I am ready to throw in the towel.

[Donovan Joannes]

I was once tried very hard to fight all the bad that showed up in my tank. I realized the harder I go against it, the worst it becomes. In the end I told myself, why swim against the flow. Just let yourself loose and follow the current. Before our tank hits equilibrium, all the bad is simply unavoidable. There is a reason why algae, bacteria, sponges, worms and other critters co-exist in our tank.

 

[Mundeez]

I'm in Jax too...East Arlington... My tank is at the one year mark as well. I'm going through many of the same emotions you're feeling... and right now I'm trying to talk myself out of breaking it all down. There is so much conflicting info out there, and it's hard to know who/what to trust.

I'm battling a Cyano outbreak right now, hammers and torches dying for apparently no reason (everything else is ok), possible ich outbreak, and I can't seem to dial in the proper levels of N03 and P04 either. I'm also getting tired of sinking money into it, but feel pot-committed at this point. I feel ya man.

 

[Jacobscorals]

Too much crap causes crashes and headaches.lose half the crap,gadgets and additives and enjoy

 

[MarsRover]

Yeah, man, it's rough and can be frustrating. but thats why when you have finally got YOUR TANK'S niche, it is SO rewarding. If it was easy, 1. our planet's reef's wouldn't be kicking the bucket. 2. so many people wouldn't be desperately trying to keep them in their homes.

It is true, there is SO MUCH CR*P out there! and the funny part is there is more than one way that is right.

You just need to increment your ecosystem slowly.

Don't give up! You've already did the hard part, spending the money. Now you just need to be patient and dial stuff in.

Hope you stick around.

 

[Dolelo96]

One year in and I am ready to break down my tank. What a wretched waste of life, money, and time.

I am at the point where I don't know what is up and what is down. There is a wealth of information out there and the only bit I trust comes from Randy Holmes Farley, mcarrol and a few of the other posters I see here. Everything contradicts all other info. All over the place I see no P04 is the answer. Yet I see people dosing specifically for it. Years ago we strived for no nitrates. Now people add them. We have better lights now. But when I used t5's and MH combos my tank grew and looked incredible. Now I am on led's and nothing grows. Get a par meter they say. But outside of buying one that I will use a total of 3 times per tank unless I am playing with it, there isnt one to rent in my area. Now that that bit of useless crying is out of the way I will get on with the point.

40 breeder, 20 long sump, 2000 gph flow (including return), two broken Chinese black boxes reconfigured with cree royal blues Philips lime and bridgelux 4500k 6500k red/orange and cyan for color with meanwell ELN 60 48D dimmable drivers on 2 channels per box.

As of right now:
0 phos
20 nitrate
0 ammo
0 trite
440 cal
1300 magnesium
1.024 sg

Stock list:
5 Mexican turbos
A handful of various sand sifting snails and 4 red leg hermits
Skunk cleaner shrimp
Fire shrimp
2 serpentine stars
2 Carmel clowns
Red stripe Eibli angel
Red spotted hawk
6 line wrasse
Green birds nest (bleaching again)
8 inch wall hammer
4 head lime and pink colored frogspawn
4 head torch
Duncan
Kenya tree
Various zoanthids
Orange/peach colored monti cap
Superman monti
Idaho grape monti
2 Candy canes
Nearly dead Jedi mind trick monti
A brown and green favia that started hitting the bricks the last two days.

My LPS are kicking ***, that is the only bit of hope I have. Maybe I am getting something right. I suspect my fatal error may habe been trying to do a mixed reef in a 22 inch deep tank. The Kenya tree grows (dang it). Zoas have slowed sustantially since I swapped out lights.

I am doing 2x 10 gallon WC's monthly using DD Aquarium Solutions H2Ocean pro formula. The only suplement I dose is Acropower.

3 months in, I battled bryopsis. Thank you R2R and Prsnlty (I think I got that right) and MCarrol(we talked about leds, I did my first rig on my FO. Its great and I can at least keep softies in there) for the advice and time you spent with my questions. I beat back bryopsis with fluconazol. It killed off all of the algea in my tank (macros were fine).

Then came dinos. 3 days of darkness and peroxide dosing won.

Then came Huricane Irma. Tanks were on a generator for 2 days, it fried. 5 days with no electricity. I lost my Jedi mind trick, RBTA, plum crazy acro, tri color bali, coral beauty and valentini puffer(from my FO) 1 week later I tarted getting Dinos again. They are on a candy can frag, Idaho grape monti, and of course by the end of the day my substrate is absolutely covered with it and it looks like I am a very successful bubble farmer.

Name some books for me please! Direct me towards something or someone in Jacksonville Florida who can help get me moving in the correct direction. Burning hundred dollar bills every week sucks but it isn't the worst. The worst is that I took this hobby on and all of the living things that I am buying are dying, because of my lack of knowledge. I repair software/plc's and the 6 million dollar or more robots that the software runs. That is easy. Recreating a slice of nature inside of a 36 x 18 x 22 glass box is not easy. It is the most difficult thing I have ever attempted.

I live in Jacksonville, FL. Luckily we only lost power during Irma for a day. I got into the hobby in 2015 with a IM 40 Gallon Nuvo Fusion AIO. I had no experience in this hobby and was totally lost. Then I found Bio Reef. 99% of everything I’ve learned is from them. Eddie (the store owner), Max (a walking encyclopedia of everything reefing), Chris and Dana have all helped me. I’ve picked on Max (poor guy) the most, since he’s always there. They have been very patient with me (I’m a slow learner). Finally got the nerve to upgrade to a bigger tank, Red Sea Reefer 425xl with a Giesemann Aurora T5/LED Hybrid. HUGE difference from what I started with and they have helped me from day one.

There have been numerous times I’ve wanted to throw in the towel and without them, I probably would have. Hope things get better!

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Agreed. Way too many gadgets (or crap as some is saying ) will out compete each other and create more problems. A skimmer, live rocks, sands and bacteria are more than enough to run a successful tank. Algae is not an enemy, just let them grow somewhere else.

 

[Ranjib]

@Elwood Dowd We are sorry for your losses. But I will recommend not to give up. I think you are trying too hard. I myself a novice in reef keeping (less than three years) so I am not a pro or expert of any sort. But I think 1 year tank is right where you can start thinking of beginner sps (except birdsnest and monti).

What about not spending a lot of money or time on the tank itself. Other than just be rigorous on water change and stabilizing Ca, Alk , mg. Followed by ensuring high flow. Then making the sps journey. 1 frag after every two month.

My experience has been similar to you, I had lost handful of sps after my tank hit 1 year mark. I was doing lps pretty awesome, but with sps i hit major challenges. I had to take a step back, read and learn. My key takeaway was not to spend a lot of money, not to spend a lot of time on the tank itself. In stead educate myself with sps specific tricks and then come up with a strategy. In last one year I was able to grow some of the acros (tenius, slimer and some more fancier acros). I am still dialing down on my sps skills with milipora and a bit harder acros (like red planet), which are not dying neither growing on my tank. But money is not the issue my friend, ... its like growing kids, you got to be patient, not give up and methodically understand whats going wrong. Its not voodoo for sure. And making whole lotta changes suddenly will not help, instead will make it harder to diagnose the problem.

my 2 cents

 

[Flippers4pups]

Coming from old school information and believe me, I’ve had my ups and downs in this hobby, but still run a “Berlin method” system all these years.(slightly modified, though)

When I started back in 93 there wasn’t much information on the hobby other than what the LFS guys told me and books. I was lucky to have some pretty good help getting started. Since then, things have changed in a big way.

But I still strive to keep it simple, to the basics, consistent husbandry.

*Clean water (RO/DI, change filters and DI resin every six months)

*ATO (wouldn’t have a tank without one)

*Kalkwasser in my ATO (benefits of calcium hydroxide help in Ph, Alkilinity and calcium, though not entirely)

*Water changes (weekly to biweekly, same salt mix all these years)

*Water volume (always a sump and as large as possible. More the better, helps with stability)

*Water flow ( 3x-5x to the sump and back to the DT. In tank depends on what is kept and what it can tolerate. Current system, SPS and LPS 20x-30x turnover)

*Water pramameters ( strive for consistency, but don’t make big changes all at once) Randy’s water pramameter information is the “bible” in this regard on the basics of Ph, SG and the big three, Alkilinity, calcium and magnesium.

*Water testing (consistent schedule, around the same time of day and at least weekly. SPS keepers will have to test alkalinity more often and adjust as needed.)

The rest is the “Big” changes stuff that we all go back and forth about all the time.

Lights: type of light, how it’s applied and what works for me and what works for you. Par, lux, pur.....etc. My experience with “black boxes” is pull all the lenses for better spread and spectrum blending. Works well for me. Know par out put with these over your tank is key. Just not as easy as with T5’s and MH.

Quarantine: it just makes sense to do this for anything that goes into our tanks. Dipping corals is a must. Not everyone does this or correctly.

Acclimation: acclimate EVERYTHING going into your tank! Fish, inverts and coral. Not everyone does this or correctly.

The rest is just my personal experience and seems to have helped me all this time. It’s more “me” talking to myself based on experiences of the past:

Be patient and expect a newly set up tank to take around a year to settle and balance out. This is has a lot to do with me, the reef keeper, being consistent. But it’s also waiting on the biological process to become established and mature. This takes time and you can’t do a lot about it to speed it up, though I’ve tried and it always seems to take around a year to settle. During this settling out time I try not to go to fast adding corals, especially SPS. I start with easy and hardy ones at first, to test the waters per say.

Once in the tank and they have been acclimated to light, they get “stuck” in their new location. I don’t move them again unless it’s absolutely necessary! Thinking ahead before placement about growth and growth patterns. CORALS DONT LIKE BEING MESSED WITH! They don’t like change: hands in the tank, rearranging sand and rock work, big swings in water pramameters, changes in light and flow. Any change is to be done in small amounts and spread out over time. Slowly.

My disclaimer to all of this is: what works in my tank may not work for yours, but keep the basics consistent and any change small.

 

[Elwood Dowd]

I really appreciate all of the encouragement. I slept on it and now I am ready to fight it again.

I will a dress a couple of things that are reoccurring questions or comments in this thread.

My Chinese black boxes are not Chinese any longer. Maybe I didn't say so (I did lol) i dont like to read long whiney posts either. But the black boxes I have are stuffed with cree, bridgelux and Philips leds royal blue crews make up 65% of 110 less. The rest are a mix of whites with a couple of orange/red and lime thrown in for color correction. This are all on mean well drivers. Nothing inside of them is Chinese black box, except for the box. Not even the fans. I used 80mm attic cpu fans.

As to my dosing of supplements mainly calcium and magnesium. I don't, at the moment. I do have brightwell a-b here ready to use if need be i even have some mixed. But I just don't have the calcium use to necessitate the addition of more. Same with magnesium. DD salts when mixed to 1.024, very consistently, keep my calcium at 440 and magnesium at 1350. I spend a bunch of money on that salt so that I don't have to dose tons of supplements.

Anyway, I really really do appreciate the encouragement!!!! You folks in Jacksonville, maybe a beer is in order one day and to the mention of bio reef, I will have to stop in there one day. Your review of them is glowing and makes me want to spend money there. I have been going to coral logic.

 

[Orm Embar]

I'm sorry to hear about your struggles. I came back to the hobby about a year ago after a roughly 20 year hiatus. I did browse some chat boards online periodically, but everything seemed very different.

I haven't found a book that I regard as credible anymore, simply because things get updated too quickly. I use Randy's articles (seawater parameters, kalkwasser, nitrate, and phosphate) as sources of information.

I may have missed it, but what's your alkalinity running at?

I was running the standard setup of live rock/sand with a skimmer in the sump at the start (and a bit of dragon's breath macro in the display), but ended up pulling the skimmer and using that chamber as a refugium (chaeto, dragon's breath, 24w LED grow light on reverse daylight timer) and have seen my nitrates of 5 go to < 1 just with that change. Phosphates likewise borderline undetectable on a regular test kit (I don't know about low range ones, though). I also added some gracilaria to the display because that also looks cool. Going forwards, I like the simplicity and low cost of macroalgae run filtration, but that's me.

The short of it - after reading lots of posts online and going over Randy's articles, I think that there are multiple good ways to run a reef tank. I believe that Randy used to run a combination of a refugium, vinegar dosing, skimming, and kalkwasser. I don't recall what he does about GFO or activated charcoal.

Good luck, and hope you find a combination that works well for you!

I should add - I don't have the foggiest clue about your lighting, so I will defer to those who know LED lighting!

 

[VR28man]

I feel for you. I am going through a frustrating bit right now - low pH (7.7) on a two month old tank (8.4 a few weeks ago) and jawfish that suddenly stopped eating or coming out. I am now looking back and wondering what I did wrong. It will take a bit of fortitude to not run around and chase some solution - but that said, my snails are apparently fine, so if the snails are OK the water should be OK, so mentally I tell myself that the only thing that's warranted is scheduled water changes.

You're right that if you look long enough on the internet - on any subject - you'll eventually find contradictory information. It's frustrating, and unfortunately it means that you have to take time to really look critically about what a person is saying, and what their reasons are. It means that the internet will not be a quick fix method either, unfortunately.

The only thing that really stuck with me is to take things slow and to stock light. And to stick with the basics (as Orm Embar put well in the post above mine) and carefully, slowly chase new things, which may be good or may be fads.

• (complete aside) For my 29G tank, I have yet to add any coral, and all I have now are two fish, four nassarii and a hermit crab (plus some live rock, and hitchhiking starfish and tube worms). Honestly, I think I added the jawfish too early (about a month in) and should have taken things slower (e.g. let the algae cycle finish as well as the nitrogen cycle), and started out by feeding them too much. My only intention is to add maybe two more fish, some corals (a hardy porites species and maybe a montipora or brain coral) over the course of the next year, and call it quits, in terms of livestock addition, for that tank. But enough about my tank (which is a separate thread, which I'll update in my build thread when I have time. Measurements over internet forums ).

We all face challenges. The only problem solving suggestion I might have, from my minimal experience, now is to take it slowly (aside addressing a true emergency from a pending tank crash or the like), and restock slowly (if at all - it seems you are stocking that 40B rather heavily?).

Good luck. Keep us posted. And I'm glad some of hte posts here have gotten your spirits up.

 

[burtbollinger]

i had similar experiences when I have tried to do TRUE mixed reefs...on my current setup, zero softies....mostly LPS with few "easy" monties up top...no "challenging" acros.

Things going much better and easier when I dont feel I'm trying to do a high wire routine of keeping everything happy.

this advice....plus a Hanna dkh checker, an Elos nitrate kit and a good RO/DI and a nice water change routine...make everything better.

Following Randy is always a good base of operations tho.

I also run 1/2 recommended dose of GFO in a reactor at all times....swapped out every 3-4 weeks...aim for nitrates at 5....run alk. at 8.8.

looking at your set up. a few other things....i dont do shrimp....they are problematic IME. Ditto with an angel cruising around.


hang in there.

 

[leicaguy]

So I have been in the hobby for 45 years ! I have seen everything from under gravel filters, to canister filters, used the first tunze equipment, Berlin system, zeovit etc. I can honestly say the keeping it simple works, Good salt mix(I use tropic marine pro or Red Sea ), light bio load, refugium of mixed macro algae, stable parameters, strong flow, feeding corals with food such a reefroids, works for me, Leave the corals where you place them, Magnesium, calcium , salinity, DkH keep them stable and have very few fish.

 

[Hans-Werner]

There is a tendency in reef aquarium care to create hypes and overdoing things. Moderate phosphate concentrations up to 0.1 ppm phosphate are fine in my opinion. Everything below 0.03 ppm phosphate may be dangerous. Nitrate doesn´t matter that much in my eyes but 10 times the phosphate concentration is best I think.

LED for the first time gave the opportunity to add lots of blue light around 450 nm wavelength. Metal halides and T5 with this wavelenth declined in lighting power very rapidly. The problem is that "royal blue" light of 450 nm is photobiologic very effective by controlling diverse metabolic processes. Running an illumination with lots of royal blue light may create problems you did not have with metal halides or T5. Again overdoing things by adding a lot of power in the photobiologic most effective wavelength creates new problems instead of solving them.

 

[teller]

There is a tendency in reef aquarium care to create hypes and overdoing things. Moderate phosphate concentrations up to 0.1 ppm phosphate are fine in my opinion. Everything below 0.03 ppm phosphate may be dangerous. Nitrate doesn´t matter that much in my eyes but 10 times the phosphate concentration is best I think.

LED for the first time gave the opportunity to add lots of blue light around 450 nm wavelength. Metal halides and T5 with this wavelenth declined in lighting power very rapidly. The problem is that "royal blue" light of 450 nm is photobiologic very effective by controlling diverse metabolic processes. Running an illumination with lots of royal blue light may create problems you did not have with metal halides or T5. Again overdoing things by adding a lot of power in the photobiologic most effective wavelength creates new problems instead of solving them.

Very interesting approach.
@Hans-Werner can you elaborate a little more on the possible new problems when over stimulating corals within the 450nm wavelength range?
You think we should not overdoing the 450nm but instead redistribute the power to the remaining ranges lets say [380-440] and/or [460-700] ?
Thanks. I always read your post with huge interest.

 

[Lninwa]

My recent tank is a 33 gal mixed reef which is a yr old. I also had a mild case of bryopsis which I treated successfully with Fluconozole. Despite having nitrates as high as 50 and po4 at .2 I have no algae. I finally did an icp test from Triton and found my potassium and iodine are low. Triton is too expensive so I started the Red Sea Coral Corals program. Already I'm getting polyp extension. Your salinity should be at 1.025 or 26. We do need to have low nitrates and phosphates to feed our corals. Anyway I hope you hang in there but if you need a break we've all been there

 

[Hans-Werner]

Initially I thought the possibility to apply lots of blue light with LED is positive to corals. Under low light conditions the action of the "blue light syndrome" and cryptochrome is positive in algae and other photosynthetic organisms. Under low light conditions algae and other photosynthetic organisms show improved adaptation to the light conditions with application of blue light. Cryptochromes (named after the cryptogames, the algae, ferns and mosses) are known to control a diverse array of metabolic or in general photobiologic reactions in nearly all kinds of organisms including humans. You will find action spectra and articles by doing an image search for "cryptochrome spectrum" or doing a search in a scientific search engine for cryptochrome or "blue light syndrome". Most of these action spectra of cryptochrome show a maximum response at 450 nm wavelength. A cryptochrome is also controling nocturnal tentacle expansion of corals. Blue light suppresses nocturnal polyp opening and tentacle expansion. In algae it controls chloroplast arrangement and other reactions to light.

With time it turned out that many reef aquarists had problems with LED lighting. Obviously the reaction to the blue light of high intensity is not so positive and to me it seems that the reaction to "royal blue" is more severe than the reaction to the normal (greenish) blue LEDs (own experience with our tanks). My conclusion is that there is some kind of mismanagement of light adaptation or other metabolic reactions induced by blue light of overproportional high intensity. Most reef aquarists like the appearance of their tank with lots of royal blue light because it induces beautiful fluorescence of corals, discs and zoas. I appeal to be careful with blue light and especially royal blue LEDs. I cannot see any other possible cause for the problems with LEDs in many tanks. I suggest to start with LED lighting as white as possible and then to try carefully and slowly how much blue you can add without causing negative reactions like contraction of the corals. Maybe the corals also adapt better to a more blue light by slowly increasing the proportion of blue light.

I could imagine that the "high intensity reaction" to blue light is increasing polyp contraction and shuts down the photosynthetic apparatus of the zooxanthellae, and in this way causing these problems. Viewed under this new light the long known shut down reaction to new lighting (e. g. after changing metal halide bulbs) or to removal of yellow substances (which filter out blue light) with carbon may get a conclusive explanation.

 

[BlueDamselReef]

One year in and I am ready to break down my tank. What a wretched waste of life, money, and time.

I am at the point where I don't know what is up and what is down. There is a wealth of information out there and the only bit I trust comes from Randy Holmes Farley, mcarrol and a few of the other posters I see here. Everything contradicts all other info. All over the place I see no P04 is the answer. Yet I see people dosing specifically for it. Years ago we strived for no nitrates. Now people add them. We have better lights now. But when I used t5's and MH combos my tank grew and looked incredible. Now I am on led's and nothing grows. Get a par meter they say. But outside of buying one that I will use a total of 3 times per tank unless I am playing with it, there isnt one to rent in my area. Now that that bit of useless crying is out of the way I will get on with the point.

40 breeder, 20 long sump, 2000 gph flow (including return), two broken Chinese black boxes reconfigured with cree royal blues Philips lime and bridgelux 4500k 6500k red/orange and cyan for color with meanwell ELN 60 48D dimmable drivers on 2 channels per box.

As of right now:
0 phos
20 nitrate
0 ammo
0 trite
440 cal
1300 magnesium
1.024 sg

Stock list:
5 Mexican turbos
A handful of various sand sifting snails and 4 red leg hermits
Skunk cleaner shrimp
Fire shrimp
2 serpentine stars
2 Carmel clowns
Red stripe Eibli angel
Red spotted hawk
6 line wrasse
Green birds nest (bleaching again)
8 inch wall hammer
4 head lime and pink colored frogspawn
4 head torch
Duncan
Kenya tree
Various zoanthids
Orange/peach colored monti cap
Superman monti
Idaho grape monti
2 Candy canes
Nearly dead Jedi mind trick monti
A brown and green favia that started hitting the bricks the last two days.

My LPS are kicking ***, that is the only bit of hope I have. Maybe I am getting something right. I suspect my fatal error may habe been trying to do a mixed reef in a 22 inch deep tank. The Kenya tree grows (dang it). Zoas have slowed sustantially since I swapped out lights.

I am doing 2x 10 gallon WC's monthly using DD Aquarium Solutions H2Ocean pro formula. The only suplement I dose is Acropower.

3 months in, I battled bryopsis. Thank you R2R and Prsnlty (I think I got that right) and MCarrol(we talked about leds, I did my first rig on my FO. Its great and I can at least keep softies in there) for the advice and time you spent with my questions. I beat back bryopsis with fluconazol. It killed off all of the algea in my tank (macros were fine).

Then came dinos. 3 days of darkness and peroxide dosing won.

Then came Huricane Irma. Tanks were on a generator for 2 days, it fried. 5 days with no electricity. I lost my Jedi mind trick, RBTA, plum crazy acro, tri color bali, coral beauty and valentini puffer(from my FO) 1 week later I tarted getting Dinos again. They are on a candy can frag, Idaho grape monti, and of course by the end of the day my substrate is absolutely covered with it and it looks like I am a very successful bubble farmer.

Name some books for me please! Direct me towards something or someone in Jacksonville Florida who can help get me moving in the correct direction. Burning hundred dollar bills every week sucks but it isn't the worst. The worst is that I took this hobby on and all of the living things that I am buying are dying, because of my lack of knowledge. I repair software/plc's and the 6 million dollar or more robots that the software runs. That is easy. Recreating a slice of nature inside of a 36 x 18 x 22 glass box is not easy. It is the most difficult thing I have ever attempted.

I'm in Jacksonville and I currently have a little 5 gallon slice of the ocean. Previously I had a 29 gallon 2 years ago that I had to break down due to a death inn the family. And now I'm working on another 29 gallon protect that I just acquired yesterday. In my opinion, I think a lot of people make this hobby way more complicated than it needs to be. I've never used sumps/ skimmers/ dosing/ etc. Nny 29g was a simple, HOB setup with leds and in it I kept a thriving anemone among other corals, fish and inverts (except SPS... haven't tried SPS yet). I think if it works for you/ worked for you in the past, then why try to keep up with the latest fads/ trends. I don't dose any chemicals I my tank and simply maintain my salinity where it needs to be, keep my livestock reasonable for the size tank I have and do regular water changes and clean out my filters/ equipment to keep nitrates from building up. And it works for me quite well. Life happens and hurricanes happen and there's nothing we can do to control that. [emoji170][emoji225]

 

[Royce White]

Why do we spend so much money to be aggravated, I took up golf, gave it up,. I also am a keeper of bees, love it but can be aggravating and now a keeper of a reef aquarium, talk about aggravation. love it too, I am beginning to wonder about me.

 

[laverda]

I see no mention of what you ALK level is at. This is more important and changes faster then Ca and Mag, yet many people do not know what theirs is.