Hi again! I have another suggestion for a weekly or monthly segment: Things that Go Wrong! I think it'd be cool to have a description of a problem that occurs in reef tanks and how a tank or owner can recover! Anything from critters dying for no apparent reason, to water overflowing out of the sump, etc. Disasters! What can we learn from them.

"why did i fall" by Sir Pitfall

"Back Bush Engineering Disasters" by YoYo S.

Ya mostly hear about success or systems that just turned out great when you read most aquarium magazines online or off. I think it'd be extremely beneficial to both experienced and noob reefers to hear about failures that the pro reefers have had and how they came out of it. I figure it's just as important to learn from other's failures as their successes.

And since this community here at TR is totally nurturing to the folks on the boards rather tha accusatory (I hate all that finger shaking I've seen on other boards), I'd totally feel safe with sharing my mistakes (maybe in a later post), and I hope folks will feel the same way.

Given the recent thread http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2620 for the first one I suggest "do not keep electronic gear on your person while working on your tank"!

u got a chuckle out of me blub..!

pinecone, i hear where your coming from, my input is "dont drink & think"
can cause you some problems..lol

cause & effect heads-up when your knee deep in problems, thats basicly what the forums are already filled with! i applaud your idea though.
your appointed to be the first to kick it off with a pitfall, and a solution to fix the problem and also throw in the solution to avoiding it for others. have i assessed your idea correctly?

Well, I was basically hoping that a seasoned veteran, an expert, or someone with tons and tons of reef keeping experience would detail any recent blunders or mistakes that lead to some kind of major problem in their tank. The idea being that even the best aquarists make mistakes and that us noobies aren't alone.

Well, for what it's worth, I'll give it a stab:

I was in Hawaii on vacation and I noticed these cool looking snails, black nerites I think and periwinkle snails in the intertidal zone. So I figured, I'd snag a bunch on the day of our return home and toss 'em in my tank. Yay, more clean up crews!

I go home, acclimated them with a nice slow drip over a couple hours and then introduced them into the tank. It went really well for weeks! I was so happy (but knowing that I probably broke a bunch of fish and wildlife laws... looking back at that I gotta say... bad me!!!!)

But slowly, these new snails were disappearing one by one. I couldn't find their shells. Did they bury themselves? I didn't think these intertidal snails burried themselves.

The numbers got down to near 0 when I started poking around the back of tank. There they were! Stuck to the back of the tank. They had secured themselves back there with their mucus lining and waited for the tide to come back. Most of them were dead :( but amazingly enough, some were still alive when I pulled them out. The ones that were still alive were moist and reactive to touch. So I tossed those guys back into the tank.

Bad, bad me for collecting them in the first place. And dumby me for not realizing that intertidal means... um... intertidal.

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Oooh, now here's a really bad one. Top off water. I come back from a week long vacation and I had forgotten to ask the house sitter to top off my tank. So when I got home, 1/4 of the tank's water was gone! So I got some RO/DI water together and I dumped it in. All of it. All at once. That killed off a clownfish (female of a pair) and a couple of other fish. Like within 10 minutes! It was horrible. I just wasn't thinking!!!! :slap:

I've done the same...

I've been "playing" with marine systems since the 70's. I collected lots of things (as a kid) and tried to keep them. Some of the species found around Cape Cod, MA USA are easy, like killifish. Others...not such a good idea.

Snails... yeah..have had the opportunity of collecting and keeping snails from MA waters. First of all, they do NOT fare well in reef temperatures. Second point.. they are opportunistic and if the tank is not fed "to their liking" they will take what they want :)

Feeder shrimp... I catch and use glass/ghost shrimp often. Before my brain kicked in, I'd just toss them into the reef tank as food for my fish. Then, one day, Uh-oh... parasitic isopods..and they latched onto all my cleaner shimp. I still use the ghost shrimp to this day, but have created a 3 stage QT and culling program.

D

how that for timing.. stay tuned...

http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/showthread.php?p=34216#post34216

OMG, Rob. Devistating! :(
Stiff upper lip, my friend. I know a lot of good will come out of this for your show and for the community. But it still majorly sucks to see your tank take a huge mortal strike like this. I hope you save as many critters as possible! Good luck to you and your tank!!!!