Mistakes I made as a Newbie

I bought an established system insted of starting from scratch.

 

Added salt directly to my fuge to raise salinity in the DT. Bye bye cheato an pods

 

ouch.:-/

 

Wow have I lost a lot of hard earned money! Mistakes ranging from over stocking, stirring up the sand releasing po4 and wiping out ALL corals, putting metal halides over a tank without a chiller in tropical climate, over dripping sodium bicarbonate into my tank to buying cheap and inferior equipment, also using a canister filter as the only filtration in a fish only tank and placing the outlet tube under the water surface, next morning I woke up to all fish dead due to a lack of O2.
Have I lost a lot of money, innocent fish and prized corals.
One thing I've learnt is to spend the money, do proper research and have a lot of patience.
"Go slow, let it grow" Matt Rogers (King Fish)

 

I ask because I'm currently using a canister filter. Has a bio-matrix from the LFS which grows aerobics as well as Seachem Matrix to house anaerobes, then carbon. Seems to be working well so far although I don't have many fish to produce a lot of ammonia. Would like to get a sump eventually.

 

My biggest mistake was buying heaters that weren't shatterproof and placing them hap-hazardly in the sump. About 5 years ago I came home from work to find 100% of my corals dead and the water an absolute disgusting bronze tint because a heater shattered (never found out why). Luckily the fish survived but I lost a whole reef tank (135 gallons) of coral (SPS, LPS, clams).

 

I'm sure this is listed... but I made a big noobie mistake last weekend... I was doing a water change and draining directly into a drain... Well I got a bit over zealous vacuuming my sump and rocks in the DT and removed 20 more gallons of saltwater than I had made up!!!

I had to rush to the LFS which fortunately carries a boxed seawater product that is ready to use... but wow... if I had been doing it on a sunday like usual instead of saturday they wouldn't have been open till tuesday and I would have been tempted to use improperly mixed salt water... (after reading about the guy who crashed is 2000gallon reef with an improper water change after a skimmer incident... well I learned from his lesson)

 

Man.i have to thank all of you for telling those horror stories. I unfortunately started my tank before finding 3reef but now that I have it, i will always come here first with any questions or concerns. 3reef is a life(reef) saver.

 

+10000

Lots of mistakees lots of solutions and lots of help, Very nice thread guys and I appreciate all of it. I am one of the luckies who had the internet and 3reef before beginning my SW venture and because of that i believe im going about everything right, lots of time and lots of love!

 

Well being new to the hobby and starting my tank only 4 weeks ago I've had one aiptasia that I used aiptasia X on and have not seen anymore so that's good, but I've seen bristle worms and posted asking what I should do with them and get mixed responses from everyone on forums. Should I worry about them? Should I try to remove them or leave them in and try not to worry about them? I really don't want them in there as they look nasty, but I do not want to continue adding corals and have yet to add any fish. I wish I would have known to quarantine rocks and or start out with dry rocks so I wouldnt have gotten unwanted hitchhikers