Be honest - did you waste your money?

[CJBuckeyes]

$600 on a KH Monitor. Kinda worked for a month with constant tinkering. Then stopped. US distributor support couldn't help, it was like they had never even read the manual. The manufacturer eventually offered to "upgrade" it so it would work for $130 if I sent it back to Hong Kong. No thanks..

 

[MightyMO]

Current orbit lighting, innovative marine magnetic feeding cup... That about sums up my dummy purchases so far...

 

[Kcaspo]

I think most of us have bought an off brand or cheaper model.to just end up spending more money on buying a quality product.that we should have bought in the first place.im guilty of it.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

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.

OK I need to hear the gf story!

 

[MastaMind82]

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.

You can't go wrong with any Clint Eastwood films, that man is the embodiment of "The Man, The Myth, The Legend". For anyone looking to watch something 'new' during Covid times give a shot at old school westerns. Those flicks will draw you in and captivate you, it's when screen writing was real and super heroes were still drawn on paper.

 

[MastaMind82]

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

Wow, seems to be a bit of a trend on the apex modules. Don't get me wrong I would probably sell my back left tire from my car to get an APEX system up and running (I would just put some dry rock in the passenger seat to balance the car out of course). But to hear an aspect of their system is lack luster is kinda sad.

 

[MastaMind82]

OK I need to hear the gf story!

+1 GF Story

 

[Twotone24v]

I bought some gen 3 Radions for my new build because I found a good deal and figured they were only 1 gen old at the time. I was previously running Kessil A160s on my smaller tank. The moment I put the Radions on my tank I was unhappy. Everything looked terrible compared to the kessils no matter how much I played with the sliders. I quickly flipped them at a loss since the gen 5 Radions were now out, lesson learned and I ended up with 2 Kessil 360x lights instead.

 

[sas226]

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.

Really? It seems like the TL;DR of their platinum standard is that the reefbrites are are great compliment to another LED in the same way T5s were. Sure theres the "perfect" setup but the Reefbrites are pretty inexpensive for what they are.

 

[Glass Algae]

Short answer, yes. Long answer, yesssssssssssssssssssssssss

 

[MastaMind82]

Really? It seems like the TL;DR of their platinum standard is that the reefbrites are are great compliment to another LED in the same way T5s were. Sure theres the "perfect" setup but the Reefbrites are pretty inexpensive for what they are.

For sure their setup I suppose when you have "been in the hobby" seems like a pretty decent rig. But from my standpoint (as a new reefer) sees a setup that can cost over 1K$ is pretty intimidating when talking about the "platinum standard". I'm not knocking their data points at all, in fact I'm happy that they went through the trouble to gather the points. It's just (for me) there are some points of this hobby where it seems we are chasing a unicorn that is standing in front of us the whole time.
Personally I would love to see BRS take their PAR meter and go snorkeling/scuba and take readings of our most common corals (during various time during the day). Essentially we are trying to recreate the sun in our tanks, yes diffusion of waves in our atmosphere happen but the ultimate "bulb" is our actual sun.
I am almost at the point that companies are trying to 'on up' each other on "we got the spectrum" " we got the goods" but none of them show a graph of where these corals live on a real reef and what PAR/Spectrum they like. There are so many unknowns in what we are trying to do. Lighting: PAR; Spectrum; Duration; True flow, Dosing.
Yes we can all try to reach a "platinum standard" but where is that standard created? Is it a man made standard that we want to squeeze our corals into? Or is it the true standard of where the corals flourish in nature? I have watched countless hours of videos/ read countless posts and my general consensus is no one yet is dealing with real data. In my honest opinion we should be chasing "the Sun", we should be having a light that simply recreates true sunlight. YES we love the blues because of the pop of color, but let's be honest: the Sun (in all it' spectrum and PAR) created the reefs we love so let's chase that.
I might have had a few too many Bud Light Seltzers and went on a rant, for anyone who read all that insanity thank you, @sas226 this was nothing against you I guess I just felt like typing a bunch before watching a Clint Eastwood film. Happy Reefing all

 

[Arthacker87]

OK I need to hear the gf story!

Ha it isn't that good. We broke up and I asked her to give me a few weeks to get a place and move tanks, she said OK. I left and came back 3 weeks later to water evaporation, lights turned all the way up and left on for weeks straight (2-250 watt metal halides and 4 t5 over a 75 lol) and when that wasn't enough she went ahead and put bleach in it to finish it off.

 

[fcmatt]

vortech pumps. Designed to die faster then tunze for more money then tunze.

T5 lighting with bad reflectors.

Hob skimmers

Any sump that is not a cheap tank u just glue in your own baffles.

Cheap dosers

Electronic testing stuff like for salinity by pinpoint. Etc..

God I could go on and on. 75% of the stuff sold in this hobby is garbage or unnecessary

 

[Cory]

Cheap stream type powerheads died in a year and flow loss. Coral box qp16.

Vortec diatom filter- too much of a hassle to set up. Diatom powder leaches silicate and brown algae grows.

Underpowered refugium lights. Get something with wattage over 120.

Buying used anything
A used 220 gallon i repaired myself, cracked a panel because i glued it misaligned a bit.

Dosing vodka/sugar/or vinegar to reduce no3 po4 just kills coral eventually especially sofites.

Neptune apex conductivity probe. Never worked and cost 300 bucks. Inaccurate.

Plastic Swing arm hydrometers.

Cheap suction cup thermometers. Get a nist scientific grade.

Aquarium salinity reference checks. Totally off- make your own with rhf article.

All heaters besides eheim jagers.

Cheap black box led looks washed out and bland. Got a kessil ap 700 now.

Kessil a160- way underpowered- upgraded to a360 much happier.

Pretty much anything ive done diy lol.

 

[G Santana]

Back in the 90s all manner of plastic bioballs were the rage in trickle filters. They were EXPENSIVE, bought by the gallon.
Funny, I still have them, couldn't see my way to throw them out.
They collect more dust than they provided bio filtration lol

 

[fcmatt]

Back in the 90s all manner of plastic bioballs were the rage in trickle filters. They were EXPENSIVE, bought by the gallon.
Funny, I still have them, couldn't see my way to throw them out.
They collect more dust than they provided bio filtration lol

The worst part of that is the "sump" for them... i could never figure out a good use for it even after being told they are free to take from my lfs. Perhaps I was not handy enough or desperate enough. Lol

 

[Crustaceon]

Flipper magnet. Aka “Glass Scratchamatic 4 Billion”.... “To The MaXXXXX”

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

I guess I was mostly fortunate that I came across this forum and Humblefish's forum. Between the two I managed to avoid a lot of pitfalls like "buy this equipment" or 'this is good enough' ; especially when I had several months of research before I ordered everything. Where I did blow some mula was when my DIY-demon got me into making my own LED fixtures. Probably dropped about 3-400 on parts when all was said and done. In the end for a tank my size and the control I wanted, it ended up being easier to go with modded viparspectras. Not it wasn't all a waste as I now use the diy fixture on my coral QT.

Other than that, the only thing I feel like I "wasted" money on was CUC. Between 3 orders from reef cleaners I probably spent about $200. Much arrived DOA, then some attrition in QT, finally when they did make it to DT most got picked off by Hannibal (my Melanarus). Now Injust have 6 gold-ball sized turbos that are absolute workhorses and some hermits. Oh yeah and a couple Nerite snails that for whatever reason are just borbarding the tank with their eggs.... Much regret.

I did save a good amount of money going with ReefPi vs buying into apex/ghl... So I guess it evens out over time.

 

[Dolphins18]

odyssea. Once and never again. Long time ago.

 

[DracoKat]

BRS Doser and the chemicals for it.

I bought it thinking I'll need to dose for my tank since I had a lot of SPS and other corals. One day it stopped working and I was too lazy to fix it so I thought I'd manually dose as needed. Every testing I've done, levels were all good and I rarely ever had to dose at all. Ocasionally I'll just squirt without measuring alk and calcium into the tank but levels were always on par.

I felt I wasted money on a doser since i never needed it!

If i had bought the reef-lite controller, I'd say that's a waste of money too, but it was a gift so I can't say it's a waste of moeny, lol. I prefer things manual I guess.