all!

[d3sc3n7]

Originally Posted by brooklynfish

Charls, IMO, your winning.

Neck and Neck?

[laurahammock]

My worst mistake? Not putting my tank up high enough. My son poured soda into my tank!! Thank goodness there were no fish in there. But, I had to start ALL over. Could've been worse. In one of my freshwater tanks, he put (all at one time!) a pair of his "big boy underwear", McDonald's french fries, a bowl of cucumbers (bowl and all) and a used dryer sheet. Luckily, my hearty little goldfish fared well. They even enjoyed the cucumbers quite a bit. So, maybe, my mistake is just HAVING a tank period with a three year old!!

BEAT THAT BABY!!

[d3sc3n7]

Originally Posted by laurahammock

My worst mistake? Not putting my tank up high enough. My son poured soda into my tank!! Thank goodness there were no fish in there. But, I had to start ALL over. Could've been worse. In one of my freshwater tanks, he put (all at one time!) a pair of his "big boy underwear", McDonald's french fries, a bowl of cucumbers (bowl and all) and a used dryer sheet. Luckily, my hearty little goldfish fared well. They even enjoyed the cucumbers quite a bit. So, maybe, my mistake is just HAVING a tank period with a three year old!!

BEAT THAT BABY!!

Oh, were getting into what our 3yr old put in the tank? You dont even stand a chance! LOL!!

[charls]

Looks like it's you and me d3sc3n7 for first.
Or i don't know having cucumbers, french fries, UNDERWEAR, and soda in a tank that's pretty bad.
Good luck to all and thank goodness for our misfortunes.

Oh and thank you brooklynfish for the vote of confidence.

[cra549]

Ok so Here is my story. When my nephew was 4 years old he wanted a pet so I decided to get him a betta. While we got him a very pretty betta and a 5 gallon tank to put him in. We told my nephew this was his pet to take care of which turned out to be a big mistake because he wound up feeding the poor betta peppreroni from his pizza. We did not notice that he did this until the following day when the water was all cloudy. The betta survived that but died the next day when my nephew decided to take him out of his tank and take him for a walk. Morel of the story never leave your tank unsupervised around children.

[fur43]

My story starts off under my loft bed (bunk bed like but with no bottom bunk)with my 10g fry tank full of about fifty or so platy fry. While feeding the fry I trip over some boards that's my sister's taken apart futon, causeing it to fall and crash into the tank cracking it up the whole side, it didnt break untill I tripped over the boards a second time. The glass just gave away and water was spilling everywhere. Thank goodness the tank is on a rolling cart, so I rolled it outside. I get a net and a bucket to put the fry in, it being a very windy day...I caught the fish in the net then they flew away. I didnt make an effort to find them in the tall grass.
By this time I have tears rolling down my face because this is the first time I had a breeder tank. My dad comes out and tries to help me find fry in the tanks' substrate. I ended up with about ten of the larger fry and the mothers in a five gallon bucket till we bought a new 10g.

The lessons learned: nothing that can fall around the tank, have a back up tank, and dont have fish out on a windy day.

[Devon Greatwolf]

Setup my first tank approximately five years ago. It is a 55 gallon. Got the tank from a friend took it home and cleaned really well with diluted bleach (plants, gravel and all). Set everything up real nice added some plants and decorations to suit my taste. Next I did my homework, learned about the "cycle" slowly added the following fish in this order: first 3 Opaline Gouramis & 6 tiger barbs; second 3 keyhole cichlids; third 5 panda Cories; fourth 5 rosy barbs; fifth 3 giant danios; and finally a rainbow shark. Everything was going swimmingly. Tank looked great if a little busy and crowded. A few weeks after adding the rainbow shark, I was at Wal-Mart buying fish food and picked up some aquarium plant bulbs. I thought having real plants would be great. Well I followed the instructions on the plants and they sprouted in no time. I had 6 red lily plants that all but covered the surface of my tank and some grassy looking plants lined across the back. I was feeling pretty proud of my self. Well the tank was ok for a while but due to heavy aeration and lack of light, the plants started to die back. The grassy ones went first and then after much picking by the rosy barbs the lilies were gone too. A few months later, I started losing fish almost daily and could not figure out why. I finally got my hands on a 30 gallon when I moved to my new house. I relocated the rainbow the one remaining Opaline and 1 tiger barb (and a platinum Gourami which was added right before the die-off started) to the thirty. Seeing as how I was moving, I decided to totally teardown the 55 and that’s when I found the problem. The plants that had died had left a huge cluster of decaying roots under my UGF which I suppose was a great source of anaerobic bacteria. Now all of my tanks (see my post here: I don’t know if I am just being needy, looking for "Ata boys” or for the old "What in) are UGF free and all has been going swimmingly for about 3 years.

[RoxnSox]

Originally Posted by laurahammock

My worst mistake? Not putting my tank up high enough. My son poured soda into my tank!! Thank goodness there were no fish in there. But, I had to start ALL over. Could've been worse. In one of my freshwater tanks, he put (all at one time!) a pair of his "big boy underwear", McDonald's french fries, a bowl of cucumbers (bowl and all) and a used dryer sheet. Luckily, my hearty little goldfish fared well. They even enjoyed the cucumbers quite a bit. So, maybe, my mistake is just HAVING a tank period with a three year old!!

BEAT THAT BABY!!

our son within a matter of 5 minutes of me being outside and smoking put a whole box of goldfish crackers, all our remotes, clothes, toys, 2 canisters of fish food and other variety of foods in our 55 gallon tank.

[Kissyboots]

Wow fur, I feel sorry for those poor little fishies in the grass! Anyway, I'm happy I didn't have tanks crack or other expensive problems. Oh, and btw, Roxsox has a beautiful avatar...