3 Pieces of Advice for Beginner Reef Keepers?

Not always, some nano setups are running without them, although they are probably preferred.

 

As could I.lol You can avoid number 4 all together if you don't overstock and choose wisely.

 

1. research everything you can about the hobby and know what your getting into BEFORE you get into it
2. Know that it is your responsibility to take care of these animals and provide the most natural habitat that you reasonably can
3. never stop learning! keep an open mind and trade experiences with other reefers.

I know these are very broad, but I stand by them
I manage a LFS and I can tell you, we (the people that work at LFS's) do NOT know everything. Take our advice as a starting point and make your own decisions.
I know Im beating a dead horse with the whole research thing, but you would be surprised how uninformed alot of people are. I have customers that ask me if they can keep nemo in a bowl of water mixed with table salt. not kidding. And 30% of my customers think a serpent star is an octopus.

 

Coming from freshwater to saltwater, I have to break it down into these 3 factors.
1. There's no such thing as a dumb question. If you don't understand something, ask (after you do your research)!
2. Know the needs/requirements of your life stock.
3. To save money in the long run and extend the life of your equipment, you must perform maintenance.

 

Awesome Really like to see that we're all on this forum, mainly to help others reef keepers, or seek advice from others that might know better. Thanks for making these replies, it will definitely be a topic for beginner reef keepers to read on, to get some few pieces of advice.

 

Yup, they can run without. But, i do waterchanges instead of dosing, so i get some high quality reef salt, and change about 10 - 15% of the water. Have always done so, always will (in my nano)