A reflection... or maybe therapy?

attiland

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 22, 2020
Messages
2,594
Reaction score
4,800
Location
United Kingdom
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Hello from Worcester, MA, USA! Admittedly I've been using Reef2Reef as a resource for years now but figured it was time to join and support. Sorry it took so long...

Anyways, It all started with a betta in a brandy snifter that my grandmother gave me for a birthday when I was in elementary school. Since then I've had "fish tanks", but all freshwater up until maybe either 2015 or 2016 at which time I dove-in (ah-hem) into the world of saltwater aquariums. My first saltwater tank was a 20 gallon long FOWLER with two Marineland hob filters (that my local shop-keep told me I didn't need but what does he know, haha), two Koralia powerheads, a heater, Current USA light, sand, and live-rock. I started out with 3 damsels, one of which I still have, a yellowtail. That tank was great. Easy to care for. Simple aquascape - very minimalistic. Did a water change once a week and everything was happy.

After maybe 6 months I thought it would be great to get some coral. At this point I REALLY should have been listening to my local shop-keep and taking his advice. (Presumably) everything would have still been going great and I would have SAVED A LOT OF MONEY AND TIME.

I started reading. I started watching videos. I started to consume volumes of information on the hobby. (Which I do to this day but I'm smarter about the sources of information). Things just got out of hand from there and became so confusing. I started buying massive amounts of "stuff." Why? Because I absolutely needed a sump (I guess??). Because I can't have a saltwater aquarium without a skimmer (okay??). I needed more live rock, no wait, less live rock and more manufactured porous media, no wait, deep sand bed, I mean bare bottom (sigh). More flow, less flow. Bigger sump, no sorry, sump size doesn't matter as long as you have one. Macroalgae, no wait algae scrubbers, and reactors, and dosing, automated systems, computer systems, lab testing systems.....Arggghhhh!!! You get it...

October 21st 2017 I commissioned my new system. Because it was located in my modest home office I had to be creative with the install. It was a 40 gallon breeder as a coral grow-out tank with an 80 gallon Deep Blue Sea 16" tall tank as my main display tank that remained a FOWLER. Both tanks drained into (sump number one) that was a 20 gallon breeder with baffles and filter socks, that housed my protein skimmer. From that tank in drained into another (sump number two) 40 gallon breeder with baffles that housed a whole bunch of live rock. From there was a large return pump that sent water back to the 40 and 80 gallon display tanks. Kessil 180's and 360's on the tanks and a Kessil refugium light to grow macro algae in the 20 gallon sump. EcoTech pumps everywhere with Koralia pumps in different spots that I wanted a constant flow. I even added a 3rd tank on the system just as a refugium. It was elaborate and fancy looking. Plumbing and wiring everywhere. I am a plumber by trade so everything was neat and tidy in perfect lines. A real commercial-looking installation. BUT IT WAS A MAINTENANCE NIGHTMARE! It took me hours every week to clean that contraption.

I hardly had time to even look at the corals or fish and when I did it was more anxiety driven than anything. Does that fish look sad? Is that coral melting back? Is that proper placement for that coral? Should I move that powerhead? Should I add one? The only thing I was accomplishing was growing beautiful luscious amounts of hair algae in the FOWLER and feeding the crabs and snails. I have to say though that I was (somewhat) successful (a strong word) at growing some soft corals, a couple LSP and an SPS. But still, I was cleaning and fidgeting with the system every week and everyday because that's what I'm supposed to do and it takes time for things to go right. Right? Right? Still I slogged on doing my maintenance begrudgingly and most of the time telling myself that this would be the week that I was going to quit and take it all apart. There was absolutely no fun to be had in this hobby for me.

Fast forward to the debacle that 2020 was. It's a long story but my wife and I decided after many years of discussing the matter that it was time to buy a larger home. We have 4 kids and they don't stop growing but our house apparently was shrinking. An addition really didn't make financial sense. Anyways, you don't care about that. So we started looking early in 2020 for a new home and found one that met our needs. While all of this house business was happening I kept on thinking about what I'm going to do with the aquarium(s). Each morning I was going to keep it and by the end of each day I was getting rid of it.

I ultimately decided to get rid of all of it and buy a new, larger tank because that would make everything better (sometimes I'm not such a fast learner). My chance to start over and do it right this time. I'll upgrade everything. Bigger custom tank. Bigger brand-name sump. A bigger skimmer. More powerheads. More lights. More, more, more, more..... it'll be great and worry free!!!

I tried at first giving all of my equipment, tanks, and inhabitants away. No one wanted any of it. Because of COVID everything was still shut down so I had to wait until things started opening back up. My local shop-keep (yes he's still around) was in the process of moving locations during COVID because he hated his old place so he used the opportunity of quarantine to relocate and reopen in a different location. So I lost touch with him during the move and he wasn't a resource for me. I tried going to the big-box pet shops but they wanted nothing to do with used stuff or animals. I made the very, very difficult decision to throw thousands of dollars away. All of that time, effort, and money (sadness) gone.

I decided to keep my 80 gallon tank and run it just as a FOWLER with one sump and a protein skimmer and filter sock. Mostly just so I could keep some of the live rock and a few of my longest-lasting fish alive. I had 3 fish at the time that I kept and wanted to transfer to my new fantabulous custom tank. My yellowtail damsel, a banggai cardinalfish, and a royal gramma- all of whom I still have. I threw most of the rest of the whole system into the dumpster. To this day a regret that decision. I still can see a rather large toadstool leather coral that I was somewhat proud of (mostly because it lived) poking out of the trash bag baking in the sun inside of the dumpster. I still feel awful about that.

When we closed on the new house I hadn't ordered the new tank yet because I wasn't exactly sure where I wanted to put it. So I moved my 80 gallon tank and system to the new house and set it up. Gave it a good cleaning while it was empty (you can imagine what was hiding in the sand). I got it up and running in the basement kids play area. It was a FOWLER so I didn't bother with lights, just the ambient illumination from the windows in the room. A couple of EcoTech power heads and a heater. Rock-N-Roll. (I did run a skimmer for a while and I got fed up with it so I pulled it from the tank). I ran it that way until around Thanksgiving-time 2021. In that 14 months I starting reflecting back on the journey and the lessons that I learned in this hobby. Then it hit me. I didn't mind the maintenance anymore. It was simple again. It was great. I fed the fish. I put some tunes on and did a water change every two weeks. I WATCHED THE FISH. It was relaxing and enjoyable again. It was simple. I realized that since I first decided to "go big" years ago that I wasn't really happy with the hobby. Do I really want another bigger, more elaborate system to worry about?

At Thanksgiving 2021 I decided to move the 80 gallon upstairs into our family TV room next to the couch. It's nothing fancy. I don't have an aesthetically pleasing stand. In fact it's open so you can see the sump. So now I'm running my Deep Blue Sea 80 gallon with two Kessil 360's. A bunch of live rock in the tank. Three EcoTech powerheads. I have a Trigger Systems sump with a filter sock, Matrix, live rock, a couple of post-filter pads, and some Poly-Filter pads. Two titanium heaters and a Sicce return pump. Some Koralia powerheads to keep water moving around the sump sections. I just recently added a small Kessil refugium light to try growing a mangrove or two, just because I think it's cool. I'm currently doing a water change every other week but I think I'm going to go back to every week.

A couple of weeks ago my wife and kids went to our local fish shop and THEY picked out a few frags and a flame cardinalfish as a birthday present to me. Now they are watching the corals and fish as well as myself. The whole family is getting enjoyment out of the aquarium. They are helping me (sometimes) with the cleaning and maintenance.

So I'm back where I started pretty much. If you were to ask me how long I've been in the saltwater hobby, I'd say about a month or so. I'm not a scientist or marine biologist. I'm trying my best to recreate a habitat that on a whole I know very little about. I'm going to take it slow and see how things go. I'm not going to fuss and fidget with the tank. I want to go at it this time with the minimalistic approach and see what happens. I'm going to listen to the first advice that my local shop-keep told me and see what happens. Keep the sand clean and do my water changes. Sit back and watch the tank and see how it grows. New Years resolution? Perhaps. Wish me luck!!

All the best in the New Year reefing community!!!
Welcome to R2R
Welcome to R2R.JPG
 
Back
Top