Debating leaving the hobby. Thoughts and experiences? Pics..

[FiveGallonSea]

Hey reefers,

Been in the reef hobby a couple years. Freshwater lifelong. Started reefing with a nano and soon after planned for many months an upgrade. An unimaginable amount of money later had a Red Sea Reefer 350 running with all mid level-high end equipment up and running. Then came the fish, then came the coral. I think I had beginners luck. My coral were doing amazing and so were my fish. Despite maintenance it's almost like this tank thrived effortlessly.

Over the past 5-6 months there's been so many downs that it's taken everything I had in me. I still keep up with maintenance and my tank is always showroom clean, but because of all the heartbreak I'm looking at the hobby as more of a chore than anything else. Here's a list of things I've dealt with...

-Unexplainable demise of all my euphyllia despite no change in parameters.
-Unexplainable deaths from fish who looked perfectly healthy one morning and were dead in the evening including 2 Potter's Angels, 1 Flame Angel, 1 Blue Mandarin, several Green Chromis and some inverts.
- A beautiful newly acquired Naso Tang that just never acclimated well and starved to death despite all my efforts.
-Recent hair algae on one rock that I fought for one month and looks like I got under control.
-HLLE appearing on my Blue Tang that I raised as a baby the size of a quarter despite always providing nori, spirulina, with a mix of meaty foods with garlic and vitamins.
-I suspect my Flame Angel is getting ill.
-And I feel like I can do water changes every single day and I cannot lower my nitrates lower than 20 when I NEVER had nitrate issues.

My corals never grow, they all start out great for weeks/months and no matter what shrink back and die.

I'm at a loss and I'm getting to the point that I look at my tank with disgust. It gives me anxiety and makes me mentally sick. I love everything about this hobby, but I feel I'm losing the ability to cope with these losses any longer. Reefapalooza is this weekend and I've been excited all year to go. I'm even debating not going.

What do you vets think. Is this means to throw in the towel? Will I get passed this?

Any advice, please.

 

[Neo Jeo]

Beautiful set up. I understand where you are coming from as I got out of the hobby many times for all different reasons. I remember having anxiety. Now my tank is perfect and yesterday I added a new fish that's bullying everyone and now im like ug.... next will be the algae hair or a leak I just feel it but I try not to think about it and keep moving forward. You tank looks nice but this hobby is a money pit and like surgeons say you can do everything text book perfect but still lose a patient. Things just happen that we cant explain.

Best of luck! Stick with it tho, you got an amazing set up!

 

[this is me]

Put some MH on that tank and you'll start enjoying it.

 

[FiveGallonSea]

Put some MH on that tank and you'll start enjoying it.

MH?

 

[xaflatoonx]

my advice to you is - instead of jumping to conclusion at this time when you are not feeling all the great about it - delay the process.

Go to bare minimum.
Fish only for now - and some basic unkillable corals.

You have a nice sized tank, and just to keep fish - you wont need to do as much maintenance.

give it a few weeks and see if you feel like jumping back in and figuring out what happened and trying again.

regarding nitrates, you will need to work towards reducing them slowly using NOPOX or VSV.
a local reefer here and a R2R member - Andre (@PSXerholic) has excellent info on making that work.
its science - and taking it as anything else just doesnt work.

Think of why you got in this hobby the first place.
that usually puts things back in perspective.

I have been away from a tank for about a year and a half now.
Not a single day goes by without me being on reef2reef and reading about build threads and planning my tank.

Its called an addiction for a reason bud.
Just dont want you getting out - and then spending all that money AGAIN to get back in.
So be SURE 10000% before you decided to throw in the towel.

 

[this is me]

Metal Halides.
And turn up the AC!

 

[JoshH]

Well, no one wants to see another reefer give up, So, why don't we go through any current issues you feel your having and we can get you sorted out. This is a wonderful hobby and a wonderful forum to be a part of. Why do you feel your flame angel is getting sick?? What light settings do you have on your Primes?? And honestly, 20 Nitrates is not the end of the world and the majority of corals will do just fine.

 

[Dennis McGrath]

Sorry to hear about your problems. That is a gorgeous setup.

 

[NoWaiAma]

Beautiful tank my friend. Hang in there. Let the environment find its balance. Don’t react. Let it

 

[Ruben's Reef]

WOW, beautiful tank. !!! Don't give up !!!. This Salty side of the hobby has a lot of up and downs.

 

[Neo Jeo]

 

[gcarroll]

Come to RAP, see the coral, equipment, speakers, & raffle. Become re-inspired! My talk focuses a tad on some of the problems that you are experiencing. Feel free to introduce yourself and we can talk more in depth of these issues. Beautiful system BTW!

 

[ncaldwell]

I was having the same problem. I tried keeping everything super clean including the sump like yours is. Coral would die one after the other for no reason I could tell. What worked for me was filling the sump with probably 50lbs or more of live ruble rock from different tanks at the lfs. I think I was keeping everything to sterile and was lacking biodiversity. Dont give up, there is always an answer or a fix. Finding it is half the fun

 

[Sold4jc7]

I agree with everyone; you have a beautiful tank. I wouldn't make any knee-jerk reactions and get out.

 

[Cory]

Well those fish you have died are hard to keep fish and hard to collect. I wonder if they were cyanide collected?

Dont give up this hobby is hard, but in a strange way thats what makes it rewarding.

Have you done an icp test to check whats in the water? It might give you some insight.

 

[Cory]

Hlle is connect to electricity, activated carbon and possibly ozone. Look into those.

 

[Cory]

Corals need po4 in order to use that no3. Your tank is clean i suspect starvation of po4 and possibly food.

 

[Dilan Patel]

I think your hammer corals and such suffered from your Angels. They can be model citizens and turn within a day. Or pick at them without you ever seeing(that is what my lemonpeel,potters and Flame all did). Like everyone said basically use the KISS method. I like my denitrator due to me never doing waterchanges and it keeps my nitartes at 0 no matter what. I feed over 5 times a day just to have readable traces of nitrates. Take things slow and if you are looking to upgrade lighting I like the sbreef lights. They can def grow corals.

 

[Bacon505]

Hope this will give you some encouragement to continue. Everything gone within few hours. Then all 22 fishes that i had for over 3 years

 

[Fudsey]

I would like to add that 2 AI Primes really ins't enough light for a 4' tank. And I agree with what other's have said, Don't give up, try FOWLR for a while and get easy to care for fish. I had a FOWLR tank for 20+years before I decided to get into a reef tank and I still am learning. Stuff happens...