Randy Holmes-Farley
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My Tank Thread
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- Sep 5, 2014
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Everyone has issues with their reefing efforts that they consider significant failures, and these are the ones that I consider worse than the usual loss of an organism...
1. For many years, I tried to steer the reefing community away from the utterly ridiculous unit of measure dKH for alkalinity. No scientist uses dKH. Almost no reefers can even tell you what it means. It's just a black box number to nearly everyone. But the continued lack of change by most of the hobby kit manufacturers to more reasonable units of measure (e.g., meq/L) defeated me, and I've largely given up.
2. For many years, I tried to steer the english speaking reefing community away from using german words for things that have perfectly good english words. Limewater (kalkwasser in german) is the prime example. Still trying, but failing.
3. I never had long term success with open brain (Trachyphyllia) corals. Not sure why.
4. I tried several times to try to maintain a large school of green chromis. They were nearly always described as easy fish. Always lost them one by one until only one or two were left. Now I far more often read that keeping such schools is actually fairly difficult, and I'm a bit relieved.
5. I lost the battle with vermetid tube worms. They were a significant reason for ultimately taking my tank down. Sounds like there are fish that might have done the trick, but I never tried them.
There are probably more that I'm just blocking out as a bad memory, but these are the ones that come to mind.
Perhaps others can follow up with what they consider their worst failures...
1. For many years, I tried to steer the reefing community away from the utterly ridiculous unit of measure dKH for alkalinity. No scientist uses dKH. Almost no reefers can even tell you what it means. It's just a black box number to nearly everyone. But the continued lack of change by most of the hobby kit manufacturers to more reasonable units of measure (e.g., meq/L) defeated me, and I've largely given up.
2. For many years, I tried to steer the english speaking reefing community away from using german words for things that have perfectly good english words. Limewater (kalkwasser in german) is the prime example. Still trying, but failing.
3. I never had long term success with open brain (Trachyphyllia) corals. Not sure why.
4. I tried several times to try to maintain a large school of green chromis. They were nearly always described as easy fish. Always lost them one by one until only one or two were left. Now I far more often read that keeping such schools is actually fairly difficult, and I'm a bit relieved.
5. I lost the battle with vermetid tube worms. They were a significant reason for ultimately taking my tank down. Sounds like there are fish that might have done the trick, but I never tried them.
There are probably more that I'm just blocking out as a bad memory, but these are the ones that come to mind.
Perhaps others can follow up with what they consider their worst failures...