akabryanhall
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I added a carpenters wrasse into my tank that had a mccoskers already established. Both fish jumped onto the carpet that first night.
Share your NOOB experience and WIN a TUNZE Reefpack 250!
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waterhog69
Community Member
I had bought three different wrasse and a purple tile goby not knowing I should have some kind of lid or netting covering the top of my aquarium . They all jumped out within two weeks, ill never make that kind of noob mistake again LOL.
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kj23502
New Member
My first newb tank was a 29... I had hob everything, man that tank was sooo cluttered. Wish I would have gone with an overflow and sump right away. I also had PC lights on it...lol. I later put a 250 watt metal halide (which I now use on my 40g breeder that has a 20g sump).
my old pc lights
and a shot of the tank with the equipment hanging in there. I did add an ato bracket on the right so I had quite a few things hanging out in that little tank.
the side of the tank after adding my ato
Then I re-scaped and tried a fish I shouldn't have...ugh poor fish
Then I tore down the tank when putting the house up for sale and set up the 40g breeder which is in much better shape!
Here is the beginning when I checked par measurements just for the fun of it
I don't have a current fts.
but here is Bonnie and Clyde with their nem
my old pc lights
and a shot of the tank with the equipment hanging in there. I did add an ato bracket on the right so I had quite a few things hanging out in that little tank.
the side of the tank after adding my ato
Then I re-scaped and tried a fish I shouldn't have...ugh poor fish
Then I tore down the tank when putting the house up for sale and set up the 40g breeder which is in much better shape!
Here is the beginning when I checked par measurements just for the fun of it
I don't have a current fts.
but here is Bonnie and Clyde with their nem
RDHDDRAGON
Active Member
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- Oklahoma
I took the plug out of the bottom of my skimmer cup and stuck a hose in it and ran it to a 2liter bottle so i wouldn't have to remove the skimmer cup. Well, our return pump got shut off some how and the skimmer overflowed, overflowed the pop bottle and started spilling all over under my stand. Now the fun part, there is a reason they tell you to hang your power cords with a drip loop and not lay them in the bottom of the stand. THank god my breaker blew for that room before the house caught on fire! Salt water and electric literally curled the power strip into a black C shape!
Oh, and don't try to catch a lion fish with a coffee cup. It scares the crap out of them, they jump out of the tank and land upside down on top of your hand stinging the crap out of you!
Oh, and don't try to catch a lion fish with a coffee cup. It scares the crap out of them, they jump out of the tank and land upside down on top of your hand stinging the crap out of you!
Emac909
Active Member
This is how I started it this hobby
Fifteen years ago I got my first tax refund check. Being young and dumb with a little money in my pocket and already had my car fixed up I needed a new hobby. While driving down the Blvd with a girlfriend at the time she saw a painted picture of a clown fish on a window of a pet shop and conviced me to stop. We go in and look around. We get to the salt water selection and she sees the clown fish and feel in love and begged me to get her some.
Never owning an aquarium before I asked the owner what do I have to do to care for a saltwater. This is what he told me. Buy an aquarium from me and I'll give u good deal on every ting u need. Yea he was asain. Sense I had the money I was like ok. So he tells me to pick any aquarium. My girlfriend picks a 30 gallon hex. The owner tells me I need to buy a bag of salt, a bag of live sand, a bottle of cycle, a hydrometer, and an emperor hang on the back filter. Tells me to go home to fill the tank with tap water from the hose put the sand and filter in the tank. Mix the salt in to the water so that the salinity is right. Then put the directed amount of cycle in the tank and come back tomorrow to buy fish. So I did what he directed. Went back the next day and bought 2 clown fish an anemone and a blue hippo tang. Needless to say they all died with in a week.
After they all died I went back to the shop and asked the owner what happened. He says "some times it happens, want to buy more fish?" I ended up buying books instead of fish. I did a little reading and found out about filters like skimmers, live rock, medias. Also how important lights are, as well as testing ur waters parameters. I also found out what a tank cycle is.
Lets just say I have never been back to that pet shop sense.
Thanks for letting me share my noob story
Fifteen years ago I got my first tax refund check. Being young and dumb with a little money in my pocket and already had my car fixed up I needed a new hobby. While driving down the Blvd with a girlfriend at the time she saw a painted picture of a clown fish on a window of a pet shop and conviced me to stop. We go in and look around. We get to the salt water selection and she sees the clown fish and feel in love and begged me to get her some.
Never owning an aquarium before I asked the owner what do I have to do to care for a saltwater. This is what he told me. Buy an aquarium from me and I'll give u good deal on every ting u need. Yea he was asain. Sense I had the money I was like ok. So he tells me to pick any aquarium. My girlfriend picks a 30 gallon hex. The owner tells me I need to buy a bag of salt, a bag of live sand, a bottle of cycle, a hydrometer, and an emperor hang on the back filter. Tells me to go home to fill the tank with tap water from the hose put the sand and filter in the tank. Mix the salt in to the water so that the salinity is right. Then put the directed amount of cycle in the tank and come back tomorrow to buy fish. So I did what he directed. Went back the next day and bought 2 clown fish an anemone and a blue hippo tang. Needless to say they all died with in a week.
After they all died I went back to the shop and asked the owner what happened. He says "some times it happens, want to buy more fish?" I ended up buying books instead of fish. I did a little reading and found out about filters like skimmers, live rock, medias. Also how important lights are, as well as testing ur waters parameters. I also found out what a tank cycle is.
Lets just say I have never been back to that pet shop sense.
Thanks for letting me share my noob story
Rikerbear
Valuable Member
In 1978 I started my first tank...using UG filters and standard aquarium lights. I had YEARS of failures......
Tech and knowledge continued to move forward so that by the '90s I was no longer killing fish monthly. In 1989 I acquired my first MH light and my first coral.
My gorgeous elegance coral. Kept it for nearly 6 months before loosing it and everything else during a 10 day power outage.
I retired from the hobby, until this year when my husband gave me a 16 gal nano for Christmas.
I am hooked again :tongue:
Tech and knowledge continued to move forward so that by the '90s I was no longer killing fish monthly. In 1989 I acquired my first MH light and my first coral.
My gorgeous elegance coral. Kept it for nearly 6 months before loosing it and everything else during a 10 day power outage.
I retired from the hobby, until this year when my husband gave me a 16 gal nano for Christmas.
I am hooked again :tongue:
biomekanic
Community Member
I was new to the hobby, but had done extensive research. I had my 75g all set up and ready to go. The live rock was doing its thing, and I got a clean up crew. Was quite pleased with myself as I built my own Durso standpipe. What I didn't do was put something across the pipe intake to prevent snails from getting into it. The next morning, I wound up vacuuming about 2 gallons of water out of the carpet because a turbo snail makes a great hose plug.
kuyatwo
Well-Known Member
My personal noob experience is the watts per gallon I went from a dual pc bulb fixture to a quad pc bulb fixture think increase in wattage would let me grow more types of corals....what a waste of money
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budsbunny
Active Member
i make more stupid mistakes now than i ever did as a noob...
my new years resolution this year was to quit flooding my tank EVERYTIME i top it off. i have a dang carpet cleaner beside the fish tank and it gets used more than the dang vacum.......
new years eve i over filled it so bad my salinity was down to 1.015 i brought it up quick ...told the fish it was a quick fresh water dip and nobody was allowed to die....good thing they listen well.
my new years resolution this year was to quit flooding my tank EVERYTIME i top it off. i have a dang carpet cleaner beside the fish tank and it gets used more than the dang vacum.......
new years eve i over filled it so bad my salinity was down to 1.015 i brought it up quick ...told the fish it was a quick fresh water dip and nobody was allowed to die....good thing they listen well.
GuyWalker1219
Reef Addict
I did this several times before finally learning my lesson and getting float switches. Flooding the kitchen floor and garage floors several times filling buckets or trash cans with RO/DI water.
Reef Fever
Valuable Member
My first saltwater tank I ever had i filled up with sand, dead rock and water and the same day went and bought myself two 4 stripe damsels...i felt really bad the next day :/
fyrfytr
Active Member
After researching for months I got a 55gal tank off of craigslist...only to be vetoed by my wife due to size of the tank and all of our kids toys. So I got a 36gal bowfront for Christmas, used bio-spira and cycled it fast...then stocked it with 3 damsels. Now I think the tank is half cycled, but seems to be functioning well
reef boy
Community Member
I bought a pump from a friend of ours and I was planning on using it to pump the water up from my basment to the sump... well I put the pump into the brute bucket thinking all was good and a couple seconds later there was this brownish black stuff spitting out of the pump! So I call them up and ask them why it was doing this and it ended up being a external pump!!!! On top of that I had just wasted 30 gallons of saltwater. So they are always really nice to me so they gave us the pump for $50. And I ended up going to pay them back and they waited til that moment to tell us that it was a $75 pump!!!!!!
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