Be honest - did you waste your money?

[Tamberav]

This thread is making me feel good as most of my equipment is 6-7 years old and going strong :O

I guess the thing I am most disappointing with is vortech powerheads. The old ones are still working from 2012 but noisy and were always noisy even when newer and the new 'quiet drive' ones... the wet sides don't last worth ****. I have some original 2012 wet sides still working but the new ones shaft part is different and they seem to break after a year.

I bought some Tunze's and hope to get many many years out of them.

I waste a lot of money on glass boxes because I like to upgrade and downgrade... I like the 'build' and excitement of a new tank too much.

 

[Arthacker87]

How come noone has said yellowing damsels being a waste in this hobby ;Joyful ;Joyful . Bought 2 for a 75 and got so tired of it killing fish and attacking my hand I tried to catch it... no luck.. so harpoon time.... no luck... ex girlfriend killed it and everything else in my tank lol.

 

[laverda]

A turbo aquatics ATS was the lowest quality piece of over priced junk I have bought in the last 10 years.

 

[BackToTheReef]

I feel that someone with a large tank setup should get one of these submarines and show us some video of your reef

I legitimately want to get a diving housing for a go pro or DSLR if I set up the tank I want to set up so I can get pics and video from inside the tank. I think it would be neat to gopro all the nooks and crannies we know are there but can never see.

Maybe there is already an easier solution but hey...

 

[Crustaceon]

In all honesty, I’d say my calcium reactor setup. It works fine, but I think could’ve had far less hassle and expense had I gone with a kamoer fx-stp and a trash can full of saturated kalk solution.

 

[Homebrewer]

Bought a first-gen Ecoxotic Panorama Pro LED for like $600. Thought it would be an upgrade (in technology anyway) from a metal halide/power compact combo that grew coral just fine (this was 8-10 years ago). Lost everything... slooowwwly... it was painful because I was too stubborn to believe it was the light. I looked at everything else but in the end, everything pointed to that bad decision.

Also, just have to chuckle as the first reply post was about TMC products. I went from the Panorama Pro to the not-so-popular AquaRay TMC LED lighting. It's been 5 years and I really like them (just added to the setup in fact). Glad I didn't screw up lighting twice in a row, even though I again chose something less well known.

 

[ThemytB]

Right on, well I was gonna have the day off but it looks like I gotta go do some overtime for new lights. Anyone looking to buy some really cool lights? HAHAHAHA

Just wanted to let you know my experience with the ic pro duals- I've had them a bit over a year, almost a year and a half. My new reefbreeders 50v2+ should be here next week, along with a 60" lumenbar.
While what they are saying about the currents is true, its pretty much bottom of the line performance(at bottom of the line pricing), it hasnt been as bad as I've heard them spoke of around here. I have the 48" on a reefer 525xl(60x22x22). It is capable of growing corals. Even with my beginner level of reefing it has been able to at least sustain everything I've tried. I have never tried any super par requiring coral because I'm sure it would go poorly.

I've been able to grow many softies at the bottom of the tank(at the sand level), some zoas/palys suffered color loss or grew way too slow and had to be moved up

Various lps have showed semi decent growth at low to medium tank height, including some euphyllia that have grown quite fast and colors seem good to me at right about the 1/3 height line of the tank.

Up at the top of the tank(at or above 2/3) some mixed results with sps that ive tried- a couple encrusting montis grew like crazy and had good coloring, pocilipora also grew very fast and had good color, along with another sps I cant remember the name of but it very much grew like a tree.
the 3 monti digis that I tried all grew very slowly and the coloring was poor- not brown,but definately looked a lot worse in my tank than the day i took them from the lfs.

Now for my answer to the question at hand, 1 Flame angel- beautiful fish who I could not catch for about 3 months. During that 3 months he killed every single sps in my tank. The tank then started to go alittle south and I panicked and did stupid things chasing numbers etc.(I mentioned im a beginner, right?) Everything has calmed down now that I caught the little ******* and left the tank alone for a while, and guess what? That crappy little IC PRO dual set up has enough power to bring that previously mentioned encrusting monti(also was my favorite coral) back from what I though was completely dead- it turned white, then grey, then brown , then green with hair algea- then just 2 days ago on whats left of its old corpse i found about 15 bright orange tiny little polyps poking up with a bright purple rim around them just beginning to pop.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

I bought a bunch of weird snake oils and concoctions that promised various things when I just got in to the hobby 15+ years ago...safe to say that the best result I ever got was that most didn’t do any apparent damage.

More recently I bought a jebao gyre when they first came out. That thing rattled and squealed it’s way to salt mixing duty.

 

[RezC]

Tried going the cheap way and ended up going through 3 different used sumps just to end up buying a custom one in the end that best suited my liking.

 

[paintman]

Everything I have ever bought with suction cups. Should be illegal to even sell those pieces of crap.
And I will let you know about the $600 Clearwater scrubber I just received from BRS that came out of the box broken. Still trying to work out the details betwen Clearwater and BRS.

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

buying jebao powerheads when ddep down I knew I wanted MPs for my tank, I didn't want to spend the extra money on the MPs so I bought the Jebaos, now they sit in a box and the MPs look killer in my tank.

Same thing goes for my doser, I have a 4 head sitting next to the power heads.... but on the bright side, I have some powerful mixing pumps for waterchanges…..

there are so many things that I have bought and never used because I am still learning so much about this hobby.

 

[takitaj]

Anyone remember the Marine Magic doser unit? Thankfully It was only $100.

+1 for anything with suction cups!

 

[IzzysPop]

the 50Gallon "starter tank" with canister filter & cheap LED that AI thought would be a good way to "get into the hobby for cheap" but ended up being many hundreds of dollars wasted when I upgraded to the 125g a few months later.

 

[Tamberav]

Bought a first-gen Ecoxotic Panorama Pro LED for like $600. Thought it would be an upgrade (in technology anyway) from a metal halide/power compact combo that grew coral just fine (this was 8-10 years ago). Lost everything... slooowwwly... it was painful because I was too stubborn to believe it was the light. I looked at everything else but in the end, everything pointed to that bad decision.

Also, just have to chuckle as the first reply post was about TMC products. I went from the Panorama Pro to the not-so-popular AquaRay TMC LED lighting. It's been 5 years and I really like them (just added to the setup in fact). Glad I didn't screw up lighting twice in a row, even though I again chose something less well known.

I actually liked the 1st gen ones that were encased in plastic but I think they were only 1 watt leds! I was only using them to grow soft corals in a Aquapod and they were excellent for that...I wasn't asking for much out of them. The next gen was pure garbage though as they were not fully water proof and seemed to eventually have dead LED's. They replaced them for me so then I sold the new ones they sent me and moved on.

Panorama would be a huge downgrade from MH for sure! In my case I was upgrading from power compacts because finding the bulbs for a 12g Aquapod was becoming difficult and the panorama 1st gen was at least very water resistant to stick under the hood.

 

[Homebrewer]

I actually liked the 1st gen ones that were encased in plastic but I think they were only 1 watt leds! I was only using them to grow soft corals in a Aquapod and they were excellent for that...I wasn't asking for much out of them. The next gen was pure garbage though as they were not fully water proof and seemed to eventually have dead LED's. They replaced them for me so then I sold the new ones they sent me and moved on.

Panorama would be a huge downgrade from MH for sure! In my case I was upgrading from power compacts because finding the bulbs for a 12g Aquapod was becoming difficult and the panorama 1st gen was at least very water resistant to stick under the hood.

Yeah you know because you brought it up, they actually replaced these twice. Had the first gen that weren’t that bad, but an LED burnt out and they offered to send me all-new second-gen strips, but the same thing happened. Got a third set and again, burnt out. This plus my tank was dying made me move on as well.

 

[lmm1967]

Yeah - nearly $4k on GHL junk - can't wait to sell off the rest of it - biggest waste of money and time I've had since in this hobby.

 

[Halal Hotdog]

Mindstream comes to mind, I never got one but feel for everyone that did.

 

[dzfish17]

I did indeed. I think I'm going to stay with them for a bit then move them over for use on a frag QT. I have been following the BRS guys on their "lighting platinum standard" now. Sounds great but also sounds like if I wanted their idea of a lighting setup I'd have to sell a kidney, one of my dogs, and my dvd collection of Clint Eastwood films.

Saw your post.. Love my Clint Eastwood collection. I can't decide which one I should watch (Two mules for sister Sara or Outlaw Josie Wales) on a lazy Fri afternoon... Guess I'll flip a coin.. Lol

i don't really want to bash any products on here but I have spent thousands on fish stuff over the last 4 decades... Some good equipment, some junk but it's just a part of the hobby imo.

 

[Ippyroy]

I am in the midst of spending 250 on a CUC for a 32 gallon tank. USPS killed the first one and now have to use another site that will send it FedEx or UPS.

 

[Rick.45cal]

All the Apex classic modules I bought at the beginning of my tank build.