Mistakes I made as a Newbie

I bought a used 100 gallon tank (with sump, pumps, MH lights, actinic lights, moon lights, timers, fish, LR, corals, anemones, cabinets, timers, sand, CUC, testing kits, maintenance/cleaning kits, water containers, tugs, RO/DI system, etc...) on Craigs list. It has a few scratches, but does not leak. I paid less than 10% of what it would have cost me new. It's been great for the entire family. Your results may vary, maybe I got lucky.

 

I agree.I have found many great buys on CL.Just this one wasnt so great.

 

Bought the wrong size bulk heads and tried to force into the back glass....Ouch!

Had to replace...



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Biggest mistake I made was I bought everything from the first LFS I saw, didn't do any research, and believed everything the sales guy told me in the LFS. Whole system crashed in a few days.

That was way back in 2007.

 

I had customers come in over the weekend that had a 30 gallon hex. (I.e. tall and skinny and not a lot of horizontal swimming space). It turns out one of our competitors felt that it was ok to sell them 3 tangs and 2 "nemos".

 

perfectly reasonable

 

My biggest mistake was going to a now closed LFS and buying thousands in supplies such as LR and salt and course CC for the base and taking everyone's word as law and not doing any research. I didn't cycle my tank. I set it up and let it run for 3 days after I put my LR in and then the next day started buying things for the tank. Then everything went down hill because starting off I had a old fresh water setup that I figured would work for saltwater, there is no difference right? :-[ No fuge or anything special. Salt mix, filter, light that came with tank, and about 2 grand in LR and other various testing equipment I didn't understand because I wanted a awesome saltwater tank. Threw everything together in a 2 weeks span and enjoyed it for about a week and stuff started killing each other or dying from ammonia. I was a total idiot

If I had it all to do over now many years later I would totally do everything from the ground up and make sure everything is completely established and done correctly. I would research all my creatures before I bought them and put them in my tank. That was an expensive lesson I don't want to experience again. I really would like to get another tank set up but this time I am taking my time and I don't want to do a setup in a place I may have to move from any time soon.

 

Oh my .....

 

In my first tank I didnt do a water change for 6 months and orginally used tap water to set up my tank and then didnt know why I had diatom outbreaks all the time lol But im on tank number 3 now and no algae break outs or phospates and 10-15%water changes weekly

 

I believe Yahoo! answers are bad for all kinds of hobbies, saltwater/reef tanks especially.