Newbie mistakes - local style

[pisces134]

Hey, believes each one of us got some silly mistakes when starting up, let shares and for all the future newbies and oldies to learn.

For me is starting with a 2ft tank, in less than 2 weeks upgrade to 3ft tank till now. Wasted money in buying equiptment meant only for 2ft tank and also with 2ft tank, LS and fishes very limited due to tank space.

What about you !!

[KaLiB]

Adding in more LR during the cycling period. Ended up prolonging the cycling period by a few days.

Next time should just add all the LR at one go.

[BarraCuda™]

overdosing addictives, those powder looked so innocent :D

[Tanggy]

Upgrading to a 3ft from 2ft, should have gone straight for a 5 or 6ft.

Putting not enough live rock during cycling. Now have to add a bit at a time to avoid armonia spike!

Waste money to lighting thinking can save, but now(200+ watt of pl cost not that much cheaper than DIY MH!!) Upgrading soon to MH

Did not design properly, now want to change to plenum system, have to tear down the whole tank.

Did not give proper thought to heat bulid up due to too much lighting cramp into hood. Noew Temp is 28.5(too high use to be 27.5). Not have to Redo on DIY hood to accomodate MH lights with open top and diy fans.

[swordtail]

My biggest mistakes is "Lack of Patience."
I put fishes in 2 weeks time.

[tdanny]

I failed miserably when trying to do a 2ft set-up so later switch to a 3ft, using eheim pump with sump tank, live rocks. Its been a month now and everything seems fine. Thank God!

[ReDDeviLs]

for me,i did not use the respective test kit and start adding fish,till i know i ph level isnt gd enough.. goodthing,the fishes did not die pheW~

[pisces134]

Keep it coming, is very interesting to know all the mistakes, no dun get me wrong, I meant is very good to learn from other mistakes so that we can avoid it without having to go thru all the heartpain, tnks guys and gals. cheers.

another mistake of mine is keep buying coral beauty w/o knowing the fatality rate of this fish, now stop liaow.
(bought 2 in total).

[SpaTanS]

i started off with a 2ft tank and r still with it ... up till date, only about 2 mths ??? lfs convince me into marine ... said 2 days cycle of salt water can liao ... then buy 2 nemo, 2 damsel ... after about a week, left with only 1 brown damsel ... (never check water parameter) ...

then started to buy LR ... got mix up ... thot LR = LAVA ROCK ... kekekeke ... bought 2 pcs ... showed it to bros here and got a good laugh .... hehe (still din check water parameter)

later bought those real LR ... good experience ... found out that LR have alot of hitch hikers ... crabs, worms, and dunno what else ... :) bought more fish ... eventually ... had 14 pcs LS ... then left with 6 pcs ... reset all died think water not stable and too cramp ... :(

then, bought some corals ... FD, buttons, cauliflower, polyp ??? rearrange the rocks ... think water parameter still not stable cos din check ... :p

now latest, have a total of 8 fishes, 1 boxer shrimp, 2 LAVA ROCK, about 4kgs LR, FD buttons, cauliflower and polyp ... think i'll change OHF to a Ehiem pump ... more space for the fishes ... :)

this is roughly my experience ... :)

[FireEel]

let 2 Clownfish get eaten by an Anemone.

Picture of Anemone is in my gallery, pls pls pls help me Identify it.......

[sUpErDeLtA]

looks like false percula...

[Tanggy]

Another mistake is putting a beautiful power brown into my tank with a establish power blue and yellow without rearranging the rock or taking out the tangs! May his soul rest in peace (Lasted 4 days of stalking and harassment) sob sob.......

[Tanggy]

One last one. do not be impatience. QUARANTINE your new fish! or risk an outbreak of marine ich!! The power brown was so stress by the other tangs, come down with ich! caused a minor outbreak! And cost my lotsa time and effort to control. Lucky no other casualty. And all have recovered. phew....

[tigershark]

I think most of us experience the problem of overloading the bioload in our tank.... I ever keep a 6" lionfish + 2 pcs of 4" clown in a 2'x1'x1' (12gallon) tank.... change water like nobody business every week untill use up the 2 packet of 3.3kg coralife salt within 1.5 months....... now 25 gallon tank only keep 2 small yellow tail demsel + 1 small clown.... somemore never seef them for months already, they'll feed on the algea + their own shit...

[deep_end]

My personal worst before I opened the LFS was :

Introducing a couple of "cute" Majano anemones into my established tank, and within 3 months, had about 2000 of them :( Had to resort to a racoon butterfly to remove all of them, but it soon chewed up my brains as well :( :(

As an LFS owner, worst case was during the initial stages when I placed too much LR in my LR-holding tanks - insufficient water flow - total wipe out in 3 days - shop totally stank like crazy, not to mention the $$$ down the drain :o

[pisces134]

Originally posted by Tanggy
One last one. do not be impatience. QUARANTINE your new fish! or risk an outbreak of marine ich!! The power brown was so stress by the other tangs, come down with ich! caused a minor outbreak! And cost my lotsa time and effort to control. Lucky no other casualty. And all have recovered. phew....

Some pp are against quarantine fishes as it further stress them.
But for your case, since the PBrT got ich due to stress from your other 2 Tangs even you Q him,later you put to main tank will still kenna harassment from the existing Tangs, so no help.

I for one, always put new fishes straight into display tank, not too sure now should I Q them first. Btw how should a Q tank be, just plain or with LR, if with LR later want to catch damn difficult leh. tnks.

[sgstone]

Originally posted by swordtail
My biggest mistakes is "Lack of Patience."
I put fishes in 2 weeks time. same loh,i think quite a no. of pp just cant stand seeing empty tanks.:D

[jc85]

I for one do quarantine my fishes if I dun feel comfortable the place I bought them from. My QT basically only have a sponge filter and some PVC. The sponge is left in the main tank before transfered to my QT.

I also found that having QT is easlier to train your fishes to eating and get used to you.

[swordtail]

Originally posted by FireEel
let 2 Clownfish get eaten by an Anemone.

Picture of Anemone is in my gallery, pls pls pls help me Identify it.......

It's difficult to identify your anemone. The picture is not clear and it's better if you can take picture of the base. It's look like retteri or bubble tip.
The only anemone/mushroom that eat clown fish is the "Amplexidiscus fenestrafer" and it doesn't look like that.

[kschew1498]

Same problem! impatient, didnt read enough and start buying exotic fishes like tang, mardrian, spotted sweetlips, butterfly in my miserable 2 ft X 1.5 X 1 tank for only 1 month +

Was quite lucky when I bought 10kg of Live rock for a guy whose upgrading his tank. Pretty season already and without funny organism in the LR.

Now I have a school of different type of damsel, yellow tail, golden, 3 strip, black, black with blue strip, total 5 damsel each an inch long only and that's it, cannot add anymore fish, very sian. Must upgrade!!

Only recently started to test the water with test kit. Sign! then realise my mistake.........

[woecc]

i have a 2' x 1' x 1'. have 6 small fishes. no LR, just sand bed. did not cycle water long enough as i thought i have sea water should be ok.

then 2 fishes got kill by the fire clown fish. later all the other fishes start to get white spots and eventually all die.

try to save them with metafix. no cure.

has been 3 weeks now since the last fish die. still cycling the water with bacteria added to tank every week.

now have small worm on the tank wall, very small one. not sure what they are. and some brown algae. heard that brown algae is not good, any advice from bro here???

[Tanggy]

The QT is to make sure thr fish is free of desease before being introducing to the main tank and causing a major outbreak and to let the fih adapt to life in captivity. If directly into main tank, will be stress from transport, new enviroment and harass by other fish.

My QT now is a simple 3 ft tank with substrate, some coral rocks for fish to hide so they wont be so stress, with normal FL without corals. Filteration is just ehiem 2013 canister filter and DSB. Leave the new fish there for 3 weeks if all's well, transfer to main tank a

I have heard some people that uses a bare tank with some coral rocks. They apply copper treatment during quanrantine period or hyposalinity to make sure the fish is free of disease.

I didnt like to ideal of putting fish in QT cos have to WAIT weeks before can see in main tank. But after the minor outbreak of Ich, think better use QT. Headache of treating ich when in main tank.

[Tanggy]

Algae outbreak during cycle new tank is ver common. If you keep you nitrate and po4 down and weekly changes of water snd throw in some algae eaters, it will go away as the tank matures.

[pisces134]

Like to share my recent mistake. Introduce a mimic tang (small) into my main tank. The poor fella almost kill by the yellow tang.
I did not have this problem, with the introduction of my Naso and later PBrT. Think the saying, do not put a yellow color fish or similar shape fish into an established tank with a yellow tang existing oredy.
Took out the mimic tang just after half and hour and put into my 2ft sort of Q tank, but still died the next day.

[ReDDeviLs]

1 of my other mistake was to wash my lr with freshwater mths ago,and thx to bro deep_end,with his advise everything was fine again :)

[trevally]

After reading all the bros mistakes here, I got mine too. Went to punggol and caught a few fireworms and crabs. Throw into my 1ft tank and damm it, they killed my shrimps and feather dusters.

[Earthborne]

Spent $20 on 2 fat cleaner shrimps but became food for my hawkfish in 20 seconds.

[hanifrez]

1) Bought Tangs, Butterflies and Angels a few weeks after starting the hobby because they looked nice. None are alive now obviously.

2) Always buying new fish almost immediately each time some others die.

--> MAJOR lesson learned is to have PATIENCE !!!!! :rolleyes:

[Kohaku]

Dun buy mantis shrimp for your marine aquarium.

I got mine at $5 and I lose 2 porcelein crabs and a zebra shrimp. Now I see the compatiblity of the fishes and shrimps before i buy any of them. And most important, dun see the things cheap or beautiful then buy. think before you buy anything. :)

As for the mantis, I let go of it. Now concentrating on what is remaining in the tanks.

[James72]

Originally posted by Kohaku
Dun buy mantis shrimp for your marine aquarium.

I got mine at $5 and I lose 2 porcelein crabs and a zebra shrimp. Now I see the compatiblity of the fishes and shrimps before i buy any of them. And most important, dun see the things cheap or beautiful then buy. think before you buy anything. :)

As for the mantis, I let go of it. Now concentrating on what is remaining in the tanks.


Hi, just wanna find out where I can look out for information regarding marine fishes and shrimps compatability?

What's the recommended tank size for starting out?

Zero experience,
James

[pisces134]

off topic Bro, should start a new thread on the new to marine thread.

Another mistake or is it not of mine is to upgrade tank to 4x2.5x2.5. Waaa, expensive men, still have not got the light though. But look at the fish swim, is a great joy, like a small sea.

[Goshawk]

That fish looks CUTE! I THINK I can squeeze ONE more into the tank.

[KaLiB]

Dosing blindly without testkits can lead to problems with water parameters like high levels of calcium.

Always remember to use testkits to confirm if any dosing is necessary and if you have dosed enough or need to dose more.

[Desolator]

Dosing blindly without testkits can lead to problems with water parameters like high levels of calcium.

Always remember to use testkits to confirm if any dosing is necessary and if you have dosed enough or need to dose more.

If i keep LR and fish only, wat do i need to dose? :)

[Ekia]

If i keep LR and fish only, wat do i need to dose? :)

nothing much to dose actually... but if u want good coralline growth.. then u would need high calcium(400-450) and good dKh (9-11)

[Cardinal Tetra]

Off topic guys, you should post a new thread if you want to ask questions.

[wlchew]

Dosing blindly without testkits can lead to problems with water parameters like high levels of calcium.

Always remember to use testkits to confirm if any dosing is necessary and if you have dosed enough or need to dose more.

I make the same mistake by overdose without test kit initially.

Later, bought a spoil Test Kit :mad: and stupidly believe on the value measured for 3 months.

Finally, confirm with another Test Kit of another make.
By then, my Ca is ard near 600 mark :o

Current still at high 400 :o

[ipccc]

I make the same mistake by overdose without test kit initially.

Later, bought a spoil Test Kit :mad: and stupidly believe on the value measured for 3 months.

Finally, confirm with another Test Kit of another make.
By then, my Ca is ard near 600 mark :o

Current still at high 400 :o

It's ok

pay n you learn, pay n you still don't learnt then it's a sad thing

[Lim_Tok_Kong]

My case is designing the piping without considering back flow effect. So one day decided to turn off my return pump ( Connecting between sump and main ) to do so maintainence. The show start here ........

In process now in getting a check valve .... ;)

[brightmoon]

Hey, believes each one of us got some silly mistakes when starting up, let shares and for all the future newbies and oldies to learn.

For me is starting with a 2ft tank, in less than 2 weeks upgrade to 3ft tank till now. Wasted money in buying equiptment meant only for 2ft tank and also with 2ft tank, LS and fishes very limited due to tank space.

What about you !!

Very gd of you to start this thread.As for me I had the ill fortune of downsizing from a 5 ft to 3ft(due to my new home) only to realize that it is even harder to maintain and costlier.Although my previous tank used UGF and normal lightings, the livestock survived more than 3 years and only changed water yearly.I had sea apple,anemones, a few corals ,yellow butterfly,majestic angel ,clownfishes and even a lionfish.Sadly, this is not the case now :(

[pisces134]

Very glad that this thread survive till today and more pp are sharing their experience, hope the 'fire' burnts ON !!

[Maculosus]

An easier method is to drill a 5mm hole which is just in level (or a bit higher) with the water surface in the return pipe . When I off my return pump, my 4 ft main tank water level will drop abt 10mm and back flow will stop.

My case is designing the piping without considering back flow effect. So one day decided to turn off my return pump ( Connecting between sump and main ) to do so maintainence. The show start here ........

In process now in getting a check valve .... ;)

[Limsteel]

OK I am a total newbie... over the last few days I have gather much info from Ekia, Kalib, weishun, Devil just to name a few... Just wanna share them with all.

- Live Rock need water circulation (0xygen) without it DIES and stink.

- Salt very difficult to dissolve once it hits 1.016, Have to use powerhead to stir salt for till desire salinity archive!

- Live Rock needs Light to be ON... Later, discover that the Coraline algae (nice Algae on rocks) need actinic blue light 24hrs ON during initial stage for 2 weeks. Then gradually increase the White light light period...

- Need to aerate the tank, If have P Skimmer then O2 will be provided. Bacteria needs O2 to breakdown NH3/4 to NO2/3.

- Read from net that Saltwater tank dirt usually on water surface, need surface skimmer :p also why overflow widely used by marine aquarist.

- Live rock need to be prepare before putting it into tank. As many unwanted creature live on them! Soak in low salinity water, worms, other unwanted creature will crawl out (hopefully).

- I realised Protein skimmer is like a must, else the protein layer will collect on water reduce O2 in the water very quickly. UNlike planted tank, O2 is very important in marinet tank!