Here are 22 things I wish I knew before setting up my first saltwater aquarium:
1. Clownfish Can Live For Decades
No joke, I thought they would be like goldfish. And actually I’ve recently learned that goldfish can live for a long time! I mean, that shows you how little I knew about saltwater aquariums.
I went to a local fish store in Seattle over 20 years ago now, and they had a clownfish that was over 20 years old! That’s amazing!
So when you go out and you get a dog or a cat, you know you have a 15-year commitment. The same is true when you pick up a clownfish, except they might live even longer.
2. There Are Easy & Hard Saltwater Aquariums
What I find really annoying, looking back, is that in this hobby we tend to put everything together and say saltwater aquariums are really easy or saltwater aquariums are really hard. But that’s just nonsensical.
It’s like saying the piano is really easy or the piano is really hard. If you’re just going to play chopsticks, then the piano is pretty easy, but if you want to play Rachmaninoff, piano can be hard.
The same is true for saltwater aquariums. There are easy saltwater aquariums and there are complicated saltwater aquariums, so do not confuse the two. Know which one you’re looking for, and that will just make your life so much better in this hobby.
Click below to explore each tank…
3. Corals & Anemones Can Live Forever
I’m not joking about that. We know of corals and anemones that are hundreds, maybe even a couple thousand years old. As far as we know, because of how they reproduce, because of how they grow, they do not have an aging mechanism like us human beings do. You can tell an infant versus a 90-year-old person because we age. Corals and anemones don’t necessarily have that.
It’s true they are an indicator species, meaning if something’s going wrong with the Earth, going wrong in their environment, then they are going to be one of the first to show distress.
Knowing that you’re picking up an animal that can live for hundreds or thousands of years, I think that’s a really important thing to know. You’re not just picking up something that you can have for a year and then get rid of. You’re picking up an animal that can live for your lifetime, for your children, for your grandchild’s lifetime, and I think you should know the responsibility that goes along with that.
4. Most Beginners Quit Before The End of Year One
I didn’t realize this, but over a decade in this hobby now, it’s clearly true. But why?
The thing about starting a saltwater aquarium is it’s complicated. It’s just like any hobby out there. There is a ton to learn, and there are going to be a lot of mistakes made along the way. Unfortunately, a lot of beginners get into the hobby thinking it’s a goldfish tank, or you can plop a betta in some sort of bowl. And let me be clear, goldfish and betta fish need quite a bit more than just a bowl, but that’s just been our popular understanding for years.
We need to shift that understanding to something a little bit more realistic, that these are pets, beloved pets, like our dogs and our cats, and they deserve that much respect and that much care, which means we need to give them the right environment, the right nutrition, the right attention.
So when I say beginners quit after year one, they quit not because it’s too difficult but because they thought they were getting a goldfish in a bag, and that was all they had to do. Us as hobbyists, we need to help beginners and help them succeed by also being a little bit honest with them.
5. Some Saltwater Aquarists Have Strong Opinions
This is true with anything, of course, but it’s especially true amongst saltwater hobbyists. I have been moderating my own YouTube channel and website for many years now, and have large profanity filters on both because there are some people who say horrific things.
And since they are my channels and I can control what is said, I just don’t let that fly. If you’re not going to be respectful to me, if you’re not going to be respectful to anybody else in the hobby, then I’m not going to give you a voice.
I think that’s important to know when you’re starting out in the hobby, that not everybody is nice. There are plenty of nice people out there, and I would say the vast majority of other hobbyists are going to be super friendly and helpful. But be aware there are some not-so-nice people, so do your best to block them out.
6. You're Going to Spend a Lot More Money Than You Think
First you have your upfront costs, all the gear you need, water, salt, lights, pumps, plus quite a bit more. Then there are your ongoing costs.
But oftentimes we overlook the fact that we are going to fall in love with this hobby, and that means we’re going to want more fish and more coral, and we’re going to want more expensive fish and brightly colored, more expensive coral.
I learned advice years ago that I think applies here. When you’re going on some big vacation, what you need to do is lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then get rid of half your clothes and double your money. That has been really good advice for me while traveling and also really good advice in this hobby. Just have a realistic sense that it’s probably going to cost more than you think.
7. If You Don't Quarantine Everything, You Will Get Ich
Some people can get away without quarantining for years and they think they’ve hit some sort of jackpot, but really, all they’ve done is gotten lucky. The only way to avoid ich in your tank is through a quarantine process. Now, most beginners, most hobbyists in general, do not do this, but if you want to be sure that your tank is always free from ich, you’re going to have to set up a quarantine regimen for everything, fish, inverts, and corals.
8. You're Going To Make Mistakes
You just are…You’re not perfect. I’m not perfect. You’re going to screw things up, and that’s okay.
What’s not okay is to make a mistake and just give up. Don’t do that. We’re all making mistakes in this hobby. Even experts make mistakes in this hobby. I have made so many mistakes in the hobby, and that’s okay. Just remember this: when you make a mistake, learn from that mistake, and you’re going to become a better hobbyist.
9. Bad Things Will Happen Inside Your Aquarium
No matter how perfect you are at this hobby, no matter how much quarantine you do beforehand, things are going to go wrong. Yes, even big, huge expert tanks have things go wrong. It can be illness that you don’t know how it got there. It can be algae outbreaks. It can be some sort of nutrient imbalance. But knowing that, I think, will help you in the long run, because number one, you’re not alone, and number two, knowing that mistakes will happen will keep you vigilant so that you can correct them when they do.
10. You Will Need Somebody To Take Care Of Your Tank When On Vacation
Yes, you can automate a lot of the process. You can buy a Neptune Apex. You can buy automatic feeders, auto top-off units, and leak detectors. You can do all of that, and for a decent amount of time, your tank can run really smoothly, but things can go wrong.
Just for example, I was gone on a cruise and my son said, “Hey, your tank’s making a loud noise. What’s going on?” The auto top-off unit just decided to crap out while I was gone. If somebody wasn’t checking in on my tank, that would have been it. Dead pets, and dead gear.
So if you’re going on a longer vacation you will need somebody to come and look in on your tanks for you.
Click on the images below if you want to check out my preferred automatic feeder (great for a weekend getaway).
11. Tinkering Is Bad
If you are a tinkerer like me, stop it! You need to let things settle. You need to let things just kind of have a natural landing place.
Tinkering constantly, whether it’s tinkering with your water changes, what kind of salt you’re using, different pump settings— I mean, who knows what it is. I was always tinkering when I was a beginner. Adjusting how much GFO I put in, changing the pump to this location, changing the flow rate. My corals hated me because what they wanted was consistency. So tinkering is a great thing, just not in this hobby.
12. Larger Tanks Take a Lot More Time & Effort
I think it’s really important to know that if you want a big system, you’re going to have to put in big time hours. A small desktop tank might take an hour a week to take care of, but a 100 gallon tank may take five hours.
Everything just takes longer the larger the tank. You have more water volume, you have more glass area, you have more animals. When things go wrong, they go wrong on a much bigger scale. So just be aware that a bigger tank will take a significantly longer time for maintenance each week.
13. It's Really Easy to Over-Clean Your Water
I’m a bit of a neat freak. I like things organized, I like things clean, and those habits have carried over into this hobby.
When I started, as a hobby, we thought less phosphate and nitrate in the water was a good thing. In fact, we thought zero was best. That was a decade ago, and just in case you are not aware…zero nitrates and phosphates is in fact a bad thing. Corals absolutely need some level of organic nutrients—nitrates and phosphates—in the water to incorporate into their body.
Over-cleaning the water is really easy. Letting things stay at the appropriate level of dirtiness is hard.
Over-cleaning just involves over-filtering. You can filter by changing your filter socks a lot, by adding all sorts of other filtration methods, by adding GFO. It’s easy to get to zero nitrates and phosphates.
It’s also really easy to get to exorbitantly high nitrates and phosphates by overfeeding and not filtering enough. But keeping in that really nice range is challenging because it means you have to constantly test your water and have good tank hygiene practices. So just know it’s really easy to make your tank a little bit too clean.
This video is over eight years old, so the tank is no longer for sale! But, I broke down this tank because I over-filtered it… I just didn’t know it at the time.
14. A Reefer is a Saltwater Hobbyist
There’s no other connotation for it when it comes to this hobby. If you’re a reefer, that means you have a reef tank—typically fish and some sort of corals. So we call that person a reefer.
15. An All-In-One Tank Does Not Come With Everything
This is still super annoying to me. When you buy an all-in-one something as a beginner, you expect to get everything you need. But in the saltwater aquarium hobby, an all-in-one tank just means that the tank has a rear filtration chamber.
Some all-in-one tanks may come with a lot of gear. For example, our HelloReef tank would be a truly all-in-one tank that comes with all the gear you’re going to need. But you can also get an all-in-one tank that just comes with a tank. All-in-one does not mean you get everything. It just means it has a rear filtration chamber.
All three tanks below are called AIO systems… they do not come with everything! Don’t believe me? Click on each one to check them out!
16. Just Buy An RO/DI Filter
Yes, it may seem like a lot of money upfront, but you can get a simple RO filter from a company like AquaReady for around $110. It is going to save you so much money, not only in your first year but in every year after that.
And you can just make filtered water at home. You never have to go to the local fish store and lug heavy buckets. You never have to go to the grocery store to get five-gallon containers of RO water. You can just make it at home and save yourself a ton money and a ton of time.
17. You Need A Power Outage Plan
You can’t just set up your saltwater fish tank and wait for a power outage because then it’s going to be too late. The number one killer of livestock during a power outage is not the water being too cold or too hot; it’s a lack of oxygen. Because oxygen enters a tank through the surface, if you have a totally still surface, there is no gas exchange. Carbon dioxide doesn’t escape, and oxygen doesn’t enter.
The easiest thing you can do during a power outage is get a battery-powered air stone which you put into your tank. It creates bubbles, and those bubbles make the surface move, thus saving your livestock. So whatever you do, when you get a tank, you need to have a plan of what to do and have all the gear you need before a power outage happens.
18. To Succeed, You Need To Learn Patience
If you are an impatient person, oh my goodness, you are in for it. If you define patience as hours and minutes, you are in for a learning curve. In this hobby, patience is measured by weeks and months.
Good things in this hobby can take many, many months, and bad things can happen over many, many months. You have to be patient in this hobby, or a least be willing to learn patience.
19. If You're a True Beginner, Just Get the HelloReef Kit
This didn’t exist when I was a beginner, but if you’re a true beginner, just get the HelloReef kit. It’s honestly the best out there.
Obviously, I’m biased as I work for HelloReef, but there’s nothing like it. I made over 50 videos for HelloReef that you can only get with HelloReef Connect, which comes free when you buy the kit. It literally walks you through step-by-step of one really good way to set up your tank.
And not only that, but you get all the gear, and it’s not crappy gear; it’s really high-end gear from high-end manufacturers. There’s nothing else like it on the market.
And yeah, if you want a bigger tank after this one, guess what? You’ve just watched 50 videos and you’ve set up your first successful saltwater aquarium. You now have the basic skills you need to go wherever you want in this hobby.
20. This Hobby is Strangely Male Dominated
I’m not really sure why this is. Different strokes for different folks, but in my experience, I’d say 95% of hobbyists are men. It’s not a good or bad thing. But personally speaking, I would have liked to known that because while I like spending my time with the guys, I also like having my girlfriends as well.
There’s nothing wrong with this hobby being male dominated, but if you are not a guy, then please come and join us in this hobby. It would be great to have a few more other voices.
If you don’t believe me, check out the analytics from my personal YouTube page. With over two million total views, here is the breakdown.
21. All Reef Tanks Are Saltwater Tanks, But Not All Saltwater Tanks Are Reef Tanks.
I didn’t understand this, just like I didn’t understand growing up that all Advil is ibuprofen, but not all ibuprofen is Advil.
We have a lot of jargon in this hobby. And when you’re talking about saltwater tanks, you’re talking about anything, anything that goes in saltwater. That could be fish, that could be corals, whatever it is.
But if we’re talking about reef tanks, a reef tank means it emulates a reef, and really we mean it has some level of corals. It doesn’t have to be a lot of corals. It can be one simple coral. But if you put coral in a tank, it is both a reef tank and a saltwater aquarium.
22. Coral Can Be & Is Extremely Expensive. Get Into Macroalgae
Macroalgae is gorgeous. So many people in this hobby get obsessed with coral, and I get it. Coral is amazing. It’s mesmerizing. It’s gorgeous. It’s challenging. It’s all the things you want from a hobby.
You can spend hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of dollars if you get really high-end coral. Macroalgae is cheap!
Macroalgae is so much easier to keep. It comes in different shapes, different colors, and it is gorgeous and fast-growing. You could fill a 100-gallon tank with $10,000 worth of coral, and it would look nice. You could fill that same tank with $200 worth of macroalgae, and it would look just as nice and save you a whole bunch of money.
The video below should queue at the right spot, showing you an old seahorse/macroalgae tank built. It’s nothing phenomenal, so if you want to see stunning, watch this video…
These Are the 22 Things I Wish I Knew...
What do you wish you knew? Be well and Happy reefing everybody!
