How hard was reefing for you at the start?

[Gumbies R Us]

We all were there at some point, on our way to pick out our first tank in person or online. You pull the trigger on a tank and now have a brand new tank at home. However, for some, you didn't realize how hard reef keeping would be while others might have found it not too difficult to get into. I am wondering how hard was reefing for you when you first started? Did you have someone helping you out, some sort of background or were you going in blind. Curious to see everyone's reef-keeping beginnings!

 

[JumboShrimp]

Hard. Even with a FOWLR tank there will be a pretty steep learning curve, and a fair share of mistakes.

 

[Usarmy227]

So far I have been reefing since the end of august. It hasn’t been as bad as people say for me so far but, I think that is because I do a lot of research on Reef2reef. However, now that I’ve made the switch to a bigger tank in January I find it hard to figure out what I need to do and get.

 

[seths]

Hell... It's still hard

I guess I started at 9 or 10 years old w/ parents having someone come service a basic tank and none of us really understanding.

Then got to the phase of wanting more and nicer. Then through my 20s - 30s, I love to tinker and change things too much. A lot of impatience.

I ended up with the most success having 2 tanks - one I could constantly screw with and one to leave alone and fight for consistency.

 

[Reefer Matt]

I can’t remember much about my first tank 20 years ago. I was only in reefing for a year due to the economy, and lack of a solid career. But when I got back in, it wasn’t too bad. I watched a lot of videos and worked off of my hazy memory of that first tank. However, when I wanted to start keeping sps coral a year later, I lost a lot of frags because I put them in too early (dry rock tank). I would say that reefing hasn’t been difficult for me as long as I do what I’m supposed to, instead of procrastinating.

 

[BryanM]

I'm going to oddly say easy. Mostly due to reading here and starting with live rock and sand.

After my tank migration I'm in to much harder nonsense with bottomed out nutrients and dinos. Not at all a fan.... UV this week, hopefully will get me back to being more successful.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Starting out, I found it relatively easy to manage things and I think that's because I only had a basic understanding of what I was doing. There’s truth in the saying, “ignorance is bliss.”

Of course, I didn’t dive into the deep end right away. I began with live rock, hardy species like damsels, clowns and a few bubble tip anemones. At that stage, I kept things simple.

However, as I delved deeper into topics like deep sand beds and their role in biological filtration, the complexity of the hobby became evident. Initially, it was overwhelming. I struggled to grasp the concepts. But once I started to understand, it opened up an entirely new world, and I was hooked.

Ironically, the more I learned, the more challenging subsequent tanks became. Applying my knowledge and experience wasn’t always straightforward, especially when widely accepted norms contradicted proven methods. It took time to understand these differences, and what I concluded made me more skeptical, leading me to critically evaluate information and see it through the lens of potential marketing influences.

 

[John Neuzil]

Pretty hard. Many livestock losses. Limited information. Books hard to find. DiY much of the equipment. I started reefing in the mid 80s.

 

[56longroof]

I kept saltwater in the early to mid 90's so I was familiar with some of the common issues. Going into it this time I read alot of books and did a ton of online research before putting any water in the tank. Once i had a solid plan then I moved forward. I have found it pretty easy this go around. I have list a couple fish and 3 LPS coral recently both attributed to unexpected aggressive behavior from fish and inverts. I think the key to a solid start is live rock and live sand directly from the ocean. I was putting corals in my tank after 2 months. Those are still doing great and growing like weeds.

 

[jhaggerty1990]

Ive been in it a year.....I need to start a YT called "The Failed Reefer". Everything that could go wrong or that I could do wrong...did lol. Ich, calc percipitation causing severe alk swings, inverts die, installed RODI system wrong without test tds, power outage during storm with no back up, corals close and dont grow, nitrates and phos bottomed out, blew money on tons of stuff I didnt need, crappy tank stand and cord mess, bought fish I didnt research about, bought ****** lights, no par meter, pest, cyano and dinos, tinkered too much, impatient....on and on. Im learning a lot and a lot about myself (instant gratification). I think Im on the right track now and I will have a nice tank so help me G*d....come death or bankruptcy and homeless...I shall succeed....eventually. Hoping I come out the other side knowing how to fix anything and everything from experience. Still love the hobby regardless of the failures.

 

[SonOfaGoat]

I'm going to oddly say easy. Mostly due to reading here and starting with live rock and sand.

After my tank migration I'm in to much harder nonsense with bottomed out nutrients and dinos. Not at all a fan.... UV this week, hopefully will get me back to being more successful.

Hang in there, I'm just starting to see real progress against dinos recently. I've been battling them since October.

 

[CHSUB]

Hard, but imo easier than what hobbyists face today. I worked at a LFS in the 80s and had SW from the beginning. My first reef tank in 1996 was based on J Sprung’s book, ‘The Reef Aquarium’ and still follow those principles today. Now people get advice all over the place, some good some terrible, and struggling to distinguish what works and what was coincidence.

 

[blecki]

It was super easy. Most things are when you're an idiot.

Then it got really hard.

Now it's pretty easy again. I'm not sure if I should be happy about that or getting checked.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

I spent decades waiting for the right time to start a reef and researched everything I could. I remember very well 10+ years ago when I was moving for work every other year that the ONLY way to keep SPS was through zero nutrient zeolite systems. All the corals looked like pastel highlighters!

I also spent decades keeping African Cichlids and planted aquariums before jumping into 3 reef tanks last year. I think if you spent time in the 'aquarium' world, then much of the basics are already known. I think the biggest hurdle with reefs and what a lot of new aquariusts jumping straight into reefs is the chemistry and relationships between all macro and micro elements are. That's been my biggeest hurdle.

 

[BasementBox]

Brutal. I had a 16 gallon biocube and I did, well, great. I had no problems growing coral and thought that I could ace a 125g tank. Well. As time crept on, my biocube softie tank began to fall apart. It collapsed under an aptasia invasion.

So I saved the fish. Then began my reef journey that I’m on now. I built my own stand, did the electric. Everything and piecemealed over a year the big items. I got everything I thought until I realized I wasn’t close. I needed not one 72” led lights I needed 5. I flooded my basement with having poor knowledge of what thing would do what. I had my ATO three times fresh water bomb my tank. Then the pest rolled in. I had diatoms which I cleared out. Then I was fighting cyano. I didn’t know what to do - I went to the lfs. Chemiclean. Boom. Full fledged Dino’s. I believe im about To drag myself out of the third circle of hell. In this time I had no idea alk calcium mag relationships. How important it was to minimize swings. Etc…

Only now I have a doser doing what I need it to do, only recently I solved the tank flooding the basement riddle, and only recently did I fix the freshwater bomb issues. At this point I say it with some hesitation but I think I have this bird flying…. With a cast two broken wings. But I’m getting there

Tl;dr bad time nuked tanks way too much learned above softies you gotta keep stability.

 

[Bruttall]

Since I am an All or Nothing type, I jump deep into stuff and then try and educate myself into success, instead of educating myself FOR Success ahead of time, it was pretty rough the first year, then it got pretty easy once i got a little knowledge about what I was doing coupled with some experience, Now I can give you enough smart sounding advice to be really dangerous!!

The fact that I am still learning is probably what has really kept me interested. I am constantly questing for more knowledge.

 

[Marco_99]

My last tank was back in 03’ish and it wasn’t the easiest. My old neighbor and his mom owned a lfs so I got great deals and he helped me out on advice quite a bit (and Reef Central) Actually have a tank ordered and going back into it. So much has changed.The hobby has been overrun by mini tanks and frag plugs it appears. I bought corals attached to live rock back in the day

 

[Atalien2005]

About 5 years ago I was in the process of retiring from the U.S. Air Force and I believe it was FB marketplace, where I stumbled on someone getting out the hobby and selling an established system with corals and fish. I always wanted a reef tank, being that I was aircrew in the Air Force and with the high ops tempo it was mission impossible before retirement.

I jumped in head first and did pretty well keeping most of the livestock alive for about two years before breaking that system down and moving. I will say the first 6 months were challenging because I had to learn what all the equipment that came with the tank was used for. I spent a lot of time doing research here on R2R and watching lots of videos. I’m slowly getting to the point where I think simpler is better.

P.S. Pictures from that first tank.

 

[goosemans]

I think the hardest part for me was buying everything lol

 

[crazyfishmom]

Extremely difficult. Not the reefing part necessarily. But I’m a Type A personality who thinks she can control everything… and everyone on this forum knows that we manage our tanks a bit but we are controlling absolutely NOTHING. That’s been a huge lesson in humility.