I am guilty of doing several 'less than safe' things since I started my tank.

Case number 1 - when I first got my tank setup I went out and bought 100+ pounds of live rock to seed my aquarium from someone who had taken down their tank. That rock had been infested with Texas Trash polys. Being new, I was told to just put in the rocks that did not smell dead, and that I should just scrape off the dead/dying polyps from rock that did not pass the smell test. I ended up having to scrape a large amont of polys off of a number of rocks. I did not use gloves, and bad things happened. First, the rock put all types of small cuts all over my hand, which got infected and festered. Even worse I cut myself with the instrument I used to scrape off the polys. That cut got severly infected. The following morning my entire hand was swollen, red, and I had red lines running up my arm. I am fortunate that my infections responded to antibiotics... but a lesson learned.

Case number 2 - I started running bio pellets in my tank. However, when I first started I put too many biopellets and clouded all of my water. Instead of chancing anything, I turned off the pump through the reactor holding the bio-pellets. I left all equipment in place, just no water flow through it, and it sat for several months before I returned to try biopellets again. STUPID!!! Once I came back I knew that I had to get rid of the old water sitting in the bio pellets. What I did not realize was how much gas (hydrogen sulfide I believe) was created by the bio pellets in the reactor. I took the lid off of the reactor in my living room and was immediately hit by the stench of rotten eggs and became extremely light headed. I later learned that I probably dodged a bullet here. When I called poison control (to find out if I had to evacuate my family out of the house), they told me that since I was talking to them on the phone I was probably OK, but that I could have been knocked uncounsious and potentially killed (depending on the time it would have taken to get me to the ER). Even though I was working on the tank in the living room, nobody knew I was over there. The smell did travel, but it would have taken some time before I would have been found. I did have to evacuate the house by the way... and since this happened at 9PM I had to wake the kids up. That is really the only time Annalisa has been mad at me.

I have since learned that I don't touch my tank when I fell rushed or I don't have time to dedicate to doing the job I want to do right. I work a lot and time is often in short supply, but this simply is not a hobby that can be rushed at any stage.