Best and worst thing you have bought?

Best: Lumatek electronic ballast - my halide bulbs no longer cake even after 9 months and there are absolutely no swings in color. Possible tie with my Eheim 1260 sump pump. If you want a quiet and reliable sump pump, look no further.

Worst: One of those funky debris vacuums with the net attachment. I still have this thing and use it once in a blue moon in an attempt to clean my sump. But it's terrible. It falls apart and is not powerful. If anyone knows of a good one out there, let me know.

 

I got a buckethead from home depot for cleaning sump. Works great.. about $20 .. doesn't take up a lot of room like a big shop vac.
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=buckethead vaccum&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Fits on old salt buckets.

 

Wow look at that! That is really interesting. Fitting on a bucket makes it easy to measure how much you are pulling out too. Thank you Av8!

 

Must be similar to mine. I've only used it twice. The net bag doesn't really trap much once the impeller grinds it to dust. Made my water look milky, and it took my HOB nearly all day to clear it back up. On the plus side, the corals and featherdusters loved the detritus storm.

 

Yeah that sounds like mine.

 

+1 on the buckethead.

Best purchase: my new rimless tank
Worst purchase: cheaping out with a used skimmer. There is a reason people sell used stuff; they didn't like it.

 

Best purchase: Hard to select just one... My Bubble King SM250 skimmer, The easy blade to my magfloat, the Kamoer dosing pump...
Worst purchase: The Pomacanthus navarchus that brought ich to my tank killing 7 large fish (Paru, several Tangs, Sweetlips etc...)

 

This is a good thread.

I did one earlier based on livestock. Here is one for equipment.

Best: leds and drivers from rapidled. Haven't even set it up yet, but it's awesome.

Worst: AquaeuroUSA nano skimmer. It sucks and had to be modified to fit a framed tank.