Dear New Hobbyists…

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Dear New Hobbyists,

Please limit tinkering with the chemistry of your reef tank. The old salts also said it this way. “Keep your hands out of the tank.” It’s for your own good and the good of your animals. Nothing happens fast in this hobby except nuisance algae and livestock death.

Relax, take a deep breath, stop trying to fix every little PH fluctuation and the like. Enjoy the process and learn as you go. You’re building a foundation for an amazing reef aquarium and that takes time!

Have a great day and happy reefing!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I can recommend chemistry sets for folks who do want to tinker with chemistry. lol

 

[dschuffert]

I completely agree! This advice has a lot of wisdom and success.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Some of the best advice I have gotten is just to let the tank be, don't chase numbers, and take everything slowly

 

[GARRIGA]

Be a thinker... not a tinker... :)

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I can recommend chemistry sets for folks who do want to tinker with chemistry. lol

I had to go look one of these up on eBay myself, haha

 

[Reefer Matt]

Dear New Hobbyists,

Please limit tinkering with the chemistry of your reef tank. The old salts also said it this way. “Keep your hands out of the tank.” It’s for your own good and the good of your animals. Nothing happens fast in this hobby except nuisance algae and livestock death.

Relax, take a deep breath, stop trying to fix every little PH fluctuation and the like. Enjoy the process and learn as you go. You’re building a foundation for an amazing reef aquarium and that takes time!

Have a great day and happy reefing!

Spot on @revhtree! Stability is the key to success in reefing.

 

[Timfish]

 

[Serpentman2024]

Dear New Hobbyists,

Please limit tinkering with the chemistry of your reef tank. The old salts also said it this way. “Keep your hands out of the tank.” It’s for your own good and the good of your animals. Nothing happens fast in this hobby except nuisance algae and livestock death.

Relax, take a deep breath, stop trying to fix every little PH fluctuation and the like. Enjoy the process and learn as you go. You’re building a foundation for an amazing reef aquarium and that takes time!

Have a great day and happy reefing!

Amen to this. As tempting as it might seem, there are no instant fixes in this hobby. Only bad things happen fast in reefing.

Also, take some time to READ. Decades of trial and error have netted huge gains. Learn from the mistakes of others.

 

[JayM]

Great advice, but it's soooooo hard!

My routine is the same as always, yet nitrate went from low-mid teens to high 20's, phosphate from .1 something to high .2's in about 90 days. Everything looks as well as it ever has but thanks to reading too many conflicting posts here, I can't help but feel I'm staring at a ticking time bomb even though I know that I'm more than likely not.

 

[FMF0331]

Agree
Sit back and enjoy ... this hobby is nothing but a giant roller coaster with lots of ups and downs

 

[JustAnotherNanoTank]

Great words to put out there!

 

[Outlaw Corals]

Dear New Hobbyists,

Please limit tinkering with the chemistry of your reef tank. The old salts also said it this way. “Keep your hands out of the tank.” It’s for your own good and the good of your animals. Nothing happens fast in this hobby except nuisance algae and livestock death.

Relax, take a deep breath, stop trying to fix every little PH fluctuation and the like. Enjoy the process and learn as you go. You’re building a foundation for an amazing reef aquarium and that takes time!

Have a great day and happy reefing!

Ahhh yes the hand coral, very bad

 

[Mschmidt]

I can recommend chemistry sets for folks who do want to tinker with chemistry. lol

Anything age appropriate for a 1 year old?

 

[AlyciaMarie Verified Admin]

Oh man... So true. Unfortunately, no one listens to this advice, and this is a lesson most choose to learn after they've had a tank-tastrophe.

(yes, I'm talking about myself:upside-down-face:)

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

Dear New Hobbyists,

Please limit tinkering with the chemistry of your reef tank. The old salts also said it this way. “Keep your hands out of the tank.” It’s for your own good and the good of your animals. Nothing happens fast in this hobby except nuisance algae and livestock death.

Relax, take a deep breath, stop trying to fix every little PH fluctuation and the like. Enjoy the process and learn as you go. You’re building a foundation for an amazing reef aquarium and that takes time!

Have a great day and happy reefing!

You know, I often think about what it would be like starting in the hobby now vs back in the day. We weren’t barraged with all these specific data points, gadgetry, magical potions, and forums/youtubes/etc with information overload….some good…some bad. It was much simpler. Granted, info was out there, but you had to actively go after it. Things weren’t thrown in your face as gospel every single second.im not a new reefer and I still find myself getting caught up in things at times. I think it’s easy to say newbie is as newbie does, but would we have been much different given the same circumstances?

 

[Lowell Lemon]

I can recommend chemistry sets for folks who do want to tinker with chemistry. lol

I had a similar set until I tried to use gasoline instead of denatured alcohol in the Bunsen burner. It is all my brothers fault for giving his old set to a 6 year old. I had not lit the wick yet fortunately!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I had a similar set until I tried to use gasoline instead of denatured alcohol in the Bunsen burner. It is all my brothers fault for giving his old set to a 6 year old. I had not lit the wick yet fortunately!

With my set, I specifically tried some of the things they stated to not do. One of the risks with telling a teen boy what to not do. lol

 

[aztoza]

Wait so is it literally harmful to the water chemistry to put your hands in the tank? Been doing so to spot feed…

 

[Goaway]

Accroding to some posts I have read.

A lot of reefs are set up in a spur of a moment by the lfs con job.

This information is a difficult pill to swallow after being told how quickly it is to establish a reef by someone trying to make sales.