For all the pros on here
- Thread starter Ricky1066
- Start date
I have been in the salt water hobby only 3 months and like many of you guys did and many more will do I was anxious to get some fish in my tank and get things going.
I was at the lfs store and did alot of reading and research on things but found them very confusing even after that everyone and everyplace has a different idea and opinion.
Now after 3 months I have a decent stock some say to much some say it is ok. I ran into a little problem buying things I did not need and buying too many different things i did not need from advice on here and other sites.
I know all on here mean well but I think that it has become an issue where out of 10 responses 9 of them are different ? How is a newbie supposed to knwo who to believe when 10 people have all different opinions?
I went from a canister ($200) to a wet/dry)$175) to a diy sump with a sock Back to a canister all in 2 months from different advice on here . all beacause I listened to all different people I had the canister and was told it is no good dump I bought a wet.dry was told it is not good get a sump got that told it is doing nothing make a refugium .
I am going nuts AND BROKE trying to keep up all because I am new and have to try what I am told by the experts.
Now after going around the world I am back to my canister where I am being told it is ok if you clean it out at least every month?
So why all the other stuff It could have been simply said Yo have a canister you could use that but when you get some money and time you would be better off with a sum/refugium .
Instead it was made to sound like oh my don't use the canister or you will lose all fish
Then the other day I lost some snails again 10 diferent responses all different I moved my rocks and disturbed the sand ? Could that have been it maybe But right aways it was go buy all these tests test this change youre water don't use this only use that It could have been a simple let everything settle and see what happens Nothing else has happened since then and finally the water cleared up beatiiful.
But after I spent $100 on test kits I am told now I don't need
Again I am really thankful of all the advice n here But I am sure as all the newbies are and will be that it is got to be more of a helpful thing instead of 10 different ideas form 10 different people
Yes you guys mean well and we thank you But then as I have is oh you are too fast or oh why did you do that .We are taking advice from all you guys we are trying to do what we are told on here and sometimes we make mistakes after lkistening to all different opinions
I know have ahouse full of stuff I will probably never use.
I was at the lfs store and did alot of reading and research on things but found them very confusing even after that everyone and everyplace has a different idea and opinion.
Now after 3 months I have a decent stock some say to much some say it is ok. I ran into a little problem buying things I did not need and buying too many different things i did not need from advice on here and other sites.
I know all on here mean well but I think that it has become an issue where out of 10 responses 9 of them are different ? How is a newbie supposed to knwo who to believe when 10 people have all different opinions?
I went from a canister ($200) to a wet/dry)$175) to a diy sump with a sock Back to a canister all in 2 months from different advice on here . all beacause I listened to all different people I had the canister and was told it is no good dump I bought a wet.dry was told it is not good get a sump got that told it is doing nothing make a refugium .
I am going nuts AND BROKE trying to keep up all because I am new and have to try what I am told by the experts.
Now after going around the world I am back to my canister where I am being told it is ok if you clean it out at least every month?
So why all the other stuff It could have been simply said Yo have a canister you could use that but when you get some money and time you would be better off with a sum/refugium .
Instead it was made to sound like oh my don't use the canister or you will lose all fish
Then the other day I lost some snails again 10 diferent responses all different I moved my rocks and disturbed the sand ? Could that have been it maybe But right aways it was go buy all these tests test this change youre water don't use this only use that It could have been a simple let everything settle and see what happens Nothing else has happened since then and finally the water cleared up beatiiful.
But after I spent $100 on test kits I am told now I don't need
Again I am really thankful of all the advice n here But I am sure as all the newbies are and will be that it is got to be more of a helpful thing instead of 10 different ideas form 10 different people
Yes you guys mean well and we thank you But then as I have is oh you are too fast or oh why did you do that .We are taking advice from all you guys we are trying to do what we are told on here and sometimes we make mistakes after lkistening to all different opinions
I know have ahouse full of stuff I will probably never use.
NYIntensity
Premium Member
Ricky; only bad things happen fast in this hobby. The advice on canister filters is from the trials of time; they become nitrate factories, they don't add to your water volume. The notion of a sump is very solid in practice, but it takes a good bit of time for it to become effective. When setting up a deep sand bed, as most sump/refugium combinations do, it can take months to establish the denitrifying bacteria. As a matter of fact, it can take weeks to months to fully cycle a tank to begin with, especially one started with tap water. You need to slow down, or you're going to continue "wasting money". Hope you have a good job...
gws76
Premium Member
I thought the purpose of this forum was for help and info. If you are asking a question, and you get many different opinions, then you have many options to choose from. So in the end it is up to you to decide on which option you want to go with. It's just advise so if you choose to take that advise, ultimately your at fault for buying or using that advise. That's just my opinion! LOL
NewFish3
Premium Member
Iam also new into saltwater & I understand what you are going through.
However........... Theres a reason why there are 500 diff kinds of cars.......diff things work for diff people.
I just bought & learned.........I also have a house full of stuff I will never use........I call it the basement..lol
This summer I will call it a yard sale.......and what ever doesn't sell there will be called Ebay
Welcome to saltwater.and good luck
Shooter7
New member
This is not a black and white hobby, for the most part. Many people make various approaches to their tanks work. Many only have experiences with certain equipment or applications. It is up to YOU, as a new hobbiest, to research what you're getting in answers here. Ask more questions here if you need, google stuff, whatever, but it is something that all of us have to go through in the early days and that is the research phase. You HAVE to do some of your own legwork with real, in depth study on whatever it is you're looking at. It may take weeks of reading. I was on here constantly when I first got in the hobby, spent over a year preparing my big tank, and still didn't do things just quite right. It happens. But you can't ask a question, then run out the door to a store, buy something, pop it on the tank, and say....well, why isn't it fixing things? Then run out and get something else. Your tank needs to have a gameplan from the start. Research each category of equipment, pumps, lights, etc, keeping in mind what you kind of want to do with your tank. Put it all together and get it running. Then, be patient and let it run, stock very slowly, QT your new fish, make sure everything gets along together before you put them together. It all takes much time, effort, and patience. Part of what gets to some of us who have a little experience under our belts is that newbies come in demanding instant answers that will fix all their problems, they want us to tell them exactly what equipment they need and so on, and then when it adds up to too much money, they tell us it won't do and to give them some other answer that fits their budget, nevermind that a budget should have been researched BEFORE water ever even went into that glass box. It can be a very rewarding hobby, but each of us has to get educated on how to make it work, then apply what is learned, rather than jumping in with both feet and then wondering how you got in over your head.
Ebmorri
New member
1st thing is SLOW DOWN, there are many ways to do things in this hobby. Out of a 100 people there’s 100 setup and everyone says "this is the only way to do it†and they maybe right for their tank. When someone says run out and do this, don’t step back and see what others have to say. With your tank being up only 3 months and you making all those changes nothing has had time to start working. I will use this as a example You buy a new skimmer and 2 weeks later it's not doing anything, well since it's not skimming it must be broken so you get another skimmer. Well the isn’t one isn't broken it just hasn't broken in yet to start skimming.
Someone quote here says "Only bad things happen quickly in this hobby" and that is so true. Sit back and read more and wait for things to happen. Start testing your water on a daily basis and seeing how things start going. Doing 10 things at once will never help you find the solution.
that my 2 cents
Someone quote here says "Only bad things happen quickly in this hobby" and that is so true. Sit back and read more and wait for things to happen. Start testing your water on a daily basis and seeing how things start going. Doing 10 things at once will never help you find the solution.
that my 2 cents
Well said, NYIntensity.
In any area of life, ask yourself: what does this person actually do? How long have they done it? With what success have they done it? If you don't know, keep asking.
For instance---is the person giving advice fish-only, sps reefer, lps reefer, zoas or other specialty reefer---little tank, big tank,---long experience, 3 weeks in the hobby, etc.
That's why there's that line you can put under a sig where you can post your equipment, your fish, your other stats for people who'd like to check it out.
Don't believe any of us as gospel: I've been at this hobby in one form and another for 40 years. I can say the modern methods are the best we've ever had, but I've also kept things in a 2 gallon glass bowl with a bubbler and a hydrometer...I can't say how long I could have done so, because a neighbor's cigarette smoke got that rig. My next salt rig ran for half a year before I pulled a beginner mistake and killed an innocent anemone. My third tank ran for nearly 10 years before I sold it intact. You just get better at it, and the equipment gets better, but you never have all the answers---and most of us at this hour can't afford the systems that some people are now futzing up to become the new gold standard of equipment. So you try to put together something that will work.
When giving advice you try to head somebody off from the most costly, tank-fatal mistakes---because if you are hurting from buying a filter, that's minor compared with having something go wrong after you've got a whole functioning tank with specimens you're emotionally attached to and have it go south overnight.
These heart-breakers do happen in the hobby: you have only to read the posts. Somebody loses all their fish in a night; somebody loses a coral reef they've worked years to grow. Sometimes the answer is nitrate buildup; sometimes the answer is a sandbed problem; sometimes it's equipment failure, power outage. I personally ran into problems after 10 months because I didn't replace my lights on schedule, and THAT intersected the fact that my skimmer was underpowered for the bioload in my tank---or rather, I was getting a bioload in there BECAUSE my skimmer was underpowered for the systems. So the bad lights/bad skimmer added up to major problems, and in the way of major problems, the situation that had been building up took about 3 days to get critical...NOT critical enough I lost my tank, but it was a scramble, and cost me two pieces of coral.
So, yes. It is confusing. But I can say the equipment you've ended up with won't be bad in the long run. A cannister can be quite useful, when you've outgrown using it as a filter, for cleaning up temporary situations, for running certain things for emergencies; a sump is always useful; the more complex your system gets, the more useful it is; and if you want ultimately to have a complex tank, you're going to push beyond the limits of any hang-on skimmer.
So yes, sympathy from us: it's a lot of info at once, and it doesn't all agree. Make haste slowly toward the vision you have of what you want---all of us tend to have one picture in our heads of what we want our tank to be, even if the specific details are vague. Stay with it, and keep what you've got because you'll probably use all of it sooner or later.
In any area of life, ask yourself: what does this person actually do? How long have they done it? With what success have they done it? If you don't know, keep asking.
For instance---is the person giving advice fish-only, sps reefer, lps reefer, zoas or other specialty reefer---little tank, big tank,---long experience, 3 weeks in the hobby, etc.
That's why there's that line you can put under a sig where you can post your equipment, your fish, your other stats for people who'd like to check it out.
Don't believe any of us as gospel: I've been at this hobby in one form and another for 40 years. I can say the modern methods are the best we've ever had, but I've also kept things in a 2 gallon glass bowl with a bubbler and a hydrometer...I can't say how long I could have done so, because a neighbor's cigarette smoke got that rig. My next salt rig ran for half a year before I pulled a beginner mistake and killed an innocent anemone. My third tank ran for nearly 10 years before I sold it intact. You just get better at it, and the equipment gets better, but you never have all the answers---and most of us at this hour can't afford the systems that some people are now futzing up to become the new gold standard of equipment. So you try to put together something that will work.
When giving advice you try to head somebody off from the most costly, tank-fatal mistakes---because if you are hurting from buying a filter, that's minor compared with having something go wrong after you've got a whole functioning tank with specimens you're emotionally attached to and have it go south overnight.
These heart-breakers do happen in the hobby: you have only to read the posts. Somebody loses all their fish in a night; somebody loses a coral reef they've worked years to grow. Sometimes the answer is nitrate buildup; sometimes the answer is a sandbed problem; sometimes it's equipment failure, power outage. I personally ran into problems after 10 months because I didn't replace my lights on schedule, and THAT intersected the fact that my skimmer was underpowered for the bioload in my tank---or rather, I was getting a bioload in there BECAUSE my skimmer was underpowered for the systems. So the bad lights/bad skimmer added up to major problems, and in the way of major problems, the situation that had been building up took about 3 days to get critical...NOT critical enough I lost my tank, but it was a scramble, and cost me two pieces of coral.
So, yes. It is confusing. But I can say the equipment you've ended up with won't be bad in the long run. A cannister can be quite useful, when you've outgrown using it as a filter, for cleaning up temporary situations, for running certain things for emergencies; a sump is always useful; the more complex your system gets, the more useful it is; and if you want ultimately to have a complex tank, you're going to push beyond the limits of any hang-on skimmer.
So yes, sympathy from us: it's a lot of info at once, and it doesn't all agree. Make haste slowly toward the vision you have of what you want---all of us tend to have one picture in our heads of what we want our tank to be, even if the specific details are vague. Stay with it, and keep what you've got because you'll probably use all of it sooner or later.
I understand what you are saying, I was new once too, and still am learning. I guess when you ask on here, be prepared to get all kinds of answers b/c many diff. people reply, all with diff. experience. You have to pick financially what is best for you and your tank. Most of my tank was based on what I could afford and my knowledge of how it worked. I also bought lots of different equipment, but it was from a large chain Pet store with a great return policy, so I would take it back if it did not work out. I use a Magnum HOB canister filter and love it, so there you go, you can use a canister filter. Don't take anything as set in stone. For every piece of advice someone gives, someone else has a diff. experience. I think you needed to vent a little and I understand why.
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Since this seems like a complaining thread, I would just like to ask; why can't people proofread their posts? Misspelling and what not isn't a big deal, the text will even tell you when something is misspelled before you post. But, I am getting sick of feeling like a second grade teacher trying to read about little Johnny's trip to the aquarium with his mom.
As for your frustration and as other people already mentioned, different things work for different people. You could talk to 10 different people with 10 different systems that are all, how did you say, "beatiiful" and running great. My advise to you and most people that post the most repetitive threads, is to do some research on the forums first. There are a lot of threads that are stickied to the top of the pages with expert advise. Then you don't have to wade through the 10 different responses that come with your question. There is even a great thread that answers pretty much every question you could ever have as a beginner. Unfortunately, I don't have the link. It was just linked in a post yesterday though.
As for your frustration and as other people already mentioned, different things work for different people. You could talk to 10 different people with 10 different systems that are all, how did you say, "beatiiful" and running great. My advise to you and most people that post the most repetitive threads, is to do some research on the forums first. There are a lot of threads that are stickied to the top of the pages with expert advise. Then you don't have to wade through the 10 different responses that come with your question. There is even a great thread that answers pretty much every question you could ever have as a beginner. Unfortunately, I don't have the link. It was just linked in a post yesterday though.
Sk8r Thanks I think you may have summed it all up.
Yes MY mistake is worrying about making a mistake and running out and trying to fix it . I had anice wet/dry running and after being reamed basically on here about the bio balls I cut off the top and threw out the bio balls and used a sock. which to this day I see no purpose just more water. It runs down and runs up .At least with the canister i can add carbon .
I have decided 3 days ago after going back to my canister that I will slow down more .I am leaving the canister there and I wil lopen it tomoorw to add the chem pure that removes Phosphate since mine is 1.0 .
Not going to buy a phosban reactor at this point as recomended on here.
I also did not get a cuc except for 12 hermits and 9 snails because i was told it was not that important well maybe wrong but I am done adding anytign fora while
I can agree I jumped on alot too fast but as I said listening to too many different peoples advice.
I did read alot and I did research and now we will wait and see Time will tell .
THank you guys again and I hope all goes well
Yes MY mistake is worrying about making a mistake and running out and trying to fix it . I had anice wet/dry running and after being reamed basically on here about the bio balls I cut off the top and threw out the bio balls and used a sock. which to this day I see no purpose just more water. It runs down and runs up .At least with the canister i can add carbon .
I have decided 3 days ago after going back to my canister that I will slow down more .I am leaving the canister there and I wil lopen it tomoorw to add the chem pure that removes Phosphate since mine is 1.0 .
Not going to buy a phosban reactor at this point as recomended on here.
I also did not get a cuc except for 12 hermits and 9 snails because i was told it was not that important well maybe wrong but I am done adding anytign fora while
I can agree I jumped on alot too fast but as I said listening to too many different peoples advice.
I did read alot and I did research and now we will wait and see Time will tell .
THank you guys again and I hope all goes well
I think RC is good for certain things but in no way should be considered the only source for information. I read many other web sites first, especially ones that gave instructions on how to successfully set up a tank one particular way, which was the way I wanted to do mine. If I listened to everyone on here first, I'm sure I would have heard a lot of different sides as well which would have made me do unecessary things like you did.
One more thing: Not referring to you at all, but I think some people really are not intelligent, skilled, or determined enough to be doing this yet they try anyway.
One more thing: Not referring to you at all, but I think some people really are not intelligent, skilled, or determined enough to be doing this yet they try anyway.
I have gotten some very good advice on here From alot of people Capt Hyliner -Sk8r--demon---But some others chime in and just seem to want to insult and complain to you .And I know as well as them we all want to get fish in our tanks as fast as we can and it is hard to say Oh wait 5 months.
I am not known for my patience.
Anyway I have decided to wait on anything else I went last night and got a new light for now a 4 foot reef lightbulb single for now makes my tank super bright. (daylight bulb for reef)
I bought 8 turbo snails and 2 nassa snails which went right into the sand Only bought them because I had no snails
I originally went to buy test kits. Got them
I called the store and the guy says the alkanliny does not come with a chart?????? So what do I need it for I still have no idea what it means 12 drops made it yellow divide by 2 is 6 NOw what?
Anyways the tank is so much clearer by just leaving it for 3 days It is not as clear as I would like it but I will wait more Nothing else is being added for a while I am stocked for now.
I am not known for my patience.
Anyway I have decided to wait on anything else I went last night and got a new light for now a 4 foot reef lightbulb single for now makes my tank super bright. (daylight bulb for reef)
I bought 8 turbo snails and 2 nassa snails which went right into the sand Only bought them because I had no snails
I originally went to buy test kits. Got them
I called the store and the guy says the alkanliny does not come with a chart?????? So what do I need it for I still have no idea what it means 12 drops made it yellow divide by 2 is 6 NOw what?
Anyways the tank is so much clearer by just leaving it for 3 days It is not as clear as I would like it but I will wait more Nothing else is being added for a while I am stocked for now.
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