Share your NOOB experience and WIN a TUNZE Reefpack 250!

[Bootstrap]

Had my tank going for almost a year before i decided to put any fish in it as it was not financially prudent for me to do so but i received some small button polyps, xenia and green star polyp that satisfied me for a while, then it came time to add some fish, i picked up 2 clowns from a lfs acclimated them to the dt, then put them in, they did great, were getting along cruising the tank, then i decided i wanted to get a Red Mandarin which got stuck in some rock work up to his pectoral fins and died before i got home from work, and decided to replace him with a red scooter blenny as well as i picked up a tang, acclimated them to the tank and dropped them in as well. In the span of 2 months, no quarantining all is well. I turn the lights off on the tank before going to bed on christmas eve, everything is beautiful, tang is picking my rocks clean, clowns are being their strange selves, and the scooter is hunting the rock, all is good. I wake up Christmas day and look into my tank with my moonlights on and i see my yellow tang is not doing well. now sadly this is the best picture of anything I've taken in my tank, and seems to be the worst case of MI I've found even from Google images. I take the rock down, and out to get to the fishes, place them into a 20L with water from the tank, and the only thing i have is copper we picked up from walmart for my daughters Betta, but it's all i had on Christmas day. I lost the scooter and the tang that day, a clown the next, and the last clown the day after that... it wasn't a good christmas and i learned the importance of a qt tank and since i didn't qt any of the pets i got i have no clue which one may have brought it in, or if they all had it and got stressed out to bring it out.

Stress imo.. Ich is everywhere just dormant

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[roblshan2000]

Got my 120 all set up and ready to go. Lights, pumps, skimmer, rock, water, etc. Planned out the plumbing (all pvc) for about a week with a buddy of mine. Took my time, plumbing look absolutely perfect, just the way I planned it out. I fire up the tank for the first time (mind you my sump is behind the wall of the tank) and am watching the tank and nothing is happening. Lights are on, but no water. Long story short, I flooded my basement with about 40 gallons of water. In all of my ingenious "planning", I forgot to use PVC cement and glue the plumbing together. When the return pump came on it blew apart and dumped all the water on the floor. Needless to say, my wife was not very happy. Lesson learned.

 

[ladyreefer1983]

ahhh...when i first started to set up a saltwater tank i knew i wanted a reef..so i spend my days watching nano tanks in you tube and i kept telling my husband i want a bio cube nano tank...google it up and just the system costs almost $500 with all other stuff..so hubby said no.i didnt stop there,i search on craigslist and found a small hexagon saltwater tank with couple of live rock a yellow watchman goby and a green star polyps with sand...for $100!!!!what a screaming deal!!!i told my husband there i want it,if u dont buy it im gonna get mad and im not gonna talk to u ever...so we drove about 45 mins just to pick it up...i saw the nano tank and for me it was the most beautiful tank ive seen (even though theres not much on it)...i look at it and im like "look look theres a few corals on the rocks!"so i kept pinching my husband and whispering we are getting a very good deal... yay!...so i ask the seller(who has a bigger tank and totally not a noob) im like what are those corals attach to the rock?..and hes like oh those?theyre yours its freebies...im even gonna give u small clump of chaetos..so im like ok and my smile is ear to ear(even though i dont have any idea what chaeto is)..that time all i wanna do is bag everything up and go home and set it up...so i left sand in there reuse everything and set it up...after a few days im like water is dirty and im not liking the tank,its acrylic and from close inspection it scratched up and hazy/blurry..so i went to craigslist again and found a 14gal bio cube used for $150..so i begged my husband and i told him its the last one that we gonna spend(haha)..so we went and bought the bio cube...set up tank,took out half old water and put half new saltwater(bought ro water from grocery cause i learned it needs only ro water).....bought more liverock from lfs,was $6.99 per pound(begged husband again) did rockwork and wow my eyes are gleaming with joy when i turn on actinics..its blue!!!!!after weeks my few freebie corals in the liverock is multiplying im like yipeee,they are growing....from 5 it went to 30 and it kept multipying,i am a little alarmed because i dont want my tank to get overgrown by it...so i research this type of coral....i found out it was darn aiptasias...i wanted to cry because i added more rocks and they grew on it,and to think i was feeding them like crazy one by one...........it was so devastating that i redo my tank and replaced all my liverock....but that time i found a local reef forum that one of the reefer i met through craigslist and was kind enough to share me a forum that i can join..after that i was able to buy liverock for cheap and corals and meet people
so thats my noob experience,make sure to join any reef forum/local forum that way u learn more u spend LESS and u enjoy the hobby more

ps:
on one of our frag swap i met the guy who sold me the tank with aiptasias but i just kept it cool..with the experience,i would never do that to a noob just so i can sell...

 

[dcfluegel]

recently built first attempt at sump/ refugium... took my measurements, got advice/ input, sketched it out, got more advice/ input... got baffles cut and installed... water tested... then, found out that while there was sufficient room under the stand for the sump, there was not enough clearance to actually get it through the cabinet doors... oy vay... back to teh drawing board! (on the upside, petco has the $1 a gallon sale, so a better sized tank (20L) was easy to find... good times!)

 

[Squishie89]

I bought my whole first initial set up from the LFS. I have upgraded/changed quite a few things since then and could have saved a lot of money.

 

[Zack]

Enjoyable thread

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[VB68]

I consider myself still a nooby, but one thing that we did that I regret was a fish purchase my wife had to have(she thought they were cute). We got 2 small three spot domino damselfish. They were great active little fish at first. Then in a few months, they turned intohalf dollar size "devil" fish. They decided they owned the 100 gal tank they were in and raised "heck" with the other few fish we had. Thought I was going to have to tear down the tank to get them out. Not only were they the meanest fish I have ever seen,but they were smart too. I could catch every fish in the tank,except these two, with a net. Finally bought a aqua medic fish trap. Only put food for the fish in the trap. Still, could have caught every fish in the tank except the two I was after. They would swim up to the front of the trap and wait for food to float out. I left the trap in the tank, only feeding in the trap, for 2 1/2 weeks. Then they finally got use to it and one morning caught both of them in about an hours time. so, off to the LFS they went. where they could live out the rest of their lives in someone elses tank. Now our fish can come out and swim around in peace. Lesson learned.........Research,Research,Research. Don't get it just because it's cute. :sad:

 

[Obiru]

I'm such a noob that I have no idea what noob mistake I'm sure I've already made. Every post I read I have to google every other word and or acronym to figure out what's being said. I still don't know what LFS stands for although I'm sure it's the local aquarium store. I've had my 120g tank for only 3 weeks and have just recently added some snails and hermit crabs to add to the live rock and live sand added when I set it up. It would be cool if there was a thread that explained all the acronyms. It can be a very intimidating hobby for the noob. To refugium or not to refugium. Calcium reactor, GFO and carbon reactor, UV filter, Skimmer, and the list goes on and on as to what I'm clueless about. **** the torpedos, full speed ahead via many boneheaded mistakes. But, that's how we learn.

 

[solar]

Very first tank in 2002 added saltwater for 5 months for topoff's cause i didn't know any better.

salt was at 1.35 yet nothing looked any different.... fish were eating and swimming around.

 

[Jake1]

My 1st tank was a 5 gal tank that set on my dresser. One night I wanted a tank real bad so I drove to pet co got a tank in a box some freshwater sand and a bag of salt. Went home put the sand in filled the tank with water from the tap and added the salt. Waited 2 days to let temp stable and went to fish store to buy fish. Got 3 damsels! Put them in the tank ( poured them right in) next morning all where dead. So this time I took some water with me to the store to have then check it. I added way to much salt 1.100!!! They sold me 5 gals of saltwater. Went home dumped the tank added there water and started to heat it again. Went back a few days later and this time I got rock and let the tank set for a few more days. By the time I had fish in the tank it was only up for 2 weeks before I upgraded to a 20gal.

 

[skinz78]

I listened to my LFS who told yeah, a Cowfish, Picasso Trigger, numerous Nudibranch's including a Spanish Dancer, Lionfish, and a Seahorse could all be kept together in a 45g tank.

 

[Steelerfan747]

I had so many different issues I don't know where to begin or which one to talk about but I will say a couple. First I remember buying a 90g reef setup and using a wet-dry filter with a built in skimmer that was not good enough to use on a 1g pico. I also remember picking out live rock that was covered in bubble algae because I thought it looked nice and natural.

 

[Travisw30]

I had a 29g bio cube and really wanted a sump for a skimmer. I ended up building a sump got it working great. Went through the trouble of drilling the cube and all. Only thing within 48 hrs everything started dying off. Mind you I had this set up for a year before this with much livestock. The fish were fine but all my sps started losing tissue and all the polyps closed up. I started doing 50% water changes everyday. Nothing worked and I lost everything. I finally after much research found out that the silicone I used for the sump contained anti mold in it. I learned to do much research before any addition at all. I almost cried!

 

[AnemoneKing]

Wow my 1st big NOOB thing was when I went from a 20g to a 75g I had big hopes of a fast easy change LOL well I got to 32g cans & made saltwater got it to the right temp. Added some new sand then the old sand, rocks, fish & the rest of my live stock everyone was great tell I added the new water. Everyone was swimming/moving & the lights went out bed time. Well the next morning yep most everything dead:sad: Just got to love the LFS they told me how to do it

 

[Flyride95]

I bought an anemone with my tank only running 1 month. Yea he did not make it.

 

[Surfage_Breakage]

My first newb mistake was using tap water for my reef because my lfs said "it was ok".

 

[Joncelone]

The first time I ever setup a chiller on my 29G biocube, I didn't know that people typically used a pump in it. I was pretty ignorant to that because I bought it off someone else used and it didn't come with a pump. So I figured I would do it the old fashioned way and create suction by sticking the intake tube in the back chamber and sucking on the return tube to create suction.

Needless to say, I was sucking pretty hard for a while and ended up with a bad taste in my mouth... of saltwater.

 

[Scoly]

I help out at a lfs, around the corner from my house, had a guy come in and buy about 150$ worth of frags one day, his first corals for his saltwater tank. Said he tested it with the test kit he purchased the day before. He came back the day after purchasing the corals, and was not a happy camper! All the corals died! Trying to help the owner of the shop troubleshoot the guys problem, I asked Him what his salinity was. He gave me a weird look and asked me what I was talking about.? I told him it was how much salt was in his water. Well, come to find out, he went to Walmart and said he wanted to buy a "salt water fish tank", they sold him a aquarium kit. So, he figured all he had to do was fill it up! He said the people at Walmart never told him he had to put salt in it! That's my noob story, didn't happen to me, but thought I would share!

 

[alex0725]

Noob Experience

I loved reading all the posts. I have so many dumb and newbie mistakes I have to narrow it down. Let's start with the top 5

1. I have a 55g tank so I just add 50g bag of salt to the tap water right?

2. You can scrub your rock off with hot tap water. Yea that works wonders.

3. A sump with bioballs....yea that's that answer to all my problems.

4. PC lights are good enough for a clam right?

5. No you don't have to worry about how much water will fill up in your sump if the power goes out. That never happens.

LOL!! Loved reading the stories! Thank goodness I'm not the only one.

 

[saltwaternoob]

My noob experience.... which one do i pick(hence the name) was around 5 years ago. I bought my first saltwater tank, a 55g seaclear off Craigslist that was 5 years old but unused. Then i put in 70# of live rock and 50# of sand, I used grocery store vending machine water to fill it up(mixed with salt of course). I had a 4 bulb pc fixture and a hang on back coralife skimmer.

Now here is the NOOB part, the skimmer i had going for one week, and one morning i awoke to the sound of a pump out of water!! I walk downstairs to a squishy carpet, and see the tank half full!! My first thought is that the tank had sprung a leak, I turn on the lights and find something different.

The return line from the skimmer was that spa flex tubing. The combination of it being older and the bend i put it in caused it to crack above the tank line and it sprayed 20g+ of water all on to the floor.

Lesson learned, when you can use PVC instead of flex tubing DO SO!!!