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

[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#