What is Your Biggest Mistake in the Hobby?

[Dodger]

My tank will be a year old next week! It is finally stabilizing. My LFS told me that I could put a BTA anemone in my tank after 3 months. I have managed to keep ‘him’ alive. My clowns are super happy about that, even though the double bed has changed to two singles recently! Lol
my biggest mistake is not coming on here for more info. People on this forum are amazingly patient, helpful and supportive with us newbs! Of course going slower and not listening to one of my local fish stores are close seconds
Switching topics, but it came up earlier. I understand this hobby is mostly men, but it brings up the topic ‘how many women are in this hobby’’?

 

[i cant think]

Switching topics, but it came up earlier. I understand this hobby is mostly men, but it brings up the topic ‘how many women are in this hobby’’?

I have actually wondered that too recently, it would be great to see more women entering the hobby and equalising the amount of men and women in the hobby.

It also brings up the question of “Why do more men enter the hobby then women”

 

[Sean Clark]

What happened, I've got 8 in a mixed reef!

They like to rearrange the reef and the CUC is a pretty expensive dietary supplement.
I had a clown, black, undulate, and a humu. Great fish.

 

[rtparty]

My story is too long to type out in its entirety.

I had a 40B tank that wasn't as well thought out as it should have been. So when moving houses, I decided to make a bunch of changes. The new tank didn't fit the stand because I had the bulkheads too far back and they hit the brace. I didn't have the tools to totally fix the stand on hand. Once I got the stand all cut up and back together, the bulkheads woudn't stop leaking. In the end, I put the old tank back on but lost too many pieces that took me years to grow. 100% my fault for not plannig properly yet again.

So my new tank has been sitting in my house since July and won't have water for another month still. I don't even care either. I am not missing something simple yet again and causing me grief down the road.

I think I talked about some of this in my build thread even.

 

[HB AL]

They like to rearrange the reef and the CUC is a pretty expensive dietary supplement.
I had a clown, black, undulate, and a humu. Great fish.

When someone asks me for advice on triggers I tell them it's like having a bunch of puppies to take care of.
The hermits have all become nocturnal (smart little suckers) except for a couple brave ones that like to roam in the day. I just counted 35 hermits the other night, as they have alot of rock to hide in.

 

[RobB'z Reef]

Getting into the hobby in the first place lol

 

[CNDReef]

Using dry rock for the first time. You get what you pay for.

 

[i cant think]

I have another regret:
Escenius blennies… Can I just have ONE tank where I don’t have one of these killing my dream SPS (Staghorn)? Or is that impossible.
All the bleaching is in the exact places I have seen my lineatus blenny nipping

 

[Lyss]

I have actually wondered that too recently, it would be great to see more women entering the hobby and equalising the amount of men and women in the hobby.

It also brings up the question of “Why do more men enter the hobby then women”

We're here

I will say I've bumped into a bunch of fellow female hobbyists since I started my journey, there just aren't very many who are influencers or at the top of the companies and places you tend to see in the hobby limelight most often.

My hunch as to why more men enter the hobby is that we all tend to bring in more folks who are like us -- so more men may have friends already in the hobby influencing them to get in than women do.

As for me, I knew no one in the hobby when I started. I was just bored during covid and had always had a deep interest in marine life/wanted to be a marine biologist when I was a kid. Figured I'd start small and give it a go, and I'm glad I did!

 

[Brucealmighty]

My mistakes have been similar as some people here, but I did not rush, it's my one saving grace I guess, I let the tank tell me when I was able to add livestock etc, along with a book I read first before setting up called 'the new marine aquarium' by Michael S Paletta which was my bible for the first year and more, so my mistakes are, buying cheaper equipment first time and ending up paying double the price for the expensive piece in the first place, and secondly being ignorant of coral wars, so I learned patience and research is key to this hobby, so read the book / ipad while you're sitting next to your tank and before you know it the day has gone and the LFS are all shut and so you have another evening and day to do more research

 

[i cant think]

We're here

I will say I've bumped into a bunch of fellow female hobbyists since I started my journey, there just aren't very many who are influencers or at the top of the companies and places you tend to see in the hobby limelight most often.

My hunch as to why more men enter the hobby is that we all tend to bring in more folks who are like us -- so more men may have friends already in the hobby influencing them to get in than women do.

As for me, I knew no one in the hobby when I started. I was just bored during covid and had always had a deep interest in marine life/wanted to be a marine biologist when I was a kid. Figured I'd start small and give it a go, and I'm glad I did!

Interesting! Also even more of an interesting story on how you got into the hobby - I have a HUGE interest in the oceans and the life beneath them. Even funnier on how earlier someone said the fishing industry was small. The way we know it it’s dangerous and a relatively bad idea.

 

[SpyderSpy6]

Not keeping up with maintenance

 

[bruno3047]

Believing that detritus in the sandbed is harmless. Changing my view on this saved me from leaving the hobby altogether after many years.

 

[juarec0201]

Just read through this thread... Am I the only one who recognizes the trend? Nearly every post relates in some way to "rushing". As much as the "patience is key" is repeated in advice, the overwhelming issue most people have is going too fast.

For myself, my main regret is trying to do things on the cheap. I have gone through 3 different cheap light setups before I ended up buying what I should have gotten from the start. Spent a hundred bucks on a cheap HoB skimmer that I replaced. Spent a couple hundred bucks on other equipment I have replaced.

Ultimately, my tank has cost at least $1200 more than it would have had I just gotten the stuff I knew from the start, I should have.

If I hadn’t tried to go cheap. My current current setup that replaced the old. Would have been alottt cheaper. Proper planning and really thinking the setup through. Oh I also did not research aquascaping very much. So currently building a HNSA to replace my rocks

 

[Jedi1199]

If I hadn’t tried to go cheap. My current current setup that replaced the old. Would have been alottt cheaper. Proper planning and really thinking the setup through. Oh I also did not research aquascaping very much. So currently building a HNSA to replace my rocks

My first thought when creating this tank was going with an NSA scape based on the BRS video on NSA scaping. A special shout out to @Queenofreef for her videos on NSA scaping in artistic design. Rule of 3rds in particular was directly responsible for the design I came up with.

Going cheap, was ultimately more expensive than just buying the right stuff from the start. I suppose, in a way, this can be tied into the thought of the overwhelming majority of "rushing" things. In my attempt to get the tank up and running, and my relative inexperience with corals and their requirements, I got cheap equipment thinking "it can do the job". Yes and no is my answer to that. Yes, the cheap equipment I got did the job. However, the high-end lights and skimmer do the job with far superiority!

 

[JachPot]

Believing that detritus in the sandbed is harmless. Changing my view on this saved me from leaving the hobby altogether after many years.

What info did you find on this? I'm probably about due for a siphoning of the sand bed, but in previous tanks I let it ride and never had a problem.

 

[bruno3047]

What info did you find on this? I'm probably about due for a siphoning of the sand bed, but in previous tanks I let it ride and never had a problem.

My tank is about five years old. It’s a 125 that started as a FOWLR. I’ve been keeping saltwater fish tanks for many years. In year two, I converted it to a reef tank. I had torches, hammers, gonis, acans and zoos. But I really loved my torches the most. About a year and a half after I converted my tank, my prize three-headed toxic green highlighter torch went limp. My numbers were pretty much the same as they are now. 1.025 salinity, nitrates 5 ppm, DKH 9, calcium 440, PO4 .05. I was perplexed. All my other corals looked fine. Not great, but definitely not stressed. Then the heads started dying, one at a time over the next three months. I was extremely depressed. Then, my gold torch went limp. Again no idea what was happening but by now I was on my last nerve. Now even though my numbers looked good, I was getting hair algae growing out of my sand bed. A lot of it. I didn’t realize this until I got rid of a Powder Blue Tang that was keeping all my algae in check. He had to go because he started bothering my yellow-bellied Regal Angelfish. Anyway, I saw a video from BRS, by accident actually, talking about cleaning your sand bed when you have algae growing on it. Algae growing on your sand bed means your sand bed is dirty, was the message. So I bought a 36-inch long Python gravel cleaning tube from Petco and went to work cleaning my sand bed. I removed about 45 gallons of water in the process, the dirtiest water in the tank. The crap water that came out of my sand bed made a stink in my house. It was disgusting. Two days later my corals all looked fantastic, including my torches. Since then, I’ve adopted a strict husbandry schedule. Every six months I do a thorough cleaning of my sand bed removing between 35 and 40% of the water, and then I replaced that water with new water. I do no other water changes for the next six months until I do another gravel cleaning removing 35 to 40% of the water, etc. I supplement trace elements with Kents Essential Elements through my auto doser. I have not lost any corals or have not had any corals looking sad. I wish I had known this when I converted to my reef tank and I would’ve saved that three-headed iridescent green beauty of a torch. However, luckily, I did save my solid gold Indy torch. You can see my torches in the photo avatar I just took recently. Any other questions I’ll be more than happy to answer. BTW this is the gravel washing tube that I bought from Petco. I rigged up my own hose with an elbow coming out of the tube so as not to have a kink while I’m doing my thing. I also bought a Marineland water polishing filter to help clean up the crap that gets kicked up.

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/python-no-spill-clean-n-fill-replacement-gravel-tube-36-%28large%29-3028674

 

[Kydnblue2]

Thinking I can add new fish after I already put a sohal tang in…. Beautiful fish but he has to go back. Hopefully lfs will take
Him back ..ugh

 

[Chrisv.]

Back in the early 2000s I brought in an acro and when I dipped it, acro eating flatworms came off. I was young and didn't have a lot of expendable cash at the time, and after dipping I put it in the tank. Aefw of course hatched from the eggs on the colony and ate basically all of the acros in my system. It was an acro dominated tank, so it really took the wind out of my sails.

Now I have a strict policy that if a coral has coral eating pests on it that I observe while dipping, it does NOT go into my tank. Maybe it's returned to the seller of they are willing, or if it must, it goes into my trash can. But it does NOT go into my tank.

 

[MONTANTK]

Not buying a house that has space for a 6ft tank lol