What's best for Newbies?

[Max Farber]

Experienced reefers: Please weigh in with your strong opinions and brief explanations on as many of these as you'd like...

What's your recommendation for:

1. Best test kit brand and type?
2. Best substrate type (sand vs crushed coral, black vs white, live or not), brand and amount for 14g?
3. Best live rock source and type? Cured or uncured to start?
4. Frequency and amount of water changes?
5. Best brand and types of reef and fish foods?
6. Best brand and types of essential conditioning agents and supplements?
7. Best recommendation for obscure but indispensable tool (for example: long-necked tube with baster bulb) and SOURCE?
8. Best refractometer/hydrometer?
9. The one technical lesson you wish you were taught BEFORE you got into this reef-keeping hobby? (also known as The Biggest Avoidable Mistake I Made)

Please keep answers very brief for easy reading by everyone viewing the thread, like this:

1. Red Sea Test Labs Master Reef Lab
2. Coral Sea black aragonite live sand
9. I wish I had not cured my own live rock...my studio apartment smelled like a cesspool for a month!

...and so on.

Thanks for playing! As a reward for those contributing, I'd like to share news of a terrific rebate program from Oceanic on their Bio Cubes: $35 back! Call Chris at Oceanic at 414.304.2238 for details.

Background: I just bought a 14g Bio Cube, not even out of the box yet. I'm a reef beginner aiming for colorful soft corals, a mandarin fish, a goby or blenny, a purple firefish, emerald crab and cleaner shrimp. My water source will be filtered ocean water. I will be purchasing the protein skimmer by Oceanic for the Bio Cube.

 

[KathyC]

First suggestion would be to take the Mandarin off your list of fish that you want to keep in a 14g tank and find a more suitable fish. They need a mature tank of approximately 100 g to live in.

You might try the 'search' function at the top of the home page to look up some of the info you have questions about and do make use of this beginners forum most especially to see what others with nano tanks have done with them.

 

[h20 freak]

4. 10% weekly
5.homemade/grown with selcon
7. TOWELS,various tools,ex:hammer, pliars,etc.

 

[inkblue]

see mY thread for some opinionS...

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum...7-what-not-buy-do-not-buy-list-your-reef.html

 

[bad coffee]

1. Lamotte. Cal, Alk, pH, Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammonia, Phosphate, silicate
2. I like sand. The ocean isn't bare bottom, so neither is my tank.
3. Cheap with lots of life on it. Uncured. That way you get to WAIT for the cycle and do a lot of reading. (see below)
4. On my 10 gal I did 5 gallons every 3-5 weeks. my 20 I did 5 gallons every month or so. I used a 5 gal bucket, can you tell?
5. I make my own. Then I know exactly what's in it, and what's not.
6. Conditioning agents are useless. Additives are added when your test kit says you need to. B-Ionic for cal/alk.
7. Get a turkey baster from the store. $.99. Make sure you've got a lot of spare towels.
8. NEVER a Hydrometer. Go with a decent refractometer. You don't need a few hundred $ one, a $40 one with temp correction will do fine.
9. READ READ READ and have patience. Don't impulse buy without atleast thinking about it for a minute.

Background: I just bought a 14g Bio Cube, not even out of the box yet. I'm a reef beginner aiming for colorful soft corals, a mandarin fish, a goby or blenny, a purple firefish, emerald crab and cleaner shrimp. My water source will be filtered ocean water. I will be purchasing the protein skimmer by Oceanic for the Bio Cube.

I agree with kathy. Don't get the mandarin. Everything else looks great. Enjoy the addiction.

B

 

[budman0418]

14g

The mandrain eats pods and in the 14g you will never have enough and it will starve to death.

 

[basiab]

Biggest mistake everyone makes, self included, is not reading enough before starting. If you had read about your fish selection you would know the mandarin was a no go. Most of your other questions are subjective. There are pros and cons to many of the choices and all you can do is read what people have to say and then make a judgement based on that. This site has lots of info. There is also a lot at www.wetwebmwedia.com.
So, read about the different kinds of substrate including bare bottoms and make a choice. The same goes for everything on your list. It does not mean you will make all the right choices but it will save you lots of money and aggravation.
You are asking for a vote without getting the meaning behind the choice so you will not learn much from it.

 

[Sean]

9.be careful who and what you listen to
everything wrong is right again.
You have to jump in and make sensible decisions
"the best" doesn't exist just better then others
The hobby is expensive
Get a book
I have a felling most people don't read books here and this is why I see a lot of basic questions that could be answered if they read a book written in the last 20 years. Buy a recently written book.
Buy another book and read that one too. You'll probably notice that the authors have opposing views and opinions on what is the correct method to keep these animals alive. Well they're both right and wrong.

hope this helps and confuses

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

Remember this, most LFS's don't care about whether you set up your tank properly they just care that you keep spending money at their store for more livestock and supplies.

Buy as many books as you can afford, search the web and the reef sites and figure out which is best for you.