Worst purchase(s) you've made for your tank(s)

[perpetual98]

I was reading Soonerfan's post about his $200 eight inch light and I thought I'd start a new thread so we can all discuss how boneheaded we are at time:
What's the worst thing you've bought for your tank that just turned out to be a waster of money, be it livestock or equipment, etc.
My latest stupid purchase was an 8x54W T5 setup that I bought used off of someone on RC. I basically wanted the fixture for the bulbs and ballasts, but I didn't realize that was ALL I was going to get from it. I was thinking that the reflector and endcaps would be salvagable. Not so much. I did get 8 bulbs of unknown age (he said they were all pretty new) and 4 ballasts, so I guess it's not ALL bad.
Another thing that I got that's just junk is a Turboflotor 1000 skimmer. I can't for the life of me get it to work, yet others love them.
I'm sure I've made more stupid equipment purchases that I'll remember later.

As far as livestock goes, I haven't had the best luck either.

I bought $200 worth of corals from someone this past summer and 90% of it is dead. About half of it looked like it died during shipping, and the rest has since died except for a couple frags. About half of the corals (hard or soft) that I buy that gets shipped doesn't make it. I also spent $60 for 7 green ricordea of which I now have 2 and they don't look that good.
For fish? Too many have passed on to the great reef in the sky to remember. I got a high-fin goby from an online retailer that was DOA. I didn't bother to even try to get dredit for it. I also have lost not one but two female mandarins. One looked like death upon delivery and made it one day, the other was this cute little bugger that lasted about 3 weeks before I never saw it again. Recently I lost a 3" Naso tang that looked fantastic for a couple days and then was dead on the bottom one morning. I actually DID call and get credit for that one. I also lost 3 clowns recently. I bought them online and when they were delivered, they were TINY. I don't think they were even big enough to know how to eat properly and I wasn't set up to feed fish who were so young.
My dumbest "I should have researched this fish better" purchase was probably a dwarf fuzzy lionfish that my wife fell in love with. It slowly withered away in my tank because there wasn't enough food.

I'm sure more will come to me! This is an expensive hobby. :)

[zoo-a-holic]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#I baught a choc. chip star for a reef tank! didnt even think about it!!! not expensive, but still dumb!#ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#

[shovelhead91701]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#I have a LONG list! How about every single thing that Petco sold me to "completely set-up a reef tank" With the exception of the 55 gal. tank itself! Man, those guys really take advantage of first-timers, or else the employees are really that uneducated about the products that they sell. Oh, well....water under the bridge but I sure could have spent the same amount of money on the right stuff the first time!#ed_op#IMG src="/richedit/smileys/1.gif"#ed_cl##ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#

[dakar]

I'm with SH, EVERYTHING we purchased from what is probably the crappiest LFS in the state, the weekend we decided that a SW tank is what I had to have! No research, just fed off the info that was provided to me by the dipstick at the LFS. Already had the tank and stand, but still dropped well over $500 in two trips that weekend. Only to find out a few weeks later that I could have purchased everything for about $150 from an online vendor. I'll admit to it, because we just didn't know any better... $50 for a $15 pH, ammo, nitrite, and nitrate test kit. Hey it said *Saltwater Master Test Kit*, so it had to be good right? We got completely blind-sided and taken for a helluva ride.

[jerryc]

1- mechanical filters
2- using untreated water [ lost my first 3 fish from that one]
3- Purchasing coral/fish with out researching
4- not having a sump / fudge from the start
5- and on and on and on it gos

[perpetual98]

Jerry, in what aspect did you decide the 'fudge' was beneficial for your tank? Is that with or without nuts in it?

Sorry, couldn't resist. It's Friday. :)

[shovelhead91701]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#lol perpetual..... I also find it hard to resist picking on our friend jerryc...... he probably types like me with three fingers! I LOVE SPELLCHECK! LOL#ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#

[jerryc]

#ed_op#P#ed_cl#
Jerry, in what aspect did you decide the 'fudge' was beneficial for your tank? Is that with or without nuts in it? #ed_op#BR#ed_cl##ed_op#BR#ed_cl#Sorry, couldn't resist. It's Friday. :)#ed_op#/P#ed_cl##ed_op#P#ed_cl##ed_op#/P#ed_cl##ed_op#P#ed_cl#HA-HA you have to watch out for me#ed_op#IMG src="http://www.captivereefing.com/richedit/smileys/Shocked/1.gif"#ed_cl##ed_op#/P#ed_cl##ed_op#P#ed_cl#Reilly that comes from a Bord i used to hang out on kind of a fun word for Refugium#ed_op#IMG src="http://www.captivereefing.com/richedit/smileys/Teasing/10.gif"#ed_cl##ed_op#/P#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#2 fingers no just one#ed_op#IMG src="http://www.captivereefing.com/richedit/smileys/Teasing/12.gif"#ed_cl##ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#

[dakar]

Meant in the kindest possible way, it's always been a blast trying to decipher some of your posts Jerry. 9 times out of 10 it's just plain halarious, I think a lot faster than I type and when I go back and read some of my posts and see there are entire sentences made up of only nouns or huge pieces of the thought completely missing to the point even I have no idea what I meant.... it's great fun. Maybe I need to write a context/grammer checker for the board.... naw too much work and it would take the fun out of things.

So on with the poorly thought out purchases!

[Azrile]

Ok, first let me say that these things still bother me.
Not because of the money, but because I killed stuff. This was
in like 1987 before the internet and free information and like so many
new hobbiest, I trusted the LFS

Bought a 20L saltwater setup from my LFS. Basically tank, generic hood,
salt, net, and hangon filter. Didn't bother to buy liverock
(didn't even know it existed), instead I spent about $200 on that dead
expensive ornamental coral.

3 days later, bought a panther grouper (polkadotted grouper) that was about 4 inches long

a week after that, bought some kinda anenome (probably bubbletip) from the
same LFS. The only lighting I had was the one flourscent bulb

About a week later bought a yellow tang, not knowing anything about it's
special diet.. oh yeah, the tank came with flake food.

The anenome lasted about a week, then of course killed off the two fish.

I still have thoughts of arsen when it comes to that LFS. luckily it went out of business awhile ago.

[perpetual98]

My wife, bless her heart, ran into something similar to that a couple years ago. I had a couple 55G freshwater tanks and I had made the passing comment that I would like to get into saltwater. For Christmas a couple years ago she got me an AGA 10G tank 'setup' and specifically told them she wanted to set it up for saltwater. It was the tank, a heater, some salt and various other things. The hood/light combo that it came with was the cheap plastic hood that you could screw an incandescent light into.

[graphixx]

when I was still fairly new to the hobby I picked up longnosed butterfly fish. I went in 2 days prior and he had it in but it had ich. he said he was in the process of treating it and should be clear in a couple of days he said it only take about a week to kick ich (bells should of went off right there but) So I bought him and 2 days later fish started dying. well make a long story short the only thing that made it was my clown. I think in total that one dammed fish wiped out about 8 fish. I went back and chewed the guys a$$. But lesson learned

[flame]

I noticed a consistent story here and it also applies to me. It looks like start up with the assistance of LFS has been the biggest problem. Sure wish there was a way to let other newbies know this before thay start. Thanks to CR and Dakar my tank has made a large turn around and I will be in this hoby for the long term.

[graphixx]

it is so nice to have the internet so you can research and get some background on what exactly your getting yourself into. I wish I had something like this when I started in this hobby. I know I would of saved a lot of money on equip and livestock. but I guess as long as you can learn from mistakes you are allright.

[tigersax7]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#i fully agree mistakes are only bad if you do not learn from them....one of the worst/best purchasses I ever made was a christmass tree worm rock that was covered in what we thought was a sponge...actualy it was some very unhappy porites coral...eveadentaly the rock had come from of the LFS's sister stores where the tank had crashed...the porites not only required a lighting up grade (as my tank was still being set up...had live rock, a few fish and filter feeders no coral) but we are still trying to nurse it back to health...slowly but surly its comming around...oh and the worms are happy as can be....as a side note one of the worst tragedys I ever had was we bought a yuma rock at the LFS for about $35 under their lighting it looked dul and brown ...not very atractive but I thought it might look beter under some atinic lighting...sure enough we get it home and its got a turquoise base color with purple bubles ans a white stripe...the tragey is that it was for my girl friends 10 gallon nano w/10 gallon fuge any way there in the for about a week and our air conditioner in my apartment goes out...they over heat and one decided to die....oddly yuma's comunicate throught chemical signals ....all 8 of the 2 inch little yumas on this $35 rock died #ed_op#IMG src="http://www.captivereefing.com/richedit/smileys/Sad/2.gif"#ed_cl#I found out later that this varity typicaly sells for $60 a pulp...I had 8....that realy sucked...#ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#