I have seen a lot of beginners posting on here lately and started thinking about when I started out and all the mistakes I have since I started keeping fish. What are some of yours?

My biggest mistake(s) to date is:

1. Not knowing about BB and cycling a tank (I was new to the hobby).
2. Cleaning up plants that were pulled up and floating around and accidentally flushing a Bamboo shrimp in the process.

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75 Gallon Planted

Oh where to start....started off w/ a 5 gallon, stocked with 8 fish. When I was told the goldies couldnt be in there i put them in a bowl (strike one) then proceeded to change the water in the bowl daily with straight from the tap water that was not unchlorinated (strike two) and killed them (guess they only alotted 2 strikes). I then decided to get the 29 gallon and over stocked it, didnt cycle it, put fish that would get way too big for it in there....yup I've done it all and i'm sure i'll make more mistakes as I go along.

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"Being ignorant is not so much a Shame, as being unwilling to learn".-- Benjamin Franklin

My biggest mistake? Probably when I decided to deep clean my 1.5 gallon tank. Aside from the guppy and amano shrimp refusing to stay in their containers, I rinsed my filter under straight tap water, then really washed out my gravel, getting rid of most, if not all of my bacteria. In the end, the betta got a fungus and died, the guppy died too, but i think that might have been from bloat, my original anubias died, and the only things left standing were my dwarf lilly and the amano shrimp. I think what made it worse was the tank re-cycling while the fish were dying...

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

My mom and dad were divorced so I would go spend the weekend at his house 1 or 2 weekends a month. We got a fish tank over there, 20 gallon. 1 or 2 times a month... depending on how often I went there we completely cleaned the tank. Took the gravel out, washed the filter, like SCRUBBED it down. I used dish soap on the glass... inside and out. Yeah and all the fish survived... Not my fault but my father was disabled and he turned off the light switch that controlled the light, and filter for a week. I got there and it was completely slimy and green cloudiness. Ugh, I just about died. Worst ever. That was like 10 years ago, recently... knowing much more I NEVER make mistakes.. (sarcasm) but my fiance and I were going to transfer fish from upstairs to down. I asked him to go get said fish and handed him a bucket. He went upstairs, filled bucket with tub water and got the fish... with tub water, that was freezing. They all died in the night including my 3 glass catfish. Ahhh!

Introducing, otincolises (I'm not sure how you spell it) with my betta.

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Ha Ha Ha, Ha Ha Ha, Haaa...
I don`t get it

This just happened recently. I bought a new canister filter for my tank and it was not cycled or anything so what I did was put the old filter media in some pantyhose and let it float in the water. Well I didn't cut off the end, so my fish went in there and got stuck and died ;[

OMG! Yeah, I am sure if the temperature shock didn't kill them the PH shock or the extreme stress of it all would have been the other reason. At least he didn't try to wash them with dish soap

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75 Gallon Planted

I've lost count!

the dumbest thing ive done... Well ive done Most of whats said above... however i attribute that to being new lol... *my excuses are unlimited* anyhow The Dumbest thing was i got a heater off my brother who wasnt using it anymore... I seen the crack on the glass... i was like Oh damn there is a crack in this Heater.. Well hopefully it works *Facepalm* So even tho i knew it was cracked.. i Knew it was going to be pluged into the wall. I KNEW it was going into water.... lets just say 2+2 =10 at this point... i pluged that bad boy in and placed my hand into the water... needless to say the heater worked and shocked the SH*T outta me lol

Ha ha ha, that's fantastic seven!

Didn't feel fantastic I can assure you of that LOL

Worst mistake I have made so far is stuck between putting a foot long dragon goby in my 15 gal freshwater tank, or buying 3 bala sharks, 1 groumi, 3 long finned rosy barbs, and 3 tiger barbs for the same tank when I started >.<

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Frontosa Fanatic

Well if you realized how big of a mistake you made, and are trying to fix it, I'm not gonna get mad at that one
Am I the only one who's kept a pair of tiger barbs in a long-fin community tank with no visible side effects?

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Got a 2 gallon unfiltered, put a 2 inch angelfish in there, next, put 2 male guppies and 2 ghost shrimps in there. ghost shrimps survived 3 days. guppies died next day. Got a hm betta, he was lazy always hiding, so i chased it around with a stick constantly. died next day.