Looking for advice: Considering leaving the hobby or making big changes

[dnjstlr]

FTS

I am facing a choice between either leaving the hobby or starting fresh (livestock or new tank), and wanted to hear people's advice/experience based on what they did.


Background:
So I started my venture into reef tanks because I was really into pictures I've seen of acropora and other "sticks" 2 years+ ago. I started with a REEFER 350, and am currently running a Nyos Quantum 160 skimmer, 2 mp 10s and a mp 40, and a mix of 4 ATI T5's and 2 Radion XR 15s. I started with about 80lbs of LR and have added bacteria medium in the sump, and I'm vodka dosing as a main source of nutrient control besides weekly water changes, with nutrients around 2ppm nitrate, and sub 0.1 phosphate. Using hanna and red sea kits to test. Apex monitors things and controls T5s, temperature, etc.

But as you can see in my photo, I have no SPS. I had decent success over the October~December period and kept quite a few frags alive and healthy but when I came home from a 2 week trip, I actually lost all of them to dino + turf algae taking over the frag rack. Unsure what happened because parameters were mostly the same as before the trip besides slight alk increase due to loss of frags using alkalinity. Since then I actually lost most stony corals like the decently sized hammer coral I've had since the beginning of the tank. I decided to test out the waters to see if I had fixed the issue by adding a birds nest and it died in about 2 days, so I'm really doing something wrong here.

The main part:
So yeah, at a point of feeling unmotivated and was wondering if others had chosen to remain in the hobby and things worked out for them for the better, or if not, what happened? Did you make drastic change? What did you change?

Personally, I'd like to go hard into SPS again if I do try, but I'm not sure what I should let go or bring with me, and if I should maybe try down sizing for better control and costs vs sizing up for more stability.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

FTS

I am facing a choice between either leaving the hobby or starting fresh (livestock or new tank), and wanted to hear people's advice/experience based on what they did.


Background:
So I started my venture into reef tanks because I was really into pictures I've seen of acropora and other "sticks" 2 years+ ago. I started with a REEFER 350, and am currently running a Nyos Quantum 160 skimmer, 2 mp 10s and a mp 40, and a mix of 4 ATI T5's and 2 Radion XR 15s. I started with about 80lbs of LR and have added bacteria medium in the sump, and I'm vodka dosing as a main source of nutrient control besides weekly water changes, with nutrients around 2ppm nitrate, and sub 0.1 phosphate. Using hanna and red sea kits to test. Apex monitors things and controls T5s, temperature, etc.

But as you can see in my photo, I have no SPS. I had decent success over the October~December period and kept quite a few frags alive and healthy but when I came home from a 2 week trip, I actually lost all of them to dino + turf algae taking over the frag rack. Unsure what happened because parameters were mostly the same as before the trip besides slight alk increase due to loss of frags using alkalinity. Since then I actually lost most stony corals like the decently sized hammer coral I've had since the beginning of the tank. I decided to test out the waters to see if I had fixed the issue by adding a birds nest and it died in about 2 days, so I'm really doing something wrong here.

The main part:
So yeah, at a point of feeling unmotivated and was wondering if others had chosen to remain in the hobby and things worked out for them for the better, or if not, what happened? Did you make drastic change? What did you change?

Personally, I'd like to go hard into SPS again if I do try, but I'm not sure what I should let go or bring with me, and if I should maybe try down sizing for better control and costs vs sizing up for more stability.

View it this way, one day future generations won't see some of the beautiful corals we have today. So try to choose those within reason/budget and try unlocking the key for them to thrive, for future generations , for your kids,grandkids, or nephews/nieces or friends kids. That how I see it, and with the corals I'm keeping I see 5-20 years if I'm still alive, hoping I or others unlock the key to success. With coral bans, these are some of what is still available in these corals not much variety anymore. Dendronephthya corals

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

Make sure there's no heavy metal poisoning going on or stray voltage first. Then make sure your water params are in line. Your sand bed looks problematic if that FTS shot is current, do some major sand/gravel vacumming with some large consecutive water changes. That's what I'd start with. You can send a ICP sample to check for heavy metals. Make sure there's nothing rusting anywhere in your sump on any component at all.

It wouldn't hurt to do a complete reset here either. Store your corals you want to keep in a rubbermaid with heat and circulation, chuck all of the sand, scrub and rinse (in saltwater) all of the rock, and start fresh with a new thin layer of sand go no more than 1-1 1/2" and stay on top of keeping it vacuumed and stay on top of weekly or bi-weekly water changed from there. Then try again. Don't give up!

 

[dnjstlr]

Make sure there's no heavy metal poisoning going on or stray voltage first. Then make sure your water params are in line. Your sand bed looks problematic if that FTS shot is current, do some major sand/gravel vacumming with some large consecutive water changes. That's what I'd start with. You can send a ICP sample to check for heavy metals. Make sure there's nothing rusting anywhere in your sump on any component at all.

It wouldn't hurt to do a complete reset here either. Store your corals you want to keep in a rubbermaid with heat and circulation, chuck all of the sand, scrub and rinse (in saltwater) all of the rock, and start fresh with a new thin layer of sand go no more than 1-1 1/2" and stay on top of keeping it vacuumed and stay on top of weekly or bi-weekly water changed from there. Then try again. Don't give up!

I haven't thought of the heavy metal thing. I'll send in a icp test next week. And yeah while thr FTS is about a month old, the sandbed went bad during my trip as well. Really unsure what caused that drastic of a algae bloom.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

Keeping SPS is pretty simple. Don’t do too much. Vodka dosing, biopellets, scrubbing bubbles, GFO, carbon, tear drops into the tank, sunflower seed oil, steroids, you name it. You can literally just go to YouTube. And type, Jason Fox’s tank tour, wwc/brs method, Sanjay’s tank tour. See what all of them are doing the same. Tanks may be different but the formula is always the same.

Light. -250-300 par. ( if you have a t5 fixture do majority blue+ and whatever other bulbs you like. For radions, set them at AB+ and never touch those things. Never) (not really that important in keeping sps)

Flow- Add more flow into your tank. Then add some more flow into your tank. Once that is complete add more flow in the back of the tank. (Very very important in keeping sps) P.S ditch your sand if you can.

Water - make sure no TDS in your DI water. (That’s really pretty much it) (use instant ocean salt, it’s all you need and always stable) (if you’re dosing two-part you will probably need to do waterchanges)

CA/Alk - get them dialed at whatever level 7-9 and 400-450 (don’t touch it)

Refugium - this is pretty essential, you need a nice red blue led to grow chaeto to compete with the algae in the tank.( this is pretty important part.)

Tangs- super important, you need at least a few herbivores to keep all the algae trimmed( snails urchins etc)

Food - stop feeding pellets and use live food ( I use PE mysis, don’t rinse them)
This will require some time to dial in, you don’t want to feed too much where your po4 is out of control and you don’t want to feed to little or your Corals will die.
Just like your coral skeleton needs the calcium and alkalinity, the coral tissue needs food to grow. (Forget micro elements) ( if Food alone is able to sustain your fish, it should be more than enough to keep your Corals healthy)

Besides the basics like temperature stability , skimmer maintenance and cleaning the glass that is literally it. If you’re doing anything else it’s probably too much.
Take out all of the extra things and try to resist adding any unnecessary equipment.

In short, yes, keep at it. :)

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

FTS

I am facing a choice between either leaving the hobby or starting fresh (livestock or new tank), and wanted to hear people's advice/experience based on what they did.


Background:
So I started my venture into reef tanks because I was really into pictures I've seen of acropora and other "sticks" 2 years+ ago. I started with a REEFER 350, and am currently running a Nyos Quantum 160 skimmer, 2 mp 10s and a mp 40, and a mix of 4 ATI T5's and 2 Radion XR 15s. I started with about 80lbs of LR and have added bacteria medium in the sump, and I'm vodka dosing as a main source of nutrient control besides weekly water changes, with nutrients around 2ppm nitrate, and sub 0.1 phosphate. Using hanna and red sea kits to test. Apex monitors things and controls T5s, temperature, etc.

But as you can see in my photo, I have no SPS. I had decent success over the October~December period and kept quite a few frags alive and healthy but when I came home from a 2 week trip, I actually lost all of them to dino + turf algae taking over the frag rack. Unsure what happened because parameters were mostly the same as before the trip besides slight alk increase due to loss of frags using alkalinity. Since then I actually lost most stony corals like the decently sized hammer coral I've had since the beginning of the tank. I decided to test out the waters to see if I had fixed the issue by adding a birds nest and it died in about 2 days, so I'm really doing something wrong here.

The main part:
So yeah, at a point of feeling unmotivated and was wondering if others had chosen to remain in the hobby and things worked out for them for the better, or if not, what happened? Did you make drastic change? What did you change?

Personally, I'd like to go hard into SPS again if I do try, but I'm not sure what I should let go or bring with me, and if I should maybe try down sizing for better control and costs vs sizing up for more stability.

You have it easy with most SPS there's detail information on most of those corals. There's info on the corals I'm keeping just not detailed and precise, so since returning started 10/2017 , it's been trail and error . I buy wholesale so that means minimum one box of my corals till they perish and do again. Again with the coral bans getting hard for me to get. Point is I have a graveyard of live rock every one of those corals that perish was on one rock. But I keep trying till we successed. The cultured pearl took the inventor 20 years before he had his eureka moment. And there's many more examples. You have it easy

 

[dnjstlr]

Keeping SPS is pretty simple. Don’t do too much. Vodka dosing, biopellets, scrubbing bubbles, GFO, carbon, tear drops into the tank, sunflower seed oil, steroids, you name it. You can literally just go to YouTube. And type, Jason Fox’s tank tour, wwc/brs method, Sanjay’s tank tour. See what all of them are doing the same. Tanks may be different but the formula is always the same.

Light. -250-300 par. ( if you have a t5 fixture do majority blue+ and whatever other bulbs you like. For radions, set them at AB+ and never touch those things. Never) (not really that important in keeping sps)

Flow- Add more flow into your tank. Then add some more flow into your tank. Once that is complete add more flow in the back of the tank. (Very very important in keeping sps) P.S ditch your sand if you can.

Water - make sure no TDS in your DI water. (That’s really pretty much it) (use instant ocean salt, it’s all you need and always stable) (if you’re dosing two-part you will probably need to do waterchanges)

CA/Alk - get them dialed at whatever level 7-9 and 400-450 (don’t touch it)

Refugium - this is pretty essential, you need a nice red blue led to grow chaeto to compete with the algae in the tank.( this is pretty important part.)

Tangs- super important, you need at least a few herbivores to keep all the algae trimmed( snails urchins etc)

Food - stop feeding pellets and use live food ( I use PE mysis, don’t rinse them)
This will require some time to dial in, you don’t want to feed too much where your po4 is out of control and you don’t want to feed to little or your Corals will die.
Just like your coral skeleton needs the calcium and alkalinity, the coral tissue needs food to grow. (Forget micro elements) ( if Food alone is able to sustain your fish, it should be more than enough to keep your Corals healthy)

Besides the basics like temperature stability , skimmer maintenance and cleaning the glass that is literally it. If you’re doing anything else it’s probably too much.
Take out all of the extra things and try to resist adding any unnecessary equipment.

In short, yes, keep at it. :)

The thing about refugium is that my sump is really small so I can't do it in this tank. I tried converting my ato reservoir into one but it's not enough water volume for it to contribute enough. I'm definitely hoping to get one if I expand to a larger aquarium though. Is there a reason you say move away from carbon dosing? It's simple and consistent, so curious as to why you say that