OMG Moments of Stupidity...

[user 26995]

Great lesson for us all! I wouldnt have thought about not using that on acrylic either.

so when i thaught it would be a good idea to get in to this hobby i got a 29 tall acrillic tank and stand for my station at the tattoo studio , mind you the only salt water experience i had previously was , toping off a 125 and cleaming muck out of the sump . \
so i got this 29 up and running , after many failed attempts to keep any thing but a damsel and a cardnal alive . i figgured its time for upgrade to a larger tank , that will fix the problem right ??? not finding any thing i truely wanted to spend my money on i said skrew it ill just clean up this little 29 and deal with it for a while . so i pulled out the tank , and cleaned 6 mos or so of dribbles and splashes off the viewing surfaces with what i had on hand like always . well here is the fun part . what i always have on hand is 70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol ! so after i got every thing cleaned i decided to put my plastic reef background on the back of the tank , thinking a wet surface would help hold this in place i drenched the back of the tank and slapped said plastic sheeting up , slid the tank back in place and every thing looked great ........for a moment ...


in the middle of working on a good client i noticed what looked like the the background was shrinking or bubbling , probally a chemical reaction on the cheep plastic t i was thinking
so 30 min goes by and it is getting worse . looks like its actually cracking , crap right , i place my hand behind the tank and the whole tank is bowing out about an inch ! wholey crap thats the tank cracking not the background ! so said client offers a 75 glass tank thats sitting at his house for me to trade work for , . sends hid buddy to the house yto get the tank . while we are both sittin there watching these cracks grow larger by the moment ! tank arives i gingerly transfer every thing over and save every thing in the tank .

no one told me not to use alcohol to clean with , my bad . not only can it seep trhough the tank , but causes this fun thing called crazing ! i had to move that tank out of my storage , last week and when i grabbed it to move it it shattered like tempered glass ! 30 gals almost ended on the floor while i had clients from a stupid mistake . never again though .

 

[str8juizy]

LOL, I'm so glad I started this thread! I have not only laughed at the stories but learned a thing or two as well! I have another story that I forgot about... I had my first tank which was a 55 gallon and wanted to upgrade to a bigger tank so I got a tank double the size drilled with an overflow. I had no idea what to do when I was setting up the sump and plumbing because until then everything had always been hanging on my tank... sump, filter... so I was doing all the attaching of hoses and whatnot myself and being a girl I am not that good at that kind of stuff. So I was tightening the hose onto the part of the tank where it then goes down into the sump. I tightened it too tight and CRACK! I cracked my new tank! This was not just a little crack it was a bunch of big ones (guess I don't know my own strength!). So I had all of the contents of my old tank in buckets and a buyer for all my old stuff coming in an hour. I had to call him to cancel & put everything back into my old tank. Needless to say that when I finally decided (and could afford) to try upgrading again I had a fellow reefer off of here come over to help me. After being out of the hobby for a year, when I started back up again a couple of months ago I went back to a 55 gallon with everything hanging on the tank! Both I and my tank are happy!

 

[Jozee]

Bumping this one as it's these stories are awesome

My boo-boo was forgetting my RO/DI nozzle in the bucket in the laundry room and overflowing the whole room. Yeah - totally forgot about it and had several gallons on the floor. The laminate has a couple of gaps now, but what the hell. I hate honey oak anyway.

 

[kpiotrowski]

Just added a powder form of alkalinty directly to a tank...but I was addiing it to surface skimming attachment on the intake of a hob skimmer. missed the mark and ended up sprinking a mushroom tank with the powder which settled on half of them. They didn't like that too much and spilled thier guts in defense of whatever was "attacking" them. here was about a dozen giant mushroom with 5 inch tall guts sticking out of them. I had started world war 3 I figured in this mushroom and leather tank. but no losses and nothing looks disturbed.