Your first experiences

[SeymourDuncan]

We all had to start somewhere. I'm not afraid to admit that my very first tank was TAPWATER, and I mixed the salt in with the fish....this was the instruction I was given by my LFS. Not to mention it was a snowflake eel and 2 pajama cardinals, IN A 10 gallon!? The fish must have been lucky or my taps pH was exactly that of the salt because they actually survived the entire process and the cycle. I used silica gravel, a hang on filter with nothing in it, and a bubbling volcano for aeration. What an idiot...it was when I was researching snowflake care did I notice other people's aquariums on forums were not even close to how bad mine was designed. So I joined one of the forums and began to start my online educational journey. Now that I have the skills and knowledge to run just about any water related device, I can be the one out there helping others and do my part to prevent what I went through. I regret not researching first and joining the forums because there was so much stuff I would have loved to do, especially the DIY projects available to us. Any new setup, as confident as I am, still gets a dedicated build thread and i ask tons if questions before committing to anything.

So how was your first setup? We're you smarter than me and joined a forum first or did you start first then ask questions later?

 

[Duffs]

I too had the same experience....my dad always had sw tanks but only stock them with fish he got from be a charter boat captain and only keep them for a week or so before putting back into the ocean...one day he send me to the fish store to buy some brine shrimp and I saw my first reef tank there. After talking with a few people at the store they assured me that all you need to keep a reef tank was live sand and live rock nothing else ..no pumps no other filtration after setting up a 30g tank with maybe 10lbs of rock and sand and spending all my money on live stock which was dyeing on me almost daily . I finally started doing research buying book reading everything online that I could find. Now 15 years later still doing research but tank/livestock doing a heck of a lot better .......I would like to know why the first store I went to give me such bad advice ....only thing I can think of is they were happy to keep taking my money knowing I would be back next week to replace the fish I just bought ....I also wonder how many other they did this to and how many were turn off to this hobby this way plus how many poor fish were sent to there death this way

 

[SeymourDuncan]

Reasons petstores give bad advice:
1) lack of knowledge. These are business men. They rarely have knowledge of biology, let alone corals and fish.
2) money. Pet stores are businesses. If it means selling someone junk that wouldn't normally be used then so be it. They will not think twice when you leave the store with a bag of sand an a fish at the same time.
3) just plain stupid. Some pet stores are owned by flat out morons.

 

[Duffs]

I am thinking #3 store when out off businesses ....I am just lucky to find people to point me in the right direction before I got discouraged or killed to many thing

 

[SeymourDuncan]

Yeah, its the people that mess up and learn that end up with better reefs

 

[Zero Nitrates]

I relied on my LFS to help me get started and a good friend that already had a tank, so I feel lucky. While I was taking their advice I read all the books I could find and ask questions here. It is really hard for someone that wants to get into the hobby to see if they like it and not spend lots of money and time researching. Luckily I love this hobby.
I made a lot of mistakes, which I wish someone would have told me about. Example, I saw white spots on my tang. I didn't think anything about it. No one had told me to watch for that. In my opinion, there is not a good book out there that tells you everything you need to know when first getting into the hobby. The books I found were so in depth that they missed the simple stuff.
Have fun reefing!

 

[SeymourDuncan]

No wonder you have zero nitrates! Good to hear a good story for once...it seems like most first years are mainly fixing problems from poor advice.

 

[Zero Nitrates]

LOL!
I like the Zero Nitrates handle because it is something we all strive for but will never obtain. So we need to continually learn more about the hobby.

I have lots of first year stories like the one where I bought a hob protein skimmer and just about flooded my living room. After I got it working, I couldn't go to sleep that night because I was worried it would flood my floor. So I disconnected it and sold it the next week.

 

[SeymourDuncan]

The guy that thought hob anything was a good invention is clearly a dangerous individual...especially overflow boxes....duh.
I did get lucky and go with a sump before I went with a skimmer....boy was that a trip down water slide avenue.
Diy PVC overflow with 1.5 inch plumbing...didn't even make it 10 minutes before my 55g was flooding. Oh the memories. Now that I think of it I did have a skimmer on my first 10g. It was a tiny orange road cone rammed through an ice cream tray that drained back into the tank. This was airstone powered and sat in the HOB overflow. Then I learned skimmate is bad and that my theory on what the heck they did was that of a child's: cute. Haha. I guess I was lucky that eels don't mind nasty water. Haha.

Guess I should go through my old pics and see how bad it really was haha.

 

[Palting]

Okay, how about a blast from 25 years ago? No internet, certainly no internet forums.

75 gallon reef ready tank, wet dry bioball system ( state of the art!! LOL!), plain fluorescent lights.

Now here's one story you won't hear too often. Filled tank and sump with tap water, then placed 6 mollies. Once a week, take out a gallon of water, add salt to it, mix well, return to tank. Keep repeating weekly until salinity reaches 1.022. This took several weeks. Mollies must have loved it, because the 6 mollies became 30 mollies!! Catch all the mollies, return to LFS for credit towards true marine fish. Yellow tang was first marine fish in tank). Tank ran for 5 years, before a move forced a shutdown and sale. Was very sad to see that tang go .

 

[SeymourDuncan]

I actually did that with violet gobies and puffers once after I learned they were NOT freshwater fish haha. Ugh thanks Petco.

 

[kes]

initial 5 years of keeping SPS, I used tap water. the water in my area has TDS level near low 30s to max 100.

 

[SeymourDuncan]

I don't disagree that tap is not useable, people didn't have RO forever that's for sure
Did you use conditioner?