Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

Hello, more advanced reef keepers. I was wondering if you all that deem yourselves advanced would be so kind as to account to us, the newbie folks here about the ends and outs, trials and errors you've all experienced in your reefing endeavors.
My example here is: "Never ever cycle your aquarium with a docile damsel that grows into a mean and evil critter, because you'll play heck on getting it out of your aquarium later." "Once I sat the rock just the way I wanted I found that this was about the time the little darling turned demon and I wanted him gone. The problem is every time it sees the net it heads for the safety of the rock empire. “
"I wish I would have known this."
So please tell us newbies what you went through so that we may learn from your mistakes and hopefully avoid some bad situations for ourselves.
thanks

Never use a fish to cycle your tank with a fish of any sorts would be my offering.

This will sound horribly pessimistic, but..
Everything dies at some point.
And if you really like it or payed a lot for it, its fate is sealed

After loosing too many >$100 fish, I'm a little jaded about expensive fish purchases. The same goes for nice SPS. It even happens to the experts. It just goes to show us how little we really know.

Another really pesimistic thing... sorry

There is an expert around every corner

There are sooo many people really good at 'playing the boards' and appearing to be the be-all and know-all of marine reef keeping. If you hang around Reefcentral or the like for a while you will know what I mean.

I will never again buy a damsel. My $5 damsel killed my $60 tang. And always picked on the new guys. I took him out and put him in my QT tank...he died shortly after. I was happy.

I have to agree with Brandon.

And will add this: never rely on the so called "miracle" products. The quick fix additives, most additives really, will do more to upset the balance of your tank in the long run than their worth. You'll do better just adding buffer and cal. when you need to and doing regular water changes.

Also...try to limit the impulse buys. Get an idea what you want to put in your tank, read up on it and stick to it. Some animals just don't get along and your tank will be the one that suffers.

IMO never add anything to the tank but fresh water when it evaporates, chemicals are there to get your money. My tanks are doing fine with no chemicals at all.

I agree with everyone. I never buy expensive stuff to begin with--all my sps were $5-$20 micro frags, fish were $20 clownfish (at the time). I only add calcium additives (mostly kalkwasser) and do semi-regular water changes.

My personal recommendation is to read, read, read. Be in the know before you do anything in this hobby--there are plenty of people trying to sell you stuff you don't need or can't take care of. That sort of goes under the impulse buy category, but there is no excuse for ignorance (at least not nowadays with the internet, etc.) Reliable information can be weeded out from bad information if you know where to look.