Rmckoy
7500 Club Member
Has there been no setbacks for your system yet ?
What was a setback you had, and how did you bounce back from it?
- Thread starter Gumbies R Us
- Start date
- Tagged users None
OP
OP
Gumbies R Us
Certified Noob
Not yet!!! Setting my tank up in the next few weeks so I'm preparing for setbacks and how I can learn from them.
My biggest set back was a salinity problem that I spent hundreds of dollars and almost a year's time until the discovery.
I was using a TM Hydrometer for salinity. Was told this is the best. You won't need anything else. I was having serious problems with my tank. A crash that wiped out 75 percent of life in my tank. I even moved the livestock and rock to a new temp tank in my basement for a renovation. The problem followed. I spent almost a year trying to figure it out. I saw a refractometer for sale at a Petco for 29 bucks. I said what the heck. I'll try one out. So I went home and it sat there on a shelf for 2 weeks. So one day I grabbed it to see how one worked and tested my water. It was .035. !!!!!!!! So I grabbed my TM hydrometer and it said .024 !!!!
Started draining water over the next few days and letting the ATO refill. Surviving corals started to explode. I got it to 1.025 with the refractometer and immediately went to buy snails since they were the very first thing to go when my tank went down hill. They did great.
I feel it was very irresponsible of me to let something like that happen. Never trust your testing equipment 100% like I did. Always be suspicious.
It's been 5 years now and I still use that same refractometer set with BRS solution. I bought another and test with it once every few months to make sure my other one is still accurate. I can not believe I was so naive.
I was using a TM Hydrometer for salinity. Was told this is the best. You won't need anything else. I was having serious problems with my tank. A crash that wiped out 75 percent of life in my tank. I even moved the livestock and rock to a new temp tank in my basement for a renovation. The problem followed. I spent almost a year trying to figure it out. I saw a refractometer for sale at a Petco for 29 bucks. I said what the heck. I'll try one out. So I went home and it sat there on a shelf for 2 weeks. So one day I grabbed it to see how one worked and tested my water. It was .035. !!!!!!!! So I grabbed my TM hydrometer and it said .024 !!!!
Started draining water over the next few days and letting the ATO refill. Surviving corals started to explode. I got it to 1.025 with the refractometer and immediately went to buy snails since they were the very first thing to go when my tank went down hill. They did great.
I feel it was very irresponsible of me to let something like that happen. Never trust your testing equipment 100% like I did. Always be suspicious.
It's been 5 years now and I still use that same refractometer set with BRS solution. I bought another and test with it once every few months to make sure my other one is still accurate. I can not believe I was so naive.
Rmckoy
7500 Club Member
Fingers crossed you are able to learn and prevent a large percentage of anything that could go wrong
OP
OP
Gumbies R Us
Certified Noob
Oh for sure!! I've been taking my time learning about the wrongs and the rights and getting some family and friends to help me set it up that have been in the hobby longer than me haha
Rmckoy
7500 Club Member
The only thing I can say is take your time .
research everything . And when you think you have read everything you can , start over
Don’t get caught up in the hype over priced equipment
I have ran mine for many years without any of the fancy bells and whistles
No controller , never tried leds
kevgib67
10K Club member
Hospitality Award
Midwest Reefer
Rock Pool Reef Keepers
Ohio Reefer
My Tank Thread
My Aquarium Showcase
My 16 year old tank developed this invasive algae. The faster I pulled it out the quicker it grew chocking out my corals. I didn’t have the resources available like today. I was confident if I could id it I could find something to eat it or a way to rid the tank of it. Sent the picture to two marine biologist and a reef keeper who maintained a friend of mine’s tanks at home and his office. I never found the answer and tore the tank down. After posting the picture on R2R in 2 minutes it was identified as Neomersis sp. by Wheat Toast and he informed me that an urchin would have taken care of the problem. 10 years to late!
Rusty_L_Shackleford
Active Member
If youre planning a trip, i would seriously considering hiring a pro to pook in on your tank a few times whilr youre gone. If you have a good lfs that offers maintinance services ask them and see what it would cost to have them come by and look in on the tank every couple of days. Probably well worth the piece of mind.
OU812Reefing
Active Member
Had my first saltwater tank for 5 years fish only lost with Hurricane Katrina got back in on to the hobby about 16 years later did a Reef tank lost it 10 months later Hurricane IDA and I didn’t give up my reef tank just made 1 year this past November
Katherine Corals
Active Member
Seven Years ago, when I first started the hobby I always practiced good QT measures on my fish, but did not know at the time that ICH can travel on the new live rock I added into the tank. All fish except my watchman goby died.
I waited 9 weeks, and then introduced new fish.
Lesson learned! QT EVERYTHING
I waited 9 weeks, and then introduced new fish.
Lesson learned! QT EVERYTHING
OP
OP
Gumbies R Us
Certified Noob
I'm sorry to hear that about the hurricanes, glad you are doing well with another tank though!!
ripcord
Community Member
Ive had a couple setbacks or more like learning curves over the past 2 decades. More recently my last problem was the tropic marin salt issue, but thanks to r2r I solved it before it became disastrous!
OP
OP
Gumbies R Us
Certified Noob
What happened with tropic marine salt?
ripcord
Community Member
The salt coming from the Turkish facility was tainted to say the least, type tropic marin Turkish salt in the search bar and you can read for days about the mysterious issue people on this forum experienced!
OP
OP
Gumbies R Us
Certified Noob
Oh, interesting!!! So weird that the salt was tainted like that
Jigity_jigity_joe
Community Member
Most recently (within the last month) I had been noticing my tank had been on a steady decline. I had been using the same bottle of accurasea for my refractometer for about a year and an half and finally ran out. Went and got a bottle of fritz 35ppt from the lfs, came home and dripped it on my refractometer and found out my tank was actually more like 40ppt due to my old bottle of accurasea no longer being accurate. Also since I was mixing batches of water for changes way too high my calcium and mag levels were sky high also, surprisingly alkalinity not as much. Slowly brought the salinity down and none of my corals are receding anymore and are back on their way to looking good again. Lesson learned, maybe don’t use the bottle of refractometer calibration water for quite so long. Don’t know how it got so out of whack considering I never left it open or anything but definitely gonna refresh the bottle more often from now on.
fish farmer
2500 Club Member
I've had multiple setbacks through out my 23 years reefing.
My first tank, a 38 was amazing for me for the two years it was running. I moved and upgraded to a 55 to do it "right", which at the time was drilled tank and deep sand bed.
Three months into that system there was a heatwave while I was on vacation, I never needed a/c before but was warned that my new apartment got hot. I happened to be bringing an a/c unit back from vacation. It was too late whole tank cooked with corals I had collected and grown for two years.
All that was left were some bleached palys. I stuck with it and recycled my rock, did some recuring and found a green striped mushroom alive as well. During this time there were a lot of active reefers in the area, so that helped to keep me going. I had helped one of them setup a system before mine cooked.
That tank never really settled and I was battling various algae. A couple of years later I was buying a house. I kept the tank wet, I had fish. Soon I found a deal on a 65 reef ready and upgraded with some new rock. That tank became more a fowlr because of passive maintenance and a chaotic lifestyle at the time. I bought my current clowns at that time, 2006.
Fast forward to 2009 when I down graded to a 25 gallon in a wall space I had. I cracked that tank fiddling with my homemade overflow. Luckily I had a middle fuge tank with a halide. I put all my frags and clowns in there while I regrouped. I made a decision to open the wall a bit more for a 29 gallon which is the current system.
I had a major GHA problem about 8 years ago while life was happening again, dating, moving in and marrying my wife. I took control of the tank a few years ago and now the next move is tackling my mushroom problem so they don't completely take over my tank.
My first tank, a 38 was amazing for me for the two years it was running. I moved and upgraded to a 55 to do it "right", which at the time was drilled tank and deep sand bed.
Three months into that system there was a heatwave while I was on vacation, I never needed a/c before but was warned that my new apartment got hot. I happened to be bringing an a/c unit back from vacation. It was too late whole tank cooked with corals I had collected and grown for two years.
All that was left were some bleached palys. I stuck with it and recycled my rock, did some recuring and found a green striped mushroom alive as well. During this time there were a lot of active reefers in the area, so that helped to keep me going. I had helped one of them setup a system before mine cooked.
That tank never really settled and I was battling various algae. A couple of years later I was buying a house. I kept the tank wet, I had fish. Soon I found a deal on a 65 reef ready and upgraded with some new rock. That tank became more a fowlr because of passive maintenance and a chaotic lifestyle at the time. I bought my current clowns at that time, 2006.
Fast forward to 2009 when I down graded to a 25 gallon in a wall space I had. I cracked that tank fiddling with my homemade overflow. Luckily I had a middle fuge tank with a halide. I put all my frags and clowns in there while I regrouped. I made a decision to open the wall a bit more for a 29 gallon which is the current system.
I had a major GHA problem about 8 years ago while life was happening again, dating, moving in and marrying my wife. I took control of the tank a few years ago and now the next move is tackling my mushroom problem so they don't completely take over my tank.
Last edited:
Similar threads
-
- Poll
New Posts
-
-
-
-
Hello Finally settled down for a bit and excited to be back!
- Latest: Gumbies R Us
-
