long story short, kinda. Got into the hobby almost 2 years ago and went through the process of learning with the trial and error that we've all gone through I.E. dosing, tank maintenance and so on. When I finally thought I was getting a handle on things after tons of reading and work in the hobby BAM, found that I had a flatworm infestation. This was what broke me. All parameters were within my likings and within average range without what I thought were any crazy swings (I tested all parameters at least once a week when I got into dosing) but couldn’t stop softies from hating my tank and dying. I keep GSP, some gross looking paly’s and anemones well but, seemed like every other coral hated me. Pretty discouraging. When I discovered the FW’s I basically threw in the towel and decided I was just gonna keep an eye on what was living in the tank, (3) rockflowers, (1) RBTA, about a square foot of GSP, the gross paly’s, a pistol shrimp, yellow watchman goby, a neon dottyback and, 1 clown along with some CUC including a tuxedo urchin, alive. I continued with just feeding and changing basic filtration and glass cleanings also let the A41 doser do it’s thang as my bare minimum routine. Totally ignored the FW issue and abandoned water changes/tank cleanings and testing for 2 months.
The urge to see where my tank stands finally kicked in after a lil over 2 months and seeing that everything that was in the tank prior seemed happy and was growing (slowly). Much to my surprise the only parameter that was way out of my preferred range were my nitrates.
I took the completely lazy way out with what seems like just as good parameters as a result. I admit, my tank looks gross but nothing a good substrate cleaning won’t fix and of course a FW treatment. Is the lazy way gonna be a new trend? Lol, who knows but, I had just as good success with the lazy way Vs what I did when I stressed and worried about it almost all the time.
I’ll post my numbers with pre and post laziness results. What do you guys think?!?
Before. After.
temp/ Hanna: 79.2 78.4
Salinity/ Hanna: 34.7 34.4
Alk/ Hanna: 9.6 10.0
No3/ Hanna ulr: 14.1 29.2
P04/ hanna: .02 .04
Cal/ hanna: 445 451
Mag/ Red Sea: 1280 N/A
The urge to see where my tank stands finally kicked in after a lil over 2 months and seeing that everything that was in the tank prior seemed happy and was growing (slowly). Much to my surprise the only parameter that was way out of my preferred range were my nitrates.
I took the completely lazy way out with what seems like just as good parameters as a result. I admit, my tank looks gross but nothing a good substrate cleaning won’t fix and of course a FW treatment. Is the lazy way gonna be a new trend? Lol, who knows but, I had just as good success with the lazy way Vs what I did when I stressed and worried about it almost all the time.
I’ll post my numbers with pre and post laziness results. What do you guys think?!?
Before. After.
temp/ Hanna: 79.2 78.4
Salinity/ Hanna: 34.7 34.4
Alk/ Hanna: 9.6 10.0
No3/ Hanna ulr: 14.1 29.2
P04/ hanna: .02 .04
Cal/ hanna: 445 451
Mag/ Red Sea: 1280 N/A