biggest mistakes you have ever made in fish keeping

[ember04]

At my old house, the sink was around the corner from my tanks. I gravel vac into a drum and move from tank to tank and have a submersable pump that goes to the sink. Just as I was about done draining I noticed water seeping through the wall from laundry room and yep....the hose popped out of the sink. 200 gallons of dirty fish water on the ground.....that was a fun clean up.

Also, when I was a teenager I bought a piranha my 10 gallon tank. He wouldn't eat flakes so I gave him salami which he devoured. He didn't live long.

Lots of water change mistakes.... water on the ground exploding heaters..... smashed lids.....definitely learned from my mistakes.

it is always good to learn from your mistakes well done

 

[ZoopooZ]

Biggest mistake I made was putting a tea towel over the fish tank after a part of the lid cracked and broke - this was about 3 months after I got my first tank.
The tea towel absorbed the water and started to leak outside the tank. Somehow the water followed a trail directly down to the power socket and tripped the whole house out while I was sleeping.

There was no real damage except for waking up in a pool of sweat during a hot summers night after the air conditioning tripped out.

After that I just lived with our half a lid and only had one or two fish jump to their deaths.

 

[bettafrog]

Um... probably mine was actually starting fish keep keeping.... MTS!!!

No seriously: Mine was the first fish I ever got, Zen. He was just a regular veil tail betta, that was light purple/light blue/white. I put him in a 0.5g (yes, 0.5g) “show tank”, no filter or heater. After just simp,y googling bettas, I learned they needed a WHOLE lot of other stuff. So I got him a 2.5g tank, filtered and heated. He died later due to dropsy.

I really only started caring for my fish more and more, when I moved to KY and found TFF! TFF has helped me get a grip on my fish keeping, and I am enterally grateful.

Aww my first betta was a purple/blue veiltail too! I kept him in a 2 gallon but eventually upgraded him to a 5. The only thing I did right was water conditioner and heating. He'd be proud to see how far I've come in fish keeping and I'm glad to have fish forums now so I can continue to improve!?

 

[bettafrog]

.........my frog accidentally got dropped down the sink drain? RIP Lee

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Aww my first betta was a purple/blue veiltail too! I kept him in a 2 gallon but eventually upgraded him to a 5. The only thing I did right was water conditioner and heating. He'd be proud to see how far I've come in fish keeping and I'm glad to have fish forums now so I can continue to improve!?

I think Zen would as well.

.........my frog accidentally got dropped down the sink drain? RIP Lee

Oh no! Poor guy...

 

[ember04]

.........my frog accidentally got dropped down the sink drain? RIP Lee

oh no

 

[EmmaTheCabbage]

Kept an African clawed frog with fancy goldfish because the pet store lady said it would be ok. I was super new to the hobby and got all my bits from her. Came home from school one day with my favourite gold fishes eyes ripped out. That goldfish was my first fish and I think I had him for close to a year at that point so was super sad when he died. I think I cried for days. Also had to return the frog. That mistake still haunts me till this day. Miss that fish so much.

 

[Fish4dawin]

When I was 6 or 7 we got a 5 gallon tank. We knew how to cycle the tank but never looked into what we could put in the tank. I remember putting in a ruby shark/rainbow shark and a bosemani rainbow along with some rummynose tetras. Definitely not my smartest choice when I was young.

 

[bettafrog]

Kept an African clawed frog with fancy goldfish because the pet store lady said it would be ok. I was super new to the hobby and got all my bits from her. Came home from school one day with my favourite gold fishes eyes ripped out. That goldfish was my first fish and I think I had him for close to a year at that point so was super sad when he died. I think I cried for days. Also had to return the frog. That mistake still haunts me till this day. Miss that fish so much.

aww im so sorry to hear that I had a similar experience where the pet store employee told us we could but these white and blue stripped fish with our African clawed frogs and within days they were gone. I think they mixed up clawed and dwarf, I wish pet store employees got proper training ugh!

 

[itiwhetu]

A part from killing a couple of thousand neon's in quarantine. I think my next real mistake was building a tank stand out of dexion and putting a thirty six inch tank on the top. it ended up on the floor one night along with the two foot tanks underneath it. I am still not sure what was worse the fish or the water!!. Luckily most of the fish were platty's and bounced back, the wife not so much

 

[jonny-5]

My mum had some Goldfish in a reasonably sized tank (prob 10 Gallon) & i remember thinking "What a waste of a tank" ?, i also thought it looked quite sad on its own so i asked at the LFS & they told me to liven the tank up with a few Zebra Danios, So i did & after a few days they were gone. I knew that the Goldfish had eaten them, So this got me a little interested in keeping a few easy to look after tropical fish.
So i bought a small 5 Gallon with no light & put 3 Zebra Danios in it, I then bought a standard house flourescent light fitting & fixed it in the hood, Returning from work 1 day i checked the fish & they were all dead, Unknown to me i had left the light on all day & the tube had heated up the water to over 90oC
?
Please dont judge me, i was dumb ?