Yes, I was lucky enough to find TFF -before- buying a filter or even thinking about adding water. And I was old enough to have the temperament to just begin discussing filters rather than wanting to get fish right away. It paid off really nicely but nothing is ever perfect and I could have used the same "pre-learning advantage" on the tank itself, the stand and the light, which I already had. All those things too turned out to be disappointing in various ways. I'd venture to guess that many, many go through the mess of having a fair amount of stuff they picked up prior to having more knowledge about what they would have really wanted!
Glad the forum is helping. I've been amazed at what a huge component the information and exchange of experience has been, myself.
I use Tetra flakes too, in the yellow and brown container, as a basic food. While I do sometimes let a few of the big flakes be floated for the surface eaters to get excited about, I mostly grind them up between my fingers to smaller sizes that my small fish can readily eat. I also then grind some up quite a lot and plunge my fingers into the water to release, so that lots of small bits will sink down to my neon tetra shoal, who otherwise didn't seem to be getting many leftovers from the greedy surface fish. Always nice to have a tank towel handy for things like this!
