Top five of the worst advice that is ever given in this hobby.
And some of y'all are gonna be real mad about it too.
Top five, top five, top five.
I've come to realize that these top five videos are really difficult
because there are a lot of bad pieces of advice that are dolled out in this hobby.
There's a lot.
But I think these are the ones that get under my bones the most.
If I had a bone to pick with any advice, it would be these ones.
And number one on the five worst pieces of advice that are ever given in the reef
tank keeping hobby is the classic rule of 1 pound of rock per gallon of your tank.
You'd think this one would be outdated, but it's not.
I still see this rule, this hard line rule floating around.
Why?
So this one started off with a bit of logic, right?
I mean, we're talking like, early era of reef tank keeping.
You had to depend on live rock for everything.
All of your beneficial bacteria, everything depended on your live rock.
Right. So back then
it made more sense.
It made sense.
I don't know where these people were
putting this rock, but it made sense, right?
Pretty new to this hobby.
I've only been in this hobby for I think
about five years now and I followed this rule with my first tank.
Okay.
I had a Biocube 29 gallon and I was so excited y'all.
And I read that there's this 1 lb of rock per gallon of your tank rule.
That was just something that I had to follow, right?
I had to follow it. Right.
So then I go to the store and I get my rock and come home and get excited.
Put it in the tank, 29 pounds of rock.
And I thought y'all that I would be able to fit 29 pounds of rock.
I mean, this tank that I have here is
220 gallons.
That would mean 220 pounds of rock.
First of all, how am I going to carry that in the house?
And yeah, how am I going to fit it?
I mean, I have a sump now which maybe
could account for maybe like 60 of those pounds.
Maybe.
I want to find out whoever actually applied this rule successfully.
Like, I don't know.
Let me know in the comments.
I would really be interested
in finding out how you manage to Tetris that situation.
And number two of the worst advice that is
ever given in the reef tank keeping hobby is that you can cycle your new tank
with water from your old tank, or even worse, somebody else's tank water.
This troubles me that I've seen this on the Internet.
Bacteria does not live in the water column.
It attaches to things, right?
So attaches to rock, it attaches to filters, things of that nature.
It sticks to things.
And I have to clarify,
that it's not a bad thing to add existing water into your new tank filled.
It certainly helps.
But what I'm trying to say,
you can't just cycle your reef tank, your new reef tank with existing water or
from your previous tank or whatever, and just use that to cycle it solely right.
It can't be the only thing.
Number three,
the worst advice that is given in the reef
tank keeping hobby
Garlic does not cure ich.
Garlic isn't some kind of crazy appetite enhancer.
Like I'm ready to eat.
I'm ready to combat this ich
i mean, that's not how it works.
The fish, they're not Italian.
They don't just go nuts over some garlic
in their mysis shrimp.
Fish do not have such a sophisticated palette.
What garlic does is it is known to help with parasites, and it kind of does end up
curing ich, though in a weird way, I guess, because if you feed the fish,
the garlic, and the garlic helps remove their internal parasites,
the fish are going to be more hungry and therefore cure the ich.
And I feel like a lot of people just
slap garlic on as the solution to every fish problem.
And it's not y'all.
It's just garlic.
Number four on the worst advice that is
ever given in the reefing hobby may be a tad controversial.
This myth that you cannot hand remove bubble algae, like somehow when you handle
and try to manually remove bubble algae, it's going to pop and release all of these
spores and it's just going to be a never ending nightmare.
Do not touch your bubble algae, everybody says.
And well, yeah, I mean, it's true that when bubble algae
has popped, little spores spread throughout the tank.
This is true.
But you can't go and say that you can't manually remove bubble algae and then
go tell me that an Emerald crab is going to fix my problems.
Emerald crabs,
they're messy.
I don't know if y'all have ever watched an Emerald crab go ham on some bubble
algae, but they are way more clumsy than my hand is.
They have those big pinchers and they just break it apart.
They spread it more than I would spread it.
Yes, they do eat it.
Yes, they help bring down the population,
but they're going to do the same thing you're going to do, right?
They're wonderful if you have 220 pounds of rock
in your 220 gallon tank
and you can't possibly reach behind any of that rock
I mean, that's a good idea.
Add some Emerald crabs,
get in there and get that bubble algae that you can't reach.
Okay. I'm not saying Emerald crabs are like a no
no or anything, but I'm just saying that Emerald crabs,
they're not the perfect solution in your hand is not the worst solution.
Okay, I really believe in manual removal of bubble algae.
And personally, I've never had an Emerald
crab that really loved eating bubble algae instead of the fish food.
In fact, I've had them go off on some zoas.
I've had them munch down like it was the best meal of their life.
So personally, I'm not
an Emerald crab enthusiast by any means, but this whole thing that you should not
manually remove your bubble algae and you should add an Emerald crab instead.
And last, but not least, is probably one that has only affected me.
To my knowledge
Adding egg crate to the bottom of your tank
to I don't know, I guess make the rock stay in place.
I don't know where I read this, but the fact that I read this in multiple
areas of the internet when I first started keeping reef tanks is troubling enough.
Like I said, I've only been reefing
for five years, so this knowledge is still floating around somewhere.
Right? The concept was
this sounds so silly.
You got to secure your rock to egg crate, and egg crate keeps everything in place.
Egg crate is holey y'all
all that nasty detritus
it's like a trap for crashing your tank.
If you ever move it or ever so slightly messed with that sand.
The second that thing is disturbed, those terrible gasses are released,
and
there is no good reason why egg crate should ever have been recommended to me.
And I know I'm really salty, but it's a terrible piece of advice.
Don't put egg crate on the bottom of your tank y'all
I am speaking from a place of frustration, but they shouldn't be recommended.
Things like this that don't make sense.
I feel like purely target people like me
when I first started, I didn't know better
the dangers of using egg crate, and it really annoys me.
I have egg crate on the bottom of my 40 gallon
and I ever thought that was a good idea.
One of the worst advice that was given in the reef tank hobby, at least for me.
And that is my top five worst advice ever given in the reef tank hobby.
And I know you all are going to go off in those comments already.
I mean, I'm ready for it.
Or just let me know what other terrible advice you've heard.
Maybe this could be like a resource or something.
I'm really enjoying these top five videos.
I would like to make more if you have any ideas and suggestions.
I'll rant about anything.