Is some part of a “successful” reef tank luck?

[Miami Reef]

Do you believe some luck is involved with a “successful“ reef tank?

Here are some examples:

Fish parasite slipping in
Coral parasites
Tank breaking apart
Random power outages (generator failure)
Random natural disasters
Mysterious coral bacterial infections
Reef safe with caution fish


QT would help with some risks, but how many times have you heard of a parasite coming through a preQT purchase? How many times have you heard someone got a parasite despite trying to QT themselves?

And there are many successful tanks that never quarantined anything.

Why do some people report normal, stable parameters with coral deaths?

Why do some people say carbon dosing and GFO kills (No matter how slow the people with problems claim they go with it), while others (who can go really aggressive with both) have no issues?

The more threads with coral issues I read, the more I realize how much luck there is to reefing.

Do you agree?

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

Not in the 'luck' club. Good husbandry rules the roost in this game.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I voted maybe, there is so many things that are just out of our control.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Voted maybe, because if there is any luck involved it runs out at some point. Just look at the "luck" tanks vs the hard work tanks, but also success and beauty are in the eye of the beholder so a definite maybe.

 

[Slocke]

I think the point is to reduce the luck factor as much as possible and that the most successful reefs have the smallest luck factors. Saying that:

 

[PeterC99]

Absolutely Maybe!!!

You said so yourself!

“Here are some examples:

Fish parasite slipping in
Coral parasites
Tank breaking apart
Random power outages (generator failure)
Random natural disasters
Mysterious coral bacterial infections
Reef safe with caution fish”

 

[billyocean]

There's a bit of luck in everything in life. More importantly it's what work you put into life that gets the results that you want. The reef is no different.

 

[Garf]

I sacrifice a few corals early on to my reef God, improves my luck no end.

 

[Sean Clark]

Did you seriously wait until 3:05 to post this @Miami Reef ? That is some serious commitment to the brand.

 

[Miami Reef]

I

Did you seriously wait until 3:05 to post this @Miami Reef ? That is some serious commitment to the brand.

You caught my Easter Egg!

Ps. You have an unread pm. My anxiety could never.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

If you can do it once it might be luck. If you can do it twice, then it’s probably not luck.

 

[taricha]

Reefers will encounter all of those "bad luck" items, if they stick around long enough.
The "luck" is if you get the bad luck when you are in a position to learn from it.

 

[hoffmeyerz]

Well, we're putting mother nature in a box so.....yeah there's prob a bit of luck involved here...lol

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I voted luck. One of the luckiest steps for new reefers is to happen on REEF2REEF early on and not get all their info from an lfs.