Mistakes you've made..

[Cameron]

Since i'm going to be starting a 20g tank in another month or two i want to know some mistakes you have made during your keeping of a reef or FOWLR tank, or setting up, introducing fish or whatever else. I think this should give me and others just starting out open minds to what can happen and how others went about fixing it or resolving the problem.

So thats it, anything you can think of with anything SW that you had a problem with or didn't go as you expected.

Thanks for all the help and guidence this community could offer!

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

Impulse Buys!!! When I first setup my very first reef tank, I added a yellow headed sleeper goby to the tank. That fish completely wiped out all living things in my sandbed. My Cyano stage was the worst one I have ever seen.

[coachfraley]

1. I made the mistake of listening to an LFS owner when it came to cleaning live rock. He told me that I needed to buy Kent rock prep, and that I needed to thouroughly scrub down my rocks before I put them in my tank. Looking back, that was a waste of time and money. I should have just dropped the rock in and let it cure.

2. I also waster money on a hydrometer. Should have bought a refractometer right away. Trust me, you will not regret it.

3. Should have started out big. Started with a nano (12g), then I bought a second tank (16g), now I am back to one tank (31g), but I am ready to go bigger. Save yourself some money and assume you want a big tank!

[Cameron]

Yeah i saw this one article where a guy tried 3 different Hydrometers and one was like 1.020 another 1.023 and the other was 1.028. After that im like screw it i'll just spend the extra 30$ and get something thats accurate..

[Miltonic]

I haven't been in the hobby long but so far the biggest mistake i made was getting fish too soon. I've learnt to wait and right now I'm more interested in getting corals than fish.

[AABatteries]

I don't think I've really made any mistakes. I've been using tap water though, just because I don't have the money for RO. I'll be getting an RO/DI unit soon though. I've had pretty minimal algae though.

[labnjab]

Buying wild Clowns. We went through 3 wild clowns in a month before getting our 2 tank raised which have been happy and healthy for 5 months

Not starting bigger We already want a 75 gallon and wish we would have saved more and started with that. There's nothing wrong with a 29, just not many options for fish

Not initially buying an RO/DI We spent roughly $210 on store bought RO the 6 months before we bought an RO/DI. We haven't spent a dime on RO in the last month since we got our own RO/DI and it will have payed for itself in a less then a month. Definantly a worthwile investment

Not Looking for Deals on Craigslist We found complete 75 to 90 gallon setups with live rock for $500 after spending $500 getting our 29 started. Craigslist is a great place too look before you make your initial purchase

edit: Introducing a non-aggressive fish after already having 3 aggressive fish we made the mistake of adding a firefish goby after having our clowns and hawkfish in our tank for several months. It didn't last 5 minuets before we had to remove it to our sump. Our hawkfish went to town on it and proceded to eat it, and then it didn't make it through the night. That was $17 down the toliet, literaly

[oldhead]

Taking advice from people regarding equipment/livestock purchases without researching for myself before buying. I could have saved a pretty significant amount of money looking back. You live and you learn though.

[cocoa_pleco]

- using tapwater

- impulse buying

- not using good equipment

[bill4t]

im starting my setup to from what ive read you definately want to start bigger in the beginning and get the good equipment now instead of later pretty soon i will start posting picts of my setup and i go along

[Tigerbarb]

Impulse buying.....

Impatience..........

Bad advice..........

Starting with a hydrometer............

Cutting corners..............