8 Aquarium Products I WASTED My Money On!

Some of the things I'm going to talk about today are definitely going to make people angry, but I'm going to give you eight

aquarium

products

that I completely

wasted

my

money

on and I'm only doing it as a service to you. Guys, try to help some of you beginners understand what you really need to have a successful

aquarium

and maintain a bunch of aquariums like I do here in this fish room. I raise lots of fish. I have quite a bit of experience. I mean, I'm not the most experienced guy out there, but I have quite a bit of experience with aquarium

products

and I've raised a lot of different types of fish, and the fish that breed are usually happy and believe me.

You don't need a lot of aquarium products or anything fancy to keep your fish happy and healthy and, above all, have a really beautiful aquarium. The first thing I think is nonsense here in the aquarium hobby is some filtration, so this sounds really biased, but in my opinion the only filtration you really need is some type of sponge filter or mat and filter. very low maintenance. Some people have things like hanging filters, canister filters. I've never been a fan. There are cheaper options that do the exact same thing and are safer from failure. You can set up as one large sponge filter system with a single air pump instead of having eight different filters hanging on the back.

You only need an outlet instead of plugging in. You already know eight different filters. you just need to plug in an air pump, you can plug in like a ton of different sponge filters, but the sponge filters are around 10 bucks, the hanging filter will probably cost you at least 25 bucks for that simple reason because they are cheap. I love sponge filters, I mean they are easy to clean, you can see when they are dirty they get clogged and I don't really use any other type of filtration other than sponge filters, as you can see in every tank in this fish room You're not going to find anything but a spongebob to filter in that tank, not to say that the other filters in this hobby don't have their place, they definitely do.

I think many beginners don't need to do it. delve into some really expensive filtration, get a sponge filter and an air pump that will work perfectly for a small two foot 100 liter tank, you only need a sponge filter and if you do everything else right you won't have any problems, so that that's the The first thing, the second thing I think is the beginner packages. I understand the idea. I have the comfort that I like. I completely understand why a company would want to sell a beginner's package. The problem is that many times they are really cheap.

The things that are inside a package to make it look really good, like a good presentation, but the things that are inside the package are not always the best for our aquariums and many times, like these tanks, I bought the first one. What I bought was a beginner package like any other beginner, so when you are here you probably already have one of these tanks and they will probably work well for you. What I hate is that they have a lid and you have a built-in filter, so you can only use that filter and the moment the filter dies, you just have this big thing that's stuck in your aquarium forever.

The only tanks I like to buy now are, you know, empty glass tanks like two. feet or four feet are just empty I don't want to buy a filter with it I don't want to buy anything with it my ideal setup just has, you know, a glass tank, a sponge filter, a heater and water and fish and you know your plants and decorations and all that kind of stuff can happen later, but man, I hate some of these packages because they come with all this kind of junk that you don't need and it costs a lot more. like you can get an empty tank like this, probably 100 bucks max like one of these little two footers, if you buy a new one you can find them on craigslist and as long as the seals are good you can still have an aquarium really beautiful if you are a beginner, want to get into the hobby and want to buy a tank to start with, just go to your store and try to buy the tank that is the cheapest, try and buy the tank without equipment and build.

Do it yourself because it's not difficult most of the time, all you'll need in an aquarium is like a decent sized sponge filter, like I've expressed, a bunch of it, a heater and all that kind of stuff, and you'll be fine, so don't do it. Fall in love with those tank packs, I just think they're kind of a waste of

money

and overpriced for no reason. The third thing I think people waste money on is some tank decorations now, if you're going to go for an amazing aquascape and it's like it has a certain type of rock, maybe some serious rock or something and you're really looking for that look, go for that, that's what you want, so it's worth spending the money, but sometimes people go to an aquarium store and I'm not going to lie, hardscape is very expensive, you have to ship it and Shipping is very expensive, so increase the price.

You know you can pay about 30 dollars for a few stones and it can be a waste of money, so my point with this product. Sometimes the aquarium materials you find at your local fish store can be good, but if you're looking for a basic, natural-looking aquarium, go to your hardware store, go to a landscaping place, get out into nature. find driftwood stuff like that, boil it, disinfect it and you can use all these things, like just do a little bit of Googling and you can easily save yourself 80 to 100 bucks just on aquascaping stuff, which a lot of people waste a lot of money on. really expensive driftwood and stuff like that, a lot of these tanks that I have I use firewood that I just boiled so every time we get firewood delivered to my house there's a lot of these little clippings so I'll go through and find everything.

I boil the best pieces and throw them in my tanks and it's a really good way to get driftwood for basically free, literally free, so yeah, that's another way you can save a little bit of money. I've

wasted

a lot of money on different types of, you know, lava rocks and things like that that I thought looked cool. I didn't end up using them as a lot of my tanks also have terracotta pots and weird stuff and they look nice so this is all just me you know. Shitty opinion, so yeah, okay, this one will definitely get a lot of negative comments, but I think this is too quick of a start.

Personally, I'll probably never use quick start. I don't want to like to say that I would never do it, but there are a million. Other ways to get to know an aquarium without using the quick start. I know a lot of people talk about using it at first. The best way to start an aquarium is to just start slowly, so when you set up an aquarium, say we have like this. 10 One gallon tank. You've never had fish before, so you can't seed your filter with bacteria. All that kind of stuff. I don't know if those quick starts work.

In my opinion, you are just wasting an extra 15 dollars on a chemical. which you don't really need before you put any fish in there, first make sure you have a filter, make sure you have all that, just start with some fish that you know, put some guppies in there and then the next week get some. more and little by little you are going to let the aquarium accumulate its bacteria, which will naturally come in, take it easy, sometimes don't buy 50 fish and put them in a tank and wait for it to cycle, just take it easy.

A lot of people talk about this stuff, I just don't think you need to buy this sometimes and this is just another thing that pet stores want to upsell you a little bit. Thousands of people probably use it, it probably works very well for them. but I have never used it and haven't really had any problems starting an aquarium as that has never been a problem for me, it definitely was at the beginning of my aquarium. I will say, don't get me wrong, but in the last few years, I don't know, I have never needed to use it, even when I installed a tank, if I didn't even seed the filter, I have never used it yet.

Take it easy, take it easy. and keep everything simple, that's the main thing, this one is really good, I'm going to get it out of the way quickly, but the aquarium salt, as you know, those little boxes that you get, yeah, they're a complete waste of money too. you don't need them, so if you're going to use salt for a medicinal treatment or something, just use table salt which works great, just salt, don't use iodized salt, those things don't work. The best thing is that there is nothing special about aquarium salt, so it is expensive. Another thing I like to use is just pool salt, so I'll buy a big bag and it will last a long time, but I have a huge fish. space, so it might be a waste of money for some people, but you can buy, you know, a big bag of salt this size for the same price as a small bag of salt that's in a small package, you know, of a company like don't waste your money on it, then the sixth thing that I think is a waste of money in the aquarium hobby is lighting.

Obviously you need a lot of tanks if you want to see the fish, but often there are different options that we can use to illuminate an aquarium. I used to use a lot of really cheap eBay lights and it was a really good thing for me. I didn't choose anything brand name because most of the time it costs, I think, $50. For a brand name light, at least you know there are some cheaper ones, but a light from eBay cost me like 19, so I saved a little money there. He did exactly the same. I wanted to take that into account.

I didn't have such expensive plants. I wasn't trying to do anything crazy, but lighting the fish tank and growing plants, those lights worked well. Another thing I like to use are these LED reflectors, they're $20 each and they work fantastic, they really grow plants. Well, what I'm saying is if you want to have a certain tank, don't be mad at me if you want to have a big high-tech tank because you probably won't save any money there, but if I'm trying to set up, you know, a basic tank. I looked at some of these options, so I looked at these LED flood lights.

They work very well. LED light strips sometimes work, although they don't actually grow plants as well and don't. It doesn't look any better, there is nothing special about most aquarium lights, just look at the different types of light you want as this is like the color of daylight and it is a very very good option as well So the seventh thing on my list is some hobby chemicals. So there are all kinds of different chemicals, like you're going to go to a fishmonger, it depends on where you go and it's going to be like a number of things now, this overwhelms beginners so much that it really bothers me because we don't do it.

I really need to scare people or, you know, make people think that having an aquarium in their house is something difficult. Chemicals like ammonia ribs, things like that that we really shouldn't use and that aren't really necessary. The only chemicals I use in my tank is a tap water conditioner and some different medications, yeah I don't know, like ammonia, red algae rig to get rid of cloudy water, chemicals like all that kind of stuff, just don't use it, I'll just completely stay away from those. The funny thing about this video is that I'm killing my chances of having similar brand deals with all these companies and I don't really care, I'd rather you guys know what I really think, pretend to support something I just think. this is completely bullshit okay so the last thing on my list is kind of like a weaker one and I'm ending with a weak one because it's like a negative video.

I don't like to make negative videos but different foods in the hobby can be a waste of money so many times there are certain foods that are very expensive without making extra profit so most of the time if I buy fish food, I want to aim for something that is mid-level price don't go for super expensive because that's just a waste of money since the fish don't actually know what's in the food as long as it tastes good and has a good nutritional balance. everything will be fine, don't go for a really expensive premium meal, just go for the mid-priced one, don't buy something cheap because many times they are cheap for a reason, but go for that mid-priced food.

Price one and you'll be fine unless you want to experiment seeing what your fish react to with different foods, just buy one and stick with it and vary the diet with similar live foods and things like that. I would recommend trying a few different ones. food from time to time to try and vary a fish's diet but yeah what I'm saying is sometimes don't buy super expensive food because it's just a waste of money anyway yeah sorry for the negative video but this is just In my opinion, I think a lot of beginners waste money on areas they don't need to and I just wanted to make this video because yeah, I wasted a ton of money when I started this hobby and I didn't need it, hopefully.

Now someone is going to try to set up an aquarium in the most affordable way and have a good time doing it, so thank you very much forWatch this video and see you in the next one.