This is a really good point. And it may have been what happened to my last tank at the 5 year mark. Things went bad. And quickly. I have to admit, I was in Coast Mode, as everything was going great. For years. I took things for granted and my livestock paid the price.
My Reef is 27 years young, from my experience, everything eventually has a die off in our contained systems. When I grow to many mushrooms they tend to die off, while other corals thrive. Same for my sps. I started off growing large colonies of sps, when it died off I gave them up and went to softies and lps. Eventually they die off and I go to some other types of coral. I belive that you need to keep things trimmed down to keep them for the long run. I'm guessing that it's chemicals from the corals that builds up and creates a mass die off.We spend the first year screwing around with our tanks constantly, we'll put our hands in our tanks almost daily, do weekly water changes and freak out over a light patch of brown diatoms because it disrupts our perfectly clean sand and aquascape visually. As we approach year two we've dealt with most ugly algaes, pests and hopefully either avoided or won the battle against the dreaded dinos. Around this time our tanks built up the necessary microbiome and really found stability to where anything we throw in the tank can grow. We start noticing real progress the less we mess with it, we don't put our hands in the tank unless completely necessary. During this time any frags have become colonies and the next two years you kind of coast by running the tank on auto-pilot with minimal effort an is the time we really get to just enjoy our tanks.
This is what my tank looked like at around Year 3.
Then something happens. you wake up with one colony rtn overnight and that becomes the start of a slow deterioration of your tank to the point where enough corals have died to where we have to do something about it. I always noticed that many people either do a major reboot of their tanks or the tank crashes around the 4-5 year mark for whatever reason. At minimum there is some major disruption that we really can't explain during this time and its nothing we can see on a ICP because lets be honest, 4 year old colonies aren't going to die because your nutrients are higher.
This is my tank at year 5-6.
My best guess is there was some shift in the microbiome and I'm not talking about anything that comes in a bottle (Persoally I would never start another tank with any of that stuff anymore ) Losing all of my coral sucks but thats not going to stop me from restarting. This time around, I know exactly what to do if there is a problem or know if should do anything at all.
I know there are people who tanks that are 10-20 years old but sorry if this offends anyone but most people that claim to have a tank that old have never shown them or the ones I have seen don't look that great imo.
I would like to hear some experiences from those of you who had a similar experience at around year 4 or at least have a more advanced discussion on what we can do to keep our corals looking amazing longer.
First off, the pic of your tank at 3-4yrs was AWSOME!!!We spend the first year screwing around with our tanks constantly, we'll put our hands in our tanks almost daily, do weekly water changes and freak out over a light patch of brown diatoms because it disrupts our perfectly clean sand and aquascape visually. As we approach year two we've dealt with most ugly algaes, pests and hopefully either avoided or won the battle against the dreaded dinos. Around this time our tanks built up the necessary microbiome and really found stability to where anything we throw in the tank can grow. We start noticing real progress the less we mess with it, we don't put our hands in the tank unless completely necessary. During this time any frags have become colonies and the next two years you kind of coast by running the tank on auto-pilot with minimal effort an is the time we really get to just enjoy our tanks.
This is what my tank looked like at around Year 3.
Then something happens. you wake up with one colony rtn overnight and that becomes the start of a slow deterioration of your tank to the point where enough corals have died to where we have to do something about it. I always noticed that many people either do a major reboot of their tanks or the tank crashes around the 4-5 year mark for whatever reason. At minimum there is some major disruption that we really can't explain during this time and its nothing we can see on a ICP because lets be honest, 4 year old colonies aren't going to die because your nutrients are higher.
This is my tank at year 5-6.
My best guess is there was some shift in the microbiome and I'm not talking about anything that comes in a bottle (Persoally I would never start another tank with any of that stuff anymore ) Losing all of my coral sucks but thats not going to stop me from restarting. This time around, I know exactly what to do if there is a problem or know if should do anything at all.
I know there are people who tanks that are 10-20 years old but sorry if this offends anyone but most people that claim to have a tank that old have never shown them or the ones I have seen don't look that great imo.
I would like to hear some experiences from those of you who had a similar experience at around year 4 or at least have a more advanced discussion on what we can do to keep our corals looking amazing longer.
You guys made me worry! My 95% 159g SPS tank will be 4 years young next month. It’s on autopilot with a CaRx and no WC since day 1! I’ll keep pressing my luck for another 4 years.
I don’t think It’s the number of years (old tank syndrome) but rather what has been built up over the years. Mine is a BB and lots of flow — I should clean out my sump and back area of tank more though. If I keep that clean, I think that it will go another 4+ years. My last one went 7 years without any issues.
I am not sure why some tanks crash at that age but I have my thoughts. All tanks and even the sea go through cycles. Some last a few months and some last years. I have been SCUBA diving since 1971 all over the place but the vast majority of my dives were in New York, lobster diving.
