Just how to make your significant other happy and have a saltwater aquarium
and the one piece of saltwater aquarium gear we think you should buy first.
Hey, everybody,
Matthew here from my first fish tank in collaboration with Marine Depot and
welcome to week seven of the beginner. How to guide for saltwater,
aquariums and reef tanks,
15 tips before you buy your gear for a lot more information about this video,
be sure to check out our blog.
I'll put a link up here and in the description below. And of course,
if you miss videos, one through six,
I will put a link up here as well as a link to each of the videos below.
Be sure to check out and stay with us. Every single Friday, 9:00 AM Pacific.
You can watch the videos at Marine Depot or at my first fish tank.
And without further ado, let's jump right in to our 15 tips.
Before you buy your gear tip number one,
read the reviews and don't just read the reviews from one place,
go to all sorts of different online vendors. Talk with friends,
watch YouTube videos,
go to forums and really have a sense of if an item's going to be worth
it, especially for the more expensive items.
If you're just buying some sort of off-brand thing, it's not as important,
but if you're going to spend some big money, be sure to read the reviews.
So you know what you're getting into.
And the key thing about reading reviews is don't trust one source,
a lot of saltwater aquarium products won't have a lot of reviews.
So if you go to a Marine Depot and you see two reviews and one of them's bad,
don't necessarily trust that, ask some other hobbyists,
go to some other websites and really do your research. Tip number two,
keep it simple. You're not an expert. I'm, I'm not an expert.
I've been doing this for years and I am not an expert.
And I have found over time that beginners like to overcomplicate it,
because just like any hobby, you want to be an expert right away,
but you're not an expert.
So the best thing you can do is to start out simply and realize that
this is going to take you a long time to become an expert in. So when I say,
keep it simple, don't go for the most complex gear,
the most complex dosing methods, the fanciest things out there,
follow our techniques and follow our future videos.
When we give you build lists,
because we will start out with simple gear that will be effective,
but that will work tip number three, formulate realistic goals.
This can be challenging,
especially if your only experience before has been keeping some sort of gold
fish in a bowl. Saltwater aquarium. Livestock can be very,
very tricky. So having a realistic goal is important.
So for example,
maybe an initial goal would be to have a 20 to 40 gallon system with a couple
fish and a couple easy to keep corals.
Don't start out planning necessarily the biggest tank with only
difficult and finicky fish, high need corals,
non photosynthetic corals with all sorts of filtration gear,
because all you're going to do is you're going to over-complicate things for
yourself. So set a goal that is going to be simple,
and that's going to be achievable. And then you can move on from there,
tip number four, be patient. This hobby, no joke will teach you patience,
or it will destroy your patients and you will quit.
There's really only two options. Patience is essential in this hobby,
but let's just take corals as an example, something corals will take years,
years grow a few inches. And if you're not patient,
you're going to lose your mind.
Some issues in your tank like nuisance algaes can take months to
develop and they can take months to get rid of things like dyno flagellins can
kill off your livestock. And it can take you a very, very long time.
My tank right over here had a dyno flagella problem.
And when I started out in the hobby,
I rushed it and I wanted to get rid of those dyno flagellins quickly.
And when I not only failed, but cause more problems. I quit.
I have finally defeated dyno flagella it's in that tank,
but it took me three to four months.
So I really can't stress this enough in this hobby.
Good things take time and bad things can happen instantaneously.
So before you rush out and do something, take a breath,
ask some fellow hobbyists, watch some videos,
read some articles and just go slowly, tip number five,
allow yourself to fail. You will fail in this hobby, guaranteed. I guarantee it.
You are going to fail in this hobby,
but the only way you're ultimately going to fail is if you quit,
I've done this for years now.
And I share my experiences with you guys in my Tuesday gallery videos and for
years and other videos. And sometimes people say, Matthew,
you should just give up. You know, you're not good at that.
And I always tell them no. So tip number five is allow yourself to fail.
No that you're not going to be successful with every fish or every coral.
No that you're going to experience things in your tank that you've never seen
before. You're going to have good days and you're going to have bad days.
You're going to have good months and you're going to have bad months and don't
expect to always have success.
Even seasoned professionals don't always have success,
but if you take each failure for what it is as a learning experiment,
then the next time you experience that same issue,
you're going to be better off. So yes. Allow yourself to fail. Number six,
get excited. I mean, look, look,
I have a whole fish room. I mean dream big.
When I started out in this hobby six,
seven years ago that I ever dreamed that I'd be doing this full-time and making
a living, making videos and making blogs.
No I didn't but excited because you have no idea where this hobby is going
to leave. It's a challenging, challenging hobby,
but it's also a super rewarding hobby.
So allow yourself to get excited and yeah, you're going to experience setbacks,
but don't let that overshadow you excitement and your reason for getting into
this hobby in the first place. Number seven, I got everybody with you guys,
tip number seven, involved your significant other. Now,
if you don't have a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a partner, a spouse,
you don't have to worry about this.
You can go out and spend as much money as you want and do whatever you want.
But if you have a significant other, someone you care about,
I'm going to give you some relationship advice, because I have seen,
I'm not joking.
I have seen relationships end because of an obsession with his hobby.
So when I say include your significant other, I mean it,
talk to them about what you're planning on doing.
Get them to share in your excitement. Talk about the budgeting.
Don't pretend that it's not an expensive hobby.
Develop a plan for buying things piece by piece.
The more you involve your significant other,
the more chance you're going to have to be able to co-exist with a happy
relationship with your significant other and saltwater aquariums. Look at me.
Now,
my wife has given me our entire living room are yeah, our living room.
And if I hadn't involved her from the beginning,
this would have never been possible. So yes,
I know you probably don't want to hear relationship advice from my first fish
tank,
but I have seen relationships fail because of this hobby tip number eight by an
RDI filter by an RDI filter before you buy anything else.
And I know there are people out there and there's probably a lot of you out
there who don't own an RDI filter. You think it's too expensive.
You don't want to figure out how the thing works,
but I promise you if you make an RDI filter one of your first purchases and
watch the videos and learn how to use it properly,
it is going to save you a ton of money. And a ton of time.
I have never once had to go to buy distilled water at the grocery store.
I've never once had to go to my local fish store to buy salt water.
You can purchase your RDI filter and make your own salt.
And what 200 gallons of salt water can cost you
$65.
That's way less than 50 cents a gallon when they charge a dollar at your
local fish store. So I know it may seem daunting at first,
but I highly highly recommend that the first purchase you make is an RDI
filter because that is a purchase that will take you through your entire life in
this hobby tip number nine. And we're going to talk about this a lot.
In a later video set up a quarantine tank. It's just best practice.
And if you don't set up a quarantine tank near the beginning of this hobby,
you probably never will until you experienced some sort of massive failure.
If you talk to people who have done this hobby for a long time,
most of them will say, yeah, I should have built a quarantine tank.
I didn't do it at the beginning. And you may wonder why do I a quarantine tank?
Because here's, what's going to happen in this hobby without a quarantine tank.
You're going to go long. You're going to have successes.
You're going to have failures. And your tank may after a year, after two years,
be stable and happy. And you're going to think, Hey, you know what?
It's time for me to buy that Tang. Hey, you know what?
It's time for me to buy that anti-ice and you're going to go out and you're
going to buy it and you're going to bring it home. And within a couple of weeks,
there's going to be an Epic outbreak and half of your fish.
If not all of your fish are going to be dead,
you will not have to spend a lot of money on a quarantine tank.
And it is an initial investment that will pay dividends long run tip number
10, you don't need fancy gear. You need the right now,
if you're independently wealthy and money is not a thing for you sure.
Go right ahead, go buy your fancy gear, but let's just take lighting.
As an example,
a $1,000 light is not necessarily going to grow your coral
any better than a $200 light,
a $500 return pump is not going to necessarily more efficiently pump
your water than $150 return pump.
There are things you're going to want to spend money on.
And then there are things you're not going to want to spend money on this hobby.
And don't get sucked in to this belief that buying the most expensive
option is the best option.
You could build a 20 gallon tank and spend a thousand dollars,
or you could build a 20 gallon tank and spend 300 and find just as
much success. So you don't need to buy expensive equipment.
You just need the right equipment for what your goals are. Tip number 11,
spend more money on the things you're going to see. This is something that,
yeah, I wish hobbyists had told me at the beginning,
what am I you're talking about?
There are pieces of equipment that you're going to have to look at every day.
For example, you're going to have to lead your tank.
You're going to have to look at your lights and you're going to have to look at
your rock. So if you're looking at two kinds of rock for your aquarium,
and one of them is an ugly kind of looking rock,
but it saves you a lot of money.
And one is a beautiful red core line color rock,
but it's a lot more expensive if you're going to spend money on one thing,
go with the more expensive rock.
And the reason I say that is because of you are going to be staring at those
rocks every single day. If you're going to spend more money on a light,
let's say $300 on a light,
but you can get a cheaper uglier light for $150 that might work just as well
for the Y I'd say go with the $300.
Not because it's gonna work better because it's more aesthetically pleasing
because so many of us get into this hobby because it's beautiful.
So if you're going to spend more money than consider spending a little bit more
money on the thing you're going to have to look at every day, tip number 12,
buy a piece of gear with each paycheck.
Don't think that you have to go out and spend a ton of money all at once.
And if you were like me, when I started this hobby,
I knew that saving up a little bit of money and then buying everything at once.
Wasn't a good option because I couldn't see the results and I would forget about
it, or I would spend that money on something else.
So what I did is I bought a piece of equipment with each paycheck and then I
put it in my living room, right, where it was supposed to go.
And I would just fill it up over time. Yeah.
It took me six months to be able to purchase all the equipment I needed.
But my ex excitement built as I bought each piece of equipment.
And I was still able to pay all of my bills and make my significant other happy
because I wasn't spending a ton all at once. If you don't have a lot of money,
just buy a piece of deer with each paycheck and build it slowly over time,
tip number 13 by the tank you're going to want in a year. Now this isn't like,
like a hard and fast tip.
But if you know that your ultimate goal is to have like a 75
gallon cube, because there are certain livestock you want to put in it,
but you only have the money right now to buy a 20 gallon. Well, right.
Rather than spend your money on that 20 gallon tank, because you know,
what's going to happen is you're going to get rid of that tank. No,
one's going to buy it. It's gonna, it'd be a huge hassle.
And you're going to waste a ton of money. Just wait a little bit longer,
save up a little bit more money and buy the tank. You know,
you're going to want, if you don't know what you're going to want,
then please by all means, don't say, but for something that you don't know,
if you're going to need it,
because then they're going to spend a lot more money,
just go with something smaller. That's less expensive.
But if you have your heart set on something, then by the tank, you know,
you're going to want. And not the one, you know, you can afford right now,
tip number 14, buy an extra heater,
an extra utility pump and a battery powered air stone.
This is just called building in redundancy because what's going to happen is
something's going to go wrong and your lights go out and you can't get them to
work anymore. That's not a big deal.
Your livestock can survive several days with no lights.
But if your heater goes out in the winter, or if your return pump goes out,
your fish can die in 12 hours,
either from temperature changes or from suffocation, do yourself a favor,
buy an extra heater, buy a utility pump.
Something that you can just put into your tank in case your return pump goes out
to at least keep it aerated and buy a battery power.
Airstone in case of an electrical outage,
that way you can at least air rate your tank in the short term.
And finally tip number 15. Don't blow your budget up front,
write down everything. You're going to need. Make a list,
write down all the gear you're going to want,
how much it's going to cost total all up. Take that number,
double it because that's how much it's actually going to cost.
And why I'm saying don't blow your budget upfront because the initial setup
costs while it may be a lot of money,
your costs over a year are also significant.
So if you blow your entire budget upfront,
you're not going to have any money left over to buy the little things here and
there that you're going to need in your first year. Okay?
So we've given you all of these tips before buying your gear.
So what gear should you buy? Well, tune in next week for week eight,
because we're going to talk about build lists, right?
Choosing your gear and give you our recommended builds.
If you want to browse some of our recommendations now,
just go to my first fish tank.com,
click on build lists and you can browse all sorts of build options from low
budget to high end tanks. If you've found this video helpful,
please consider giving it a thumbs up subscribing to my first fish tank and to
Marine Depot and as always happy.
Be well, we'll see you next week. Thank you everybody.