The first year.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day who keeps freshwater fish. He told me of the mistakes he made when he attempted saltwater. I listened intently and learned more from listening to his mistakes than I have learned from people with successful tanks. This guy isnt dumb. He has kept and bred plenty of freshwater species. The biggest thing I got from him, and the thing he pointed to for his failure was impatience. He said that what he had found with sw, was that you cant compensate for rash decisions as you can with freshwater fish. He also pointed out, that when you lose a 5$ freshwater fish, you shrug, flush it, then figure out what you need to do next time to keep it correctly. It isnt as fun considering most sw fish start at 25$ and go up from there. Along these lines. I have been reading alot of threads lately that have made me cringe as much as my friends story. The common thing I keep reading about is a small tank either extremely overstocked, or have fish that will outgrow it in the not too distant future, or nems or other high light inverts without proper lighting. I have a new understanding for the caution Barb stressed to me about when to purchase my nem and the tank conditions I need to wait for and have established before I buy it. The thing that has irritated me about these threads is, if you look at the price of the tank and equipment, and the price of the animals inside, there is a huge imbalance. I keep seeing "I cant afford a new light atm". But you could afford a 100-130$ rbta? Really? In the case of the overstocked tanks, if I added up the price of fish, these people could have purchased a much larger tank. I guess people are afraid of having an empty tank for a few months, as they wait for their checking accounts to build back up? If someone had 2,000$ over the course of a year to spend on a tank, and put 1700$ into the equipment, set it up slowly and then spent 300$ on the fish/inverts once everything was in place, they would have much more than a person who spent 800$, rushed to have it set up, and lost 1200$ in fish over the course of that year. (Of course none of this applies to any Reefgeeks. It was all found exclusively on other forums. ) My point is this. At the end of your first year of this hobby, you could end up completely frustrated and have wasted a ton of money. Or you can take your time, plan it out, and have a successful showpiece.

you've hit all the right buttons. People don't wait. I set my tank up, watched it for about a month. Went on vacation in another state for a few weeks and when I came back it was all ready to roll. I didn't know back then about what and when to add things. I started like others and added fish I knew nothing about. I read now. and research and ask questions. It's so much nicer to have a few happy fish than to cram a ton of them into a small tank just to have it look pretty for a few weeks before it all dies out.

that statement about "the amount of money you spent on all these ahem dead fish could have bought you better equipment which would have allowed them to live in a tank under your care" is 5000% correct...

I find myself asking the same questions sometimes ......

It's hard not to want to keep rolling once you get started - I really liked how I did my last tank build. I sold my old 90 gallon corner, and all the livestock, equipment, etc that I didn't want to reuse on my future tank, and moved a few select items I wanted to keep to my backup 40B quarantine system. Left everything in that system for over a year, while all the profits that I made from my tank sale sat in the bank, gained interest, until I had enough to build my current tank the way I wanted to

Originally Posted by estanoche

that statement about "the amount of money you spent on all these ahem dead fish could have bought you better equipment which would have allowed them to live in a tank under your care" is 5000% correct...

It is hard to look at an "empty" tank, but it is much better for all your critters. It sucked looking at my first 55 gal tank with nothing in it for about 3 months, but I used the time to research and get the aquascape the way I wanted.

Im staring at a pile of cut up base rock, a 55g, a 40g, and a 29g in my living room. Between the tools to cut up and drill the rock, the pvc, the actual rock, the secondary tanks/fuge/sumps, the 120g that I paid for and isnt even here yet, and msc other stuff I have purchased, I am close to 1k already. Atleast I have something for that 1k. I do like staring at my mangroves on my window sill, so I have that going for me. I get tired of "what the hell is that pile of tanks and rock in your living room? When are you actually gonna have this tank filled with water?" Maybe once the tank gets here you aholes! Leave me be, come back next year. It will be epic!

What you said is the most important thing. The equipment will cost waaaaaay more than the livestock. My 29 gallon I'm building is up to about 2k and still dry. But it will pay off later.

Up until the last year or so, I've never been a patient person. I can tell you that doing anything in the reef world takes patience. Take tuning your skimmer for instance. I cleaned mine two weeks ago, have adjusted it all the way open, and it is still "breaking in" again. Over the last two years, I've also learned that when you place a coral somewhere, give it some time, see how it does, then move it again if it isn't quite right; sometimes this is a couple of days or a couple of weeks or a couple of months. Time is all relative. It was also mentioned about spending time researching before buying. My wife hates the amount of time I take researching before buying, but I try my best to find out as much info as I can about something before making the purchase.

Take your time and enjoy it for the long run!!!

I keep looking at my mangroves everyday and its always the same. No growth yet. I didnt measure my daughter everyday, but before I knew it, she went from a little baby into an exceptional small human. One that makes me laugh atleast once everyday, and constantly keeps me honest. It went from the experience of the first night of horrible crying all night, do you think the hospital will keep this thing for a few more days? To now telling me she wants to take the Camaro out and hopping in the back and buckling herself in. 3 years went by as if it was 1 day. 3 years is nothing it seems....

Well, they're trees, they grow slower than algae. Very cool trees though!

I am very happy with my purchase. They are gonna have to be about 3-4' tall before I would think they have an impact as far as filtration. I have 5 propagules in my turtle tank, not much of a change in water quality in there.