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Dumbest purchase I made for my tank was


RandyO

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Originally posted by dga

A frag of zoos. came complete with the lovely red planarian flat worms. what a great bargain. i will "never" forget to dip my zoo's in lugols again.

 

I've seen those red planaria in my friend's tank. Are they harmful? I've never seen them in my tank, but I DID get a piece of sargasum from him.

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Worst purchase: Magnum HOT 250 - for some it works great, for me it was a micro-bubble factory. Returned it and got a Fluval, very happy now. :)

 

Worst freebie: Went to buy some snails and LFS guy gave me an Atlantic Sea Cucumber as a freebie with my purchase. He didn't know what it was and neither did I, but it was a freebie so I took it and did my homework after the fact. Turns out I'd need at least a 20g with a DSB to keep him alive and happy and I have a 12g with a not so deep sand bed. As an extra bonus when they get stressed or die they can release toxins that'll wipe out your tank. I ended up pulling ALL the rock from my tank so that I could sift through the sand and pull him out.

 

Beware the freebie! Resist the temptation! (Unless of course you actually know what you're getting.)

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10" Red Devil

Equipment: Buying a Wet/Dry Filter, when I had an inkling that I wanted a reef from the beginning. Rio Powerheads. Skilter thinking I could modd it with a drop in air stone, still didnt suck anything. Prizm, Looked great at the local fish store, and was actually pulling a dark brown funk, so I purchased one, not only is it super finicky, it stops pulling after a week of use, unless you fiddle with the damn thing on a almost daily basis.

 

Livestock:

Bangaii Cardinals, little did I know they reproduced so much and little did I know I would have to watch as the babies all got eaten one by one by my other fish. Regret buying anything From AquaNest in Bloomfield Hills, MI. They will sell you and tell you anything will work in your tank. Ended up losing a compliment of fish due to there erroneous advice. They have incredible prices, but there is a price to pay for that. Shoulda just stuck with the slightly more expensive Moby Dicks that I lived by.

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Dumbest purchase ever made.... I bought a book by Warren Burgess when I first got into marine fish keeping about 20 years ago. The second dumbest purchase ever made, following advice from the book, an under gravel filter. Needless to say, I had a few issues with nitrates and algae. Back then most tanks were FOWDCS ( fish only with dead coral skeletons ). Amazing how far we have come.

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Skilter 250,C-balance by two little fishes(I think this stuff caused my hair algae problem), Kalkwasser , Oceanic Salt(should have stuck with Tropic Marin), 2-15watt regular florescent my local petshop said was good enough for a 10 gallon reef),

Thats all i can think of right now..........

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I would have to add that IO hydrometer to my list I guess, half the price of a refractometer and about as accurate as the "taste method" (taste salty enough?)

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I havent made any dodgy purchases..............yet:D I just want to know why everyone hates the prizm skimmer? I have one of these and it works great, the only downside is that its quite noisy:)

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showed the wife the 12 nano dx the lfs had on display and thinking out loud thats really cool. she bought it the next day and they would not take it back. I dont shop there any more. and now i dont have room for a bigger one.

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Originally posted by ezramore

showed the wife the 12 nano dx the lfs had on display and thinking out loud thats really cool. she bought it the next day and they would not take it back. I dont shop there any more. and now i dont have room for a bigger one.

Yea but you got a wife that saw a want you had and got it for you, pretty cool :D
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animal-lover

So far I have to agree with the Sea Clone 100, it is a major POS! Has turned my 75 gal tank into a giant micro-bubble playground...I'm still trying to decide what skimmer to get to replace it and to save up the $$$ to do it......................

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anarchyman2099

Drygoods: The powersweep. It was too big and crapped-out after a year.

Livestock: Mushroom corals. Should've done my research and not believed the LFS. ><

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Funky_Fish14

IO Hydrometer, It works half decent, but Im going to try to get my mom and I to save up for a refrac.

 

Hagen Powerheads w/quick filter attachment. If you dont clean the attachment every 3 days, the powerhead's flow drops to just about nothing. Also, The powerheads arent that great.

 

Whats so bad about rio powerheads? I just bought a 600 to pump water to my above tank fuge, though It doesnt really need to pump much, cause its only a 9g fuge. So whats so bad about them?

 

Also why is everyone bashing powersweeps? Yeah, I do agree they produce some heat, as I think it was the cause of the overheat in my 10g tank one day, but I have one in my 33, and one in my 20, and I only clean them completely(every last part) every 2 months, and they work great, love em.

 

Uhh, worst live thing: Bi-color Dottyback, little ###### grabed my cinnamon clown's back and SHOOK him back and forth like a dog shakes a toy. Also was being a jerk to him and the sailfin tang I had.

 

Chris

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first a skilter (tho my name is skilter doesnt mean i would recommend one, even if you do the air stone mod) then a berlin airlift, then a prism, the a seaclone, then finally i was satisfied w/ a bacpac 2... but think about how much i spend tinkering on useless equipment till i was satisfied, but thats the name of the game w/ salt.

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-every cool fish/coral i'd see and buy without doing research first. most are ok but some just suck.

-also acropora, quite pricy and started to die all too fast.

-believing when somone told me that you dont need to feed a bi-color blenny because he only eats algea. he dissapeared into the rockwork one day and i had algea problems for a couple months

-on my first saltwater tank getting a lionfish. not only was it a 30 gallon tank. but i failed to ever find out that when water evaporates, you top it off with FRESH water. haha. lost him and a the triggerfish due to that. (oh yeah and also having a trigger in a 30 gallon. haha) im such an idiot....

-ummm colt coral in a 10g reef. grew so quick it took of literally half the tank. i tried to cut it and sell it but that never worked. those things are harder than hell to get to stick to rocks. for some reason one day it just shrivled up and died. the day before it was looking very healthy.

-the lost goes on but i dont want to bore you

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Ooh, ooh, ooh! I have a new one!

 

This 99% dead green Acro skeleton. Just picked up this beauty Tuesday night - and returned it Wednesday night after several members kindly informed me of my poor purchase. Stupid newbie.

 

IMGP1885.jpg

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A 29.99 6 line wrasse & a 12.99 pep. shrimp. Wife gave me gift cert. for xmas to this overpriced lfs & the fish died 4 days later. Never been back to the store since...

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