A.T.T.R’s return to the hobby 20 gallon build thread.

[Eric R.]

Never had issues like this before. Really starting to think its something with the LED's and kind of want to give MH or CFL a try. I have had at this point 20 + reef tanks from 3 gallons to 300 gallons and have NEVER fought this hard.

Could it be the dry rock start? I feel like it takes a long time for tanks to get stable/mature when started with little biodiversity. I know you added some rubble, but I wonder if that was enough.

 

[Eric R.]

It's crazy how quickly things can go down hill vs how long it can take for a tank to recover. I'm sorry to see that you've had such a rough time, and hope that you persevere! Hopefully it's all good news moving forward from here.

Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank.

 

[DIYreefer]

Never had issues like this before. Really starting to think its something with the LED's and kind of want to give MH or CFL a try. I have had at this point 20 + reef tanks from 3 gallons to 300 gallons and have NEVER fought this hard.

I'm trading some frags with someone from here on r2r for a couple of 250w halide set ups. I've been LED/T5 (predominantly LED) for a couple of years now but never have been able to convince myself that my corals wouldn't look better under halides. So I will be running the MH/T5/LED trifecta over my 125 pretty soon.

That stated, although I don't really think that the lights would have anything to do with it, it may be worth it at this point to just try something else out just to see what happens. Even with all of the bells and whistles that come with LED I've always felt that they lack.... something. It can't even begin to articulate what that is because I'm simply not sure, but it just seems like my corals (particularly SPS) always looked healthier under T5 or MH. Maybe that's all in my head, Idk. I will definitely concede that color pop under LED is unrivaled, though.

 

[a.t.t.r]

Been a long time since I posted in my own thread.... I think I beat em finally. I did some iron dosing and nuked the tank with phosphates until bubble algae took over which is now slowly going away. I will never to a dry rock start again unless I can go dark for 6 months and a few seed rocks.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Been a long time since I posted in my own thread.... I think I beat em finally. I did some iron dosing and nuked the tank with phosphates until bubble algae took over which is now slowly going away. I will never to a dry rock start again unless I can go dark for 6 months and a few seed rocks.

Glad you beat them!