Burnt out and looking for a change

[Llorgon]

Looking for some good advice/ideas here.

I have a 75g tank that has been up and running for close to 3 years now and it really hasn't gone anywhere. It's been plagued with algae and coral RTN issues. Basically it has been one headache after another and I am burnt out on it.

Before I tear it down and sell it all, I thought I would see if anyone has some good suggestions on getting the fun back into the hobby. I'm open to changing pretty much anything with the tank.

From my freshwater keeping days I know there are some personable fish that can only be kept alone. Maybe something equivalent to that?

Throw some ideas at me!

Here is what I am working with:

• Someone who is finding the current tank a chore, but not 100% ready to sell it all.
• 75g tank, 34g sump, radion xr30 blues for lights
• Not attached to current fish( yellow tang, pair of clowns and a bristletooth tang)
• Tank location is in the living room, so something interesting would be beneficial.
• Minimal coral in the tank currently. All could be easily removed if needed.

 

[AcanSkywalker]

Get your parameters straight then pick up a Blue Spotted or Porcupine
Puffer and a few other easy to keep friends for him like a Snowflake eel, an Engineer Gobi, and maybe a Six Line Wrasse.

 

[Slocke]

Looking for some good advice/ideas here.

I have a 75g tank that has been up and running for close to 3 years now and it really hasn't gone anywhere. It's been plagued with algae and coral RTN issues. Basically it has been one headache after another and I am burnt out on it.

Before I tear it down and sell it all, I thought I would see if anyone has some good suggestions on getting the fun back into the hobby. I'm open to changing pretty much anything with the tank.

From my freshwater keeping days I know there are some personable fish that can only be kept alone. Maybe something equivalent to that?

Throw some ideas at me!

Here is what I am working with:

• Someone who is finding the current tank a chore, but not 100% ready to sell it all.
• 75g tank, 34g sump, radion xr30 blues for lights
• Not attached to current fish( yellow tang, pair of clowns and a bristletooth tang)
• Tank location is in the living room, so something interesting would be beneficial.
• Minimal coral in the tank currently. All could be easily removed if needed.

For the one fish tank I suggest a dragon wrasse or porcupine puffer. Both are terrible with other fish but also incredibly fun personable fish by themselves. A trigger is another good shout.

 

[Pistondog]

Get a worker like foxface to help with algae.
Sorry for your troubles, no fun to battle stuff.
I have algae in a tank, but am somewhat resigned to it as it gets some direct sun this time of year.

 

[jimk60]

From my experience your are probably always going to be battling something. You don't provide any insight into your problems but if your burt out and not getting any enjoyment different fish probably won't provide it.

 

[00W]

Sorry man it can happen.
Advice.
Get rid of the drab blue lighting. Throw a couple of T5's over it. Add a trigger. Niger or picasso and feed it. Throw in 20 snails for it to play with.
You'll never have more fun with any other fish. You'll get stared at, grunted at and chased around the room.
Triggers are my all time favorite for pure entertainment.
They'll rearrange the aquascape too.
I have a yellow tang and picasso in my 75. Great pair. I added the picasso last at 2 inches. So much fun and they'll eat anything.
Honestly some get burned out in this hobby. But if you still have the bug and it's in your living room (that's cool), that's what I would suggest.

 

[Llorgon]

Get your parameters straight then pick up a Blue Spotted or Porcupine
Puffer and a few other easy to keep friends for him like a Snowflake eel, an Engineer Gobi, and maybe a Six Line Wrasse.

Snowflake eel always seemed like such a cool thing to have. I have definitely thought about them before. I never gave much thought to the puffers I will have to look into those!

For the one fish tank I suggest a dragon wrasse or porcupine puffer. Both are terrible with other fish but also incredibly fun personable fish by themselves. A trigger is another good shout.

I thought all triggers got way to big for a 75g?

Get a worker like foxface to help with algae.
Sorry for your troubles, no fun to battle stuff.
I have algae in a tank, but am somewhat resigned to it as it gets some direct sun this time of year.

After a summer of just letting the tank be, the algae is better than it was. But I had the tangs and an urchin before the outbreak, none of them touched the stuff.

From my experience your are probably always going to be battling something. You don't provide any insight into your problems but if your burt out and not getting any enjoyment different fish probably won't provide it.

That thought does cross my mind. Would a change actually do anything

My problems started after a year of having the tank up and running. I went from little visible algae to inches long strands in the course of a 5 day vacation. Nothing would eat or kill the algae, for awhile I was removing a cup every couple days. The algae even grew over what was healthy corals. SPS corals RTN'd one by one, then it moved onto the euphyllia, I lost all of them too. In total it was about 12 euphyllia, one was about the size of a softball and 24 SPS. The coral deaths have stopped now and the algae isn't near as bad. The one thing that hasn't changed is no coraline algae will grow on the rocks... it grows everywhere else, but the rocks. After 3 years there is no coraline.

I did multiple ICP tests and checked the equipment. I even had 2 tank maintenance companies come check it out to see if they knew what was going on. All I got was a "huh, that's weird. Maybe just restart?"

Sorry man it can happen.
Advice.
Get rid of the drab blue lighting. Throw a couple of T5's over it. Add a trigger. Niger or picasso and feed it. Throw in 20 snails for it to play with.
You'll never have more fun with any other fish. You'll get stared at, grunted at and chased around the room.
Triggers are my all time favorite for pure entertainment.
They'll rearrange the aquascape too.
I have a yellow tang and picasso in my 75. Great pair. I added the picasso last at 2 inches. So much fun and they'll eat anything.
Honestly some get burned out in this hobby. But if you still have the bug and it's in your living room (that's cool), that's what I would suggest.

The triggers are a really cool looking fish. I thought they got too big for the 75g though?

 

[Llorgon]

I was also playing around with the ideas of:
Macro algae tank - I am great at growing algae!
Clown and anemone tank - I have never had an anemone, but they look like cool tanks
Invert focused tank.

 

[Webbed Feet]

Hi there! I feel your pain and burnt out emotions. I too kept freshwater aquariums for years as a child. Then about five decades later got the bug again and went saltwater. Five and a half years later, with little success and over a year of Dinos and algae problems, I tore down a 70 gallon AIO and sheltered my remaining two fish and three corals in a 25 gallon setup that I opened up the budget on as an intended future quarantine/transition tank. By transition I mean the first stop for new critters coming home before they go into a new 130 gallon (with sump) setup that I have been working putting together for a little under a year now. The break with just the 25G has been a welcome one.

We know almost nothing regarding your equipment, original setup, or maintenance habits. My journey has taught me many unfortunate things about this hobby. 1) Most local shops are absolutely terrible at supporting their customer base in the hobby. 2) BRS deserves a standing ovation for their helpful instructional on-line videos. 3) Maintaining the proper stable water chemistry that helps avoid the problems is something that takes a great deal of time to learn, simply isn’t going to happen with the wrong equipment and lack of personal time for the hobby, and can become almost impossible if the hobbyist is not recognizing underlying environmental problems. The latter can be caused by many things, even too many rocks in the tank.

A completely wild guess on my part is your parameters have not really been near as stable as they should be and that the rocks and substrate, finally having loaded up on detritus, phosphates, and such, began to be the very source of the problem. This contributes to causing an imbalance of the carbon / nitrate cycle. Water testing shows the water to be fine, when in reality algae is sucking up what is being tested for so fast that the tests look as if there isn’t a problem. So the underlying chemistry cycle needed to maintain the enclosed environment is disrupted and not functioning as needed. As hobbyists we tend to address what we can see responding to the visible, but then fail to address what we cannot see, the underlying problem. Kind of like putting a band aid on cancer, we make water changes until we are blue in the face. However, we fail to take a holistic step away and review the aquarium system as we focus on one or two visible problems.

I’ve had to acknowledge I am terrible about testing often enough. This brought me to either getting out of the hobby, or jumping into it with a new build that was pretty much open budget to have the top equipment needed to aid me with my own weaknesses as much as possible. As well as a commitment to the study of the water chemistry side of the hobby from all available sources (the worst and least helpful being, not all but most, local saltwater shops).

One suggestion I have is to select a top brand and well reviewed algae chemical control system, go with the entire system, not just one part of it, read the instructions twice and then read them again, and stick with it a number of months. Ultimate control will no doubt take a number of steps to resolve it, not just a couple.

Webbed