Craigslist Reefs

Kyle X.A. · Oct 3, 2015

I know that one the appeals to reefing is DIY, especially the Nano and Pico set . Starting from scratch forming countless contacts and bonds, finding that mentor. But has anybody bought an established tank from Craigslist? Do you think its cheating? Keeping fish is is kinda like potions in Harry Potter, and if you get the reference sweet. Anyways I was just curious 'cause I grabbed a 45g tall'n'skinny with shell sand, (dead)live rocks and a bunch of other junk for a Grant, thats $50 for all you penny pinchers. Thoughts?

Rob.D · Oct 3, 2015

Welcome to R2R!!!

Starting off with a established tank is not cheating, I don't think it's nearly as fun as building a system from the ground up but you can learn from the previous owners mistakes and make new ones on your own! As for the 45 "Tall and Skinny", you'll find out in no time if you like it or not, if the system came with quality components and you decide that you do not like the dimensions of the tank, you can just swap the equipment to a better suited system.

Pete polyp · Oct 3, 2015

It's not cheating by any means. But you never know exactly what you're getting into when you buy an established tank. Sometimes you can inherit someone else's headache that way because you don't know what that tank has been through.

Feltman · Oct 3, 2015

Biggest red flag is if it came with all sorts of medications and no quarantine tank that live rock could be leaching stuff for a very long time. Craigslist is an amazing place for you to afford considerably more tank than u could. But I'd recomend killing the rock off and restarting the whole process

Kyle X.A. · Oct 6, 2015

This was just "live rock" included in/with the tank. I was just getting the glass for my wife's fancy goldfish display tank. But there are quite a few good looking reefs people are selling on the CL. I'm working on my own Pico(s- maybe many) system with a big refugium.

ReeferBob · Oct 7, 2015

Tank husbandry is everything. You can take a good tank and destroy it in weeks with bad husbandry. Also can take bad tank and fix it. The starting point is great but moving a tank tends to greatly disturb everything.