Mistakes I made as a Newbie

Welcome to 3Reef beigemore!

 

My biggest mistake was using sugar sand. It was a nightmare.

 

Sugar sand should not be a problem in a properly designed system. I have 330 lbs of Southdown sugar sand in a 60" 100G reef with 35x+ flow and have absolutely no problems at all. It was even unrinsed since it is the fines that support the most bacteria for denitrification.

 

I should add, it WAS a problem. Right now it's not because there's nothing to disturb it. We'll see when I add a goby. If its rinsed enough it shouldn't be a problem but I didn't rinse very good.

 

It should not matter, rinsed or not. Once the colonizing bacteria coat the sand particles when disturbed it should settle like a rock very quickly.

 

I hope so! For the first few weeks I would get a sand storm everytime I touched it!

 

Used drop kit test for calcium.

Used a stealth heater that exploded polluting my tank and nearly killing my one and only clown fish (thank god I didn't have corals or inverts, they would have been fried for sure)

Used a canister filter (can you say nitrate factory!!!)

Bought a LED light as soon as they came out, so far this has been working out, I wish I had waited and bought one that was modular or had more than 1 cord! So far corals are growing under it!

 

By drop kit test do you mean a titration? Are there better options?

What did you have in your canister filter?

 

Yes, hanna checker is a much better and more accurate alternatitive to API or other "titration" based drop tests. A little more work but way more accurate!

 

Sorry, I should have read the entire post before replying, I had an ehiem classic with cotton, filter floss, ceramic noodles and carbon. Couldn't keep the nitrates down, now I run a HOB refugium/skimmer combo with chaeto and pods, pods, pods! Works great!