What you would of done?

Oh where do I begin?? :

1) NOT listened to my LFS owner (no offense to LFS owners but in hindsight this guy was a real doofus, and his store went under like a month after I set up my tank)
2) read some books/researched on the internet before even attempting it
3) not gone into petcetera and gotten roped in by their buy one get one free deal
4) figured out where hair algae comes from (see #2)
5) saved up some money for some "real" reef equipment instead of going with el cheapo equipment on the fly (see #1).

oh the list could go on but I'll stop here

 

I would have just went with a bigger tank then a 39 gallon, went with a sump system to start off , would have done more research and not lost fish so fast due to some bad advice to a lfs.

 

I guess I am lucky I find this site before I started.

 

I am starting over again

I would pick what I wanted and go slow like I am now letting Patience be the guide rather then my wallet. I have been setting this 210 up since January. by doing this I am getting the size I want but not getting it set up as fast. I like all the stuff i have gotten so far but the hard part is it isn't running yet.

 

No acrylic...

No Seaclear System II setup.. The overflow works nice but there is a lot of wasted space.. I basically have a 40 gal display with about 10 gal of water in the overflow..

I should have never used tap water... I fought wicked algae blooms in the begining... RODI or nothing now...

Overall, im pretty happy with my tank.

 

Would of bought a tank a little bigger than my std. 30g

 

I'm going on over a year now for setting up my 4'x5'x16" tank. Your so right, patience is key in this hobby.

 

I would have waited until I had everything on hand (pumps, lights, filters, supplements, test kits), 100$ surprises hurt limited student budgets. Other than that I'm pretty pleased.

 

My 300 is my mini ocean. I would have built my sump out of Rubbermaid 100 or 150 gal stock tanks vs. hand building a 225 acrylic sump. 1/4 the cost and no worries about it failing because of a failed seam!

 

I would still have done the 125 but I would not have had the bottom of the tank drilled. I would have bought a reef ready tank with built in overflows also. I would have bought another 40 or 50 #'s LR ( I have 80 in the tank now). Most of all I would not have bought the STUPID damsells as the first fish. The tank has been up and running for 4 yrs and none of them has died.