Things you have wasted money on for you SW tank...

[grimlock3000]

-Tetra Test Kits, $20. I have nothing good to say about these. I replaced everything with fasTesT kits after one use.

-50/50 15w NO Bulb, $20. I used this for about a week, then my Orbit fixture showed up.

-Kent Scraper Short $5. Short means REALLY short, just a handle with a scraper blade. Online pic showed something longer. Replaced with a 24 inch version.

-Two 10g boxes of salt mix, $8 each. Then I smartened up and bought a 25g box, which was still too expensive. Waiting to LFS to get in buckets of Instant Ocean or Oceanic salt mix.

 

[RocketSeason]

50 bucks. Bio-wheels for the canister filter

10 bucks. Bag after bag after bag of silca playsand.

3 bucks. blue- legged hermits that turned out to be empty shells. :|

 

[Biggen]

Off the top of my head...

1. Useless chemicals and additives to put in the water.

2. Junk test kits other than Salifert. Especially the test strips.

3. Overpriced carbon at the LFS. Buy it at Wal-Mart as it is much cheaper...

4. Having a 10 gallon tank drilled (for a fuge) instead of buying one pre-drilled. The glass company ended up breaking the tank (apparently it was tempered and not plate glass) so I had to go out and buy a pre-drilled 10. So far, this whole disaster has cost me as much as new 55 tank would cost.

 

[crono_vivi]

What test kits would you suggest?

You can buy buckets of salt?

 

[Nate C]

75$ Wet dry - (I use a 30gal show for a sump now instead).
100$ Prizm Protein Skimmer - No good on my 90gal, hopefully will work on the 20L nano.
150$ 3x30w NO fixture at LFS. I coulda got cheap PC or VHO retrofit for that price..
$30 50lb bag of sand at LFS. Found southdown locally 2 weeks later.

patience patience patience research research research
In every case I could've found a better deal by shopping around more.

 

[Corty]

$8/# UNCURED LR...

*dies*

*looks longingly at the perfectly good $2/# cured stuff online*

 

[malkore]

$70 Prizm Deluxe skimmer - not good enough even on a 40gallon...mostly too much tinkering to keep it skimming.

 

[MattP725]

$150 Seaclone Skimmer
$50 2xCoralife NO 18" 10,000k bulbs
$25 Ammo Lok, StressZyme, and the other one with stress in it, I now have R/O
$15 "Carribean" playsand which caused enough foam after washing to saturate my QT...
$300 on a 55g All glass tank when I should have bought a 90 or 120 to start

I think that is about it...

Kinda wondering about the empty hermit shells though...

Forgot one... Powersweep PH which worked for about 5 days $35

 

[Biggen]

crono wrote:

What test kits would you suggest? You can buy buckets of salt?

Salifert test kits. Yes, you can buy buckets of salt. Instant Ocean, among others, is available in 5 gallon buckets.

 

[lando]

the money I spent on cleaning stuff. the long arm sponges and scrubers, magnets and such. Now I just spend .20 on a sponge with a scubbie on one side. That, with some elbow grease, is all you need to clean a tank.

 

[fishfreek]

UV unit. total waste of $$.

 

[MattP725]

You mean a sterilizer? Why do you call it a waste?

 

[BLOODMAN]

$50 on an external overflow from my LFS, then I decided to upgrade my tank and had it predrilled.

$8 for a cheap swing arm hydrometer, then I bought a refractometer.

$19 for a cheap air stone driven protein skimmer

$60 for a nicer venturi type protein skimmer on ebay, too many adjustments so I upgraded to the aqua-c

$20 for several misc plumbing parts that I thought I would need but bought 1/2 inch instead of 3/4

 

[SpeckledGrouper]

Cheap test kits here too. Bunches of them out of desperation.
Oh yeah, that short Kent scraper, I was too cheap to buy the long handled version, so I am grinching my teeth when I use the little midget every week...
The dremel tool I got for my boyfriend who swore up and down he could drill my 10g fuge for me and the 2 10 gallon tanks he practiced on.....

 

[xxmoorishmanxx]

Dragonets

 

[snapcrackler]

visi jet skimmer (junk) overseas seaclone skimmer knockoff (dumpster bait) Rio pumps (gather round, spin the impeller, where she stops, nobody knows..CLUNK)

The 2 most aggravating things I have spent money on that are especially junk are:

1. Mr. Sticky's underwater glue -completely stupid glue.
2. Underwater epoxy - yeah right.

 

[Jessethebody101]

Bangaii Cardinal..Not to say it is a bad fish but....put it in my tank......5 minutes later I only see the head.

 

[RocketSeason]

Dragonets

poor guys. They really should be kept in the ocean. Or, you should have to provide photo proof of 300 gallon tank to purchase

Bangaii Cardinal..Not to say it is a bad fish but....put it in my tank......5 minutes later I only see the head.

8O What happened to the rest of the body!!! Or is it just hiding?

 

[Jessethebody101]

Eaten.

 

[RocketSeason]

yeah? what ate it?