Dumb/Foolish purchases

[Mississippi fish guy]

On 9/16/2024 at 5:48 PM, clownbaby said:

Home Depot sells a 20 pound bag of rounded pea gravel for like 5 bucks

That’s good. My brother is wanting to setup a darter tank and that would save him a good bit of money on the gravel.

[Retrophyllum_minus]

On 9/16/2024 at 8:01 PM, Mississippi fish guy said:

That’s good. My brother is wanting to setup a darter tank and that would save him a good bit of money on the gravel.

Rinse it well. I use pea gravel for my walkway from my driveway to my front steps - I put down a lot of it and it is significantly dustier than typical aquarium gravel. 

[Retrophyllum_minus]

On 9/16/2024 at 3:14 PM, NOLANANO said:

Getting it from a petstore or LFS at least provides the assurance that it is safe to put in the tank

Yes, there's that. And also sometimes you have an idea and can't get those materials locally outdoors. Like, my 40 gal breeder has black substrate but I can't collect black sand or smooth black gravel anywhere near me. My 20 long incorporates some LFS purchased gravel and some rocks I got. My 10 gallon also has a mix - black sand and then river rocks I got from the Río Toachi area in Ecuador like five years ago and brought home. 

[NOLANANO]

On 9/16/2024 at 5:48 PM, clownbaby said:

Yeah!!! If you're based in the U.S. (which I assume u are based on ur username xD) Home Depot sells a 20 pound bag of rounded pea gravel for like 5 bucks, I used it in my 30 gal for accent rocks and it is great! It is mixed color (I am unsure if they sell solid color - they very well may,). The only 'downside' is I had to rinse it quite a bit more than I did with gravel I bought from the pet shop... but for me, that was worth it because I am cheap haha

To add to this, I use black diamond blasting sand in my tank. A 50 pound bag was $20 from Tractor Supply.

[HelplessNewbie]

Another dumb one for me: our home stays quite warm and we live a hot climate, so we probably didn't need all the heating equipment for any of our tanks.

[Emily in Everett]

High-priced rocks.

Now I know that I can just go to quarries/landscape supply yards (for cheap) or just get well-washed rocks from the outdoors (for free, a bit of scrubbing, and a bit of knowledge of rock types and their chemistry). 

[Kunersbettas]

Purchasing a single Rosy barb when I was 9

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

On 9/16/2024 at 10:43 AM, Retrophyllum_minus said:

Cuttle bones are for birds.

Actually you can use them as people do crushed coral, they do add hardness to the water (ironically you say they're for birds- which yes that's what they are used for - but they do come from the water  not a dig, just find it amusing). 

 

I think anything med-wise with FIX at the end is a waste of money, it's not medicine and they don't work. 

[Retrophyllum_minus]

On 9/18/2024 at 8:41 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

Actually you can use them as people do crushed coral, they do add hardness to the water (ironically you say they're for birds- which yes that's what they are used for - but they do come from the water  not a dig, just find it amusing). 

 

I think anything med-wise with FIX at the end is a waste of money, it's not medicine and they don't work. 

Yeah fair enough haha. I hadn't heard of them being used for fish tanks before. Just for birds. But you make a good point, they do indeed come from the water haha. 

[Tanked]

On 9/16/2024 at 3:47 PM, Mississippi fish guy said:

I didn’t know you could get pea gravel from a hardware store. I will have to remember this for future reference.

Different stores source their pea gravel from different quarries, so there can be color variations.  Take a water bottle to see how it will look when wet

[Tanked]

I bought a UV sterilizer and extra bulbs because I thought that it would solve a water clarity problem that only occurred when using the Moonlight setting on my lights.  

The package has never been opened.

[Mmiller2001]

For me, buying Fluval 3.0 lights and cheap CO2 regulators like CO2art and GLA.

[Mississippi fish guy]

On 9/18/2024 at 9:29 AM, Mmiller2001 said:

and cheap CO2 regulators like CO2art and GLA.

Aren’t those around 130$?

[Mmiller2001]

On 9/18/2024 at 10:25 AM, Mississippi fish guy said:

Aren’t those around 130$?

Haven’t looked in a while.

[JE47]

I would say the big box stores all in one kits. Now I am not saying don't buy one if your a newbie I am just saying that I just quickly bough all different nicer equipment within a few months and it would have made more sense to just buy and aquarium and then buy all the accessories which would have come out to the same price anyways. Also HOB I would agree I spent a decent sum on those for which in the end I exchanged for sponge filters which I prefer anyways as I keep bettas.