“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” What lessons have you learned the hard way by attempting to “fix” problems that you really didn’t have?

[Dad2Wyatt]

Just trying to start a discussion! I’ll begin

It took almost 2 weeks for me to find a spot where my hammer coral and Florida ricordea were happy. Then it took another week trying to figure out how strong to set my powerheads. Things have been going well for a bit now.

just added a few more CUC for hair algae and decided to manually remove/scrub some off while temp acclimating the inverts. Didn’t want to cloud my water up too much as I don’t plan on doing a water change for a couple more days. Well I got carried away and ended up with a very cloudy tank.

my next bright idea was to turn my powerheads up from 50% to 60%. I had given the hammer and ricordea time to adjust and I thought “maybe my SPS want some more flow and it might help cycle the carbon through faster”

i leave the room for 30 minutes and come back to find the hammer completely retracted and the ricordea shriveled up in less than half its size. Being my two most finicky corals, of course they were the only two who showed any adverse affects.

I turned my flow back down to 50% and waiting to see a reaction.

Anyone have similar experiences to share?

 

[Hermie]

Accidentally killed a fish in QT because I added hyper-saline water to correct salinity. The fishes gills were irreparably damaged.

In addition, I was using a swing arm hydrometer which is known for imprecision.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Great thread topic! Following!

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

Great thread topic! Following!

Definitely hoping to see some good discussion here!

Even if a little off topic feel free to share!

 

[Pattys]

Great thread topic! Following!

Accidentally killed a fish in QT because I added hyper-saline water to correct salinity. The fishes gills were irreparably damaged.

In addition, I was using a swing arm hydrometer which is known for imprecision.

Following thread

 

[CanuckReefer]

Oh boy....just saw this one. There are a few over the years. Following and compiling lol....back at ya soon. And I can to relate to your listed druthers.

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

Here’s another one that wasn’t recent but happened very shortly after adding first corals. I’ll admit I did not do much research so the blame is on me here.

But immediately after adding corals and fresh water change, I’m talking within hours, I dosed 2 part bc I had seen others doing that with beautiful tanks. My corals HATED me. Immediately did a 50% water change(thankfully I had the RO water on hand) and things slowly started opening back up!

 

[CanuckReefer]

Ok one fairly recent.... corals especially Duncan and Trumpets all closed up and perturbed. A few weeks before decided to throw some floss into the hob that I use purely for aeration, rather than the sponge filter. Well, we forgot about that, and as frantically searching through powerheads and testing, 'oh ya you dummy!' .....pulled out a heckuva mess that was likely pumping all the detritus right back into the system. Nope don't ever do that again. It was fine with the regular sponge filter you often ignore fella! Lol.

 

[SHINYSuccubus]

i’ve shared this before here, but it’s so stupid it bears repeating…

i’d been battling “old tank syndrome“, and my phosphate numbers just weren’t complying - i tried lanthanum chloride and immediately saw a good response re: phosphates

so i kept dosing it - and killed my beautiful 12yr old yellow tang. just typing about it chokes me up.

after the fact, i was reading about yellow tangs, and the article specifically mentioned yellow tangs were sensitive to lanthanum chloride

never again w the LC.

picked up two tank raised YTs a short while ago. i’m in the middle of moving to a brand new tank, but in a decade or so i may have another case of “old tank syndrome“ and i’ll remember this brutal lesson.

live and learn, right?

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

i’ve shared this before here, but it’s so stupid it bears repeating…

i’d been battling “old tank syndrome“, and my phosphate numbers just weren’t complying - i tried lanthanum chloride and immediately saw a good response re: phosphates

so i kept dosing it - and killed my beautiful 12yr old yellow tang. just typing about it chokes me up.

after the fact, i was reading about yellow tangs, and the article specifically mentioned yellow tangs were sensitive to lanthanum chloride

never again w the LC.

picked up two tank raised YTs a short while ago. i’m in the middle of moving to a brand new tank, but in a decade or so i may have another case of “old tank syndrome“ and i’ll remember this brutal lesson.

live and learn, right?

How will you tackle “old tank syndrome” In the future? Good to be proactive with planning right?

 

[SHINYSuccubus]

How will you tackle “old tank syndrome” In the future? Good to be proactive with planning right?

hopefully the refugium will help (didn’t have one of those in the old tank system), and hopefully i’m a little wiser about tank maintenance, but truly i’m not sure! i’ll be reading and asking questions this time more than i did the first time around, too!

 

[LiveFreeAndReef]

When I was first starting out I took the advice of a friend who had kept a reef previously. He told me that "you have to have a skimmer, and you have to run GFO because you want 0 phosphates and nitrates in your aquarium." So I wasted my money on all that crap and started my reefing journey with a tank full of dinos. Lesson learned: Do your own research and take everything that others suggest with a grain of salt. What works for one tank doesn't work for all and a lot of the "reefing rules" are just things that people have heard others say and now treat them as gospel. Last lesson: If someone is giving you advice, take a look at their tank. Anyone can pose as though they have all the answers, but if their tank looks like poo then perhaps they don't know as much as they think.

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

hopefully the refugium will help (didn’t have one of those in the old tank system), and hopefully i’m a little wiser about tank maintenance, but truly i’m not sure! i’ll be reading and asking questions this time more than i did the first time around, too!

i did see a thread over old tank syndrome and modern cures on here the other day! My tank is pretty new so I lightly skimmed only, but might be worth checking out!

 

[Dad2Wyatt]

When I was first starting out I took the advice of a friend who had kept a reef previously. He told me that "you have to have a skimmer, and you have to run GFO because you want 0 phosphates and nitrates in your aquarium." So I wasted my money on all that crap and started my reefing journey with a tank full of dinos. Lesson learned: Do your own research and take everything that others suggest with a grain of salt. What works for one tank doesn't work for all and a lot of the "reefing rules" are just things that people have heard others say and now treat them as gospel. Last lesson: If someone is giving you advice, take a look at their tank. Anyone can pose as though they have all the answers, but if their tank looks like poo then perhaps they don't know as much as they think.

Agreed! Whenever getting advice I always use it as more of a launchpad for my own research. A someone pretty new I often can see problems or when something is different in my system, but often have no clue why or what to do about it.

that’s where the advice comes in and allows me to do more research! I do this whether every single person agrees, or if there are differing opinions!

every tank is different like you said so i think it’s important to take as much advice as you can, and then research double that until you find what works most often and with the least amount of side effects and start there!!

Thanks for contributing!!