If I knew then what I know now...

[NWDiver]

Something our resident worm expert said yesterday struck a chord with me. She commended a person for sharing a mistake so that others can learn.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a "do this/don't do that" list that folks can refer to as they gain experience?
I (now) know that most all of the information that one needs to keep a sucessful reef is available on sites like this, but wow, what a task to make sense of all that data.
No one likes to make mistakes, and it can be hard to air that mistake in front of your peers. With that in mind I would like to ask the question:
What bit of knowledge, shared advice, or mistake have you learned/made that you would share with others that they don't repeat mistakes already made?

In my case; I had read that dosing is not required as long as you do sufficient water changes. This is true provided that you use the appropriate salt. I didn't. I was not yet testing for Ca and Mg. I didn't have any coral yet, but I lost most of the coraline in the tank.

 

[Krish]

When I got into the hobby I use to use regular tap water that tested above 60 ppm of nitrates! If that wasn't bad enough when the algae got a good hold of me I use to take out the rocks, submerge them in the same tap water (fresh water at that) and scub the he'll out of them then throw it back in the tank. Man did I experience some die off and the problems just got worse until I learned about ro/di water and started using it as well as I stopped scrubbing my rocks in fresh water


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[NWDiver]

Hahaha! Well, it would have removed any flatworms that you might have had on the rocks

 

[abushr]

Yep, made the same using tap water mistake. A RODI unit is worth it's weight in gold!

The other major newbie mistake I made for a long time.....over feeding! I thought they looked hungry...so I fed them (ALOT!) And then wondered why I was always fighting high nitrates....hmmmmm

Another big boo boo not to make...... be consistent with water changes! Yep it's a pain & takes forever, but you feel worse when your expensive little pets start dying and then you get to do it even more until things are back under control!

 

[Scooterman]

My LFS sold me the 30g tank, salt rocks and fish in one day, no lighting and hang on filter, over $800 into it.

Anyone want to guess what happened? :violin:

 

[tat2z_21]

When I first started, I got the bright idea, of course with out thinking it through. That I needed to top my tank off with Saltwater, not fresh water. So after a while My salinity ended up way out of range, and of course everything in the tank, had signs up veto'ing me and protesting the living conditions set by me. Hmmm I found out real quick that, that was not going to work so well.

 

[tat2z_21]

I mean a friend of mine did that, not me. (He he he)

 

[klwheat]

Umm....beated LFS employee??

My LFS sold me the 30g tank, salt rocks and fish in one day, no lighting and hang on filter, over $800 into it.

Anyone want to guess what happened? :violin:

 

[Bosco83]

Hmm I have a few but one that would have saved me some money when I first started was knowing about having ball valves to adjust flow from the return pump and the drain. I got rid of my whole first setup because I couldn't get the water level to balance out and was tired of cleaning up water from the living room floor.

 

[Lbrewer34]

To add to Bosco's comment I would say to remember to provide a way for air to back flow through the return pipe when the power goes out, or use a check valve. One of my first "water changes" was replacing the water that overflowed the sump when I cut the power to the house while working in the garage. Good thing I wasn't at work during a power outage or I would have ended up with about 30g on the carpet I stead of only 10. Fixed this with a check valve and drilled a small hole in the back of the return line PVC about an inch below my water level just in case the check valve fails. Wife wasn't too happy when it happened a second time.

 

[ac7av]

The big one I did was not using a quarantine tank before letting fish go in my tank. It didn’t seem like a mistake at the time, just one of those optional things to do or a waste of time thing that’s not necessary. With what was suppose to be the last fish put into the tank the roulette game I was playing hit my number. A full tank of fish dead in a week.
:Cry::Cry::Cry::Cry:
That’s not happening again.