Misinformation in the Reefing Hobby

[elysics]

or better yet how their "controller " saved thier tank.. sorry if you set your tank up so if one controller fails your whole system could crash.. then its only preventing it daily till it eventually fails.

Eh, everyone's system could crash pretty much at any time for a whole bunch of reasons. These are unstable unnatural systems that tend towards death and are on constant life support.

The only question is how many of those eventualities you've got covered.

Preventing failures daily until the day you don't is how this works, no tank will live forever. A controller just might give you a couple second chances. And a controller is still cheaper than hiring an expert tank sitter 24/7

 

[pbjorlin]

Chasing numbers, just find what you’re able to maintain and match that with your salt you mix. Otherwise you’re having a swing every time that you do a water change. So keep it simple and repeat.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

Eh, everyone's system could crash pretty much at any time for a whole bunch of reasons. These are unstable unnatural systems that tend towards death and are on constant life support.

The only question is how many of those eventualities you've got covered.

Preventing failures daily until the day you don't is how this works, no tank will live forever. A controller just might give you a couple second chances. And a controller is still cheaper than hiring an expert tank sitter 24/7

Been reefing since the 80s , grew thousands of frags in the 90s professionally , have many mother colonies that are 20-30 years old.. never had an apex lol. I think the tech confuses many newbies and chase numbers to thier detriment, its obvious in many threads on her. Especially see tons of threads all the time where they first dont think to calibrate or use a second ph meter etc., ya buddy its more likely your ph meter is off than your ph being 6.8 etc... i bet most people buy an apex then hook up $$ worth of attachements to do less than they could if they spent their money on real gear like par meter , uv , ozone .. same price as an apex or hydros with attachments.. great you now know what your ph was forever,, yet whats that really doing for all the money? if spent on actual equipment yet they would actually have the benefits of ozone , par meter, uv.. the things we dont see being promoted like the single small fixture $900 lights and the $400-2000 computers are way better for your tank and make it easier to keep long term..... properly sized sumps, ato , etc all come into play and eliminate whatever saves an all in one controller can solve.. better to spead the load across many piers, than to rely on one.

 

[elysics]

Been reefing since the 80s , grew thousands of frags in the 90s professionally , have many mother colonies that are 20-30 years old.. never had an apex lol. I think the tech confuses many newbies and chase numbers to thier detriment, its obvious in many threads on her. Especially see tons of threads all the time where they first dont think to calibrate or use a second ph meter etc., ya buddy its more likely your ph meter is off than your ph being 6.8 etc... i bet most people buy an apex then hook up $$ worth of attachements to do less than they could if they spent their money on real gear like par meter , uv , ozone .. same price as an apex or hydros with attachments.. great you now know what your ph was forever,, yet whats that really doing for all the money? if spent on actual equipment yet they would actually have the benefits of ozone , par meter, uv.. the things we dont see being promoted like the single small fixture $900 lights and the $400-2000 computers are way better for your tank and make it easier to keep long term..... properly sized sumps, ato , etc all come into play and eliminate whatever saves an all in one controller can solve.. better to spead the load across many piers, than to rely on one.

Professionally is a different matter entirely. I bet you didn't leave your professional grow tanks for a couple weeks and had some random family member check in every few days.

But that's the reality for many people.

Shutting off failed heaters and annoying you with temperature, wet floor, power outage etc alarms is the main job of a controller. Having employees do that job instead is more expensive. You never had an inkbird or other standalone temperature controller either? Living on the edge.

These features are mostly what people are talking about

 

[areefer01]

Been reefing since the 80s , grew thousands of frags in the 90s professionally , have many mother colonies that are 20-30 years old.. never had an apex lol. I think the tech confuses many newbies and chase numbers to thier detriment, its obvious in many threads on her. Especially see tons of threads all the time where they first dont think to calibrate or use a second ph meter etc., ya buddy its more likely your ph meter is off than your ph being 6.8 etc... i bet most people buy an apex then hook up $$ worth of attachements to do less than they could if they spent their money on real gear like par meter , uv , ozone .. same price as an apex or hydros with attachments.. great you now know what your ph was forever,, yet whats that really doing for all the money? if spent on actual equipment yet they would actually have the benefits of ozone , par meter, uv.. the things we dont see being promoted like the single small fixture $900 lights and the $400-2000 computers are way better for your tank and make it easier to keep long term..... properly sized sumps, ato , etc all come into play and eliminate whatever saves an all in one controller can solve.. better to spead the load across many piers, than to rely on one.

So real gear is uv, ozone, par meters, and... ?

Fits in with the thread title for sure.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

A few I have noticed:

-Hanna checkers are superior to color charts like Salifert. I can run my Hanna 5 times in a row on the same sample and get 5 different numbers, outside of their official margin of error.

-“Natural” remedies are preferable to “artificial” ones. An aquarium is an artificial environment. The best remedy is the one that works for your system, and for you.

Agree with both. Never thought of the second though, but that’s very true

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

Chasing numbers, just find what you’re able to maintain and match that with your salt you mix. Otherwise you’re having a swing every time that you do a water change. So keep it simple and repeat.

Especially with like keeping your parameters ultra locked down. People get scared of their Alk going more than .5 away from what it should be which is a little much. I only have issues whenever it’s a sudden drop in like 1.5-2 for Alk and calcium it’s like 50 ppm lol. They create this fear so you spend money on their monitoring system that cost a ton and stress out about 2 part and what not.

 

[Scorpius]

So real gear is uv, ozone, par meters, and... ?

Fits in with the thread title for sure.

Little do you know, but hey there's a thousand ways to skin a cat so you do you and I'll stick to my UV, Par meter, weekly water changes, and keeping my hands out of my tank.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

Professionally is a different matter entirely. I bet you didn't leave your professional grow tanks for a couple weeks and had some random family member check in every few days.

But that's the reality for many people.

Shutting off failed heaters and annoying you with temperature, wet floor, power outage etc alarms is the main job of a controller. Having employees do that job instead is more expensive. You never had an inkbird or other standalone temperature controller either? Living on the edge.

These features are mostly what people are talking about

i use ranco controllers for heaters and chillers.. and have more than one ranco on each system... i never said i dont use tech i just dont subscribe to it all has to be in one reef controller device.. any all in one will eventually fail. i prefer cole parmer gear for my ph/temp readings and master flex dosing pumps to any aquarium labeled brand. better quality.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

Another thing I forgot to add is that I think used equipment shouldn’t always be frowned upon. If I bought used equipment for my tanks, I would have saved at least $500 on my tank

 

[CoastalTownLayabout]

Been reefing since the 90s and what has worked for me is keep it simple. For me that means let the biology do the heavy lifting. I have a respectable amount of live rock and sand in the display and sump. My filter media is floss and I use activated carbon, both in an area of high flow that I change weekly. I do a 5% - 10% weekly water change with tap water but ours is good.

I keep soft coral, a few LPS and have ornamental macroalgae to take up nutrients given off by my fish. I have no skimmer, no reactors, and no controllers. It's an easy simple system but it is nice and works for me.

I remember your bow front system from nano reef. Beautiful set up, such a natural look.

 

[Rusty_L_Shackleford]

You can get used gear for a song if youre patient. Most of my setup i got used. The only stuff i bought new was an ro/di system (thankyou brs black friday), a heater and heater controller (never trust a used heater),and my ato, and a glass hydrometer. There is some stuff i would never buy used, but a lot i will if it checks out.

 

[taricha]

I’m fighting a tank crash right now because I got lazy with my tank. I think this is ultimately due to overcomplicating things that I hear people say are necessary on YouTube, on these forums, or online.

Overcomplications often come when there are a dozen different approaches that can all be successful but none are 100% guarantees. (Think: ways to get rid of GHA) So you have bunches of people saying that you need to do this one thing - all of which are different. Then you have others that combine and blend, and say you need to do multiple or all of those things.
Somebody looks up how to get rid of GHA, reads all those methods and combinations, and concludes that there's a 12 step combo you have to get just right to unlock the secret to get rid of green hair algae.

Suddenly things look depressingly complicated.

 

[beesnreefs]

Overcomplications often come when there are a dozen different approaches that can all be successful but none are 100% guarantees. (Think: ways to get rid of GHA) So you have bunches of people saying that you need to do this one thing - all of which are different. Then you have others that combine and blend, and say you need to do multiple or all of those things.
Somebody looks up how to get rid of GHA, reads all those methods and combinations, and concludes that there's a 12 step combo you have to get just right to unlock the secret to get rid of green hair algae.

Suddenly things look depressingly complicated.

I’m feeling this bolded statement HARD right now. And for precisely the reason @taricha described…..GHA

 

[areefer01]

Little do you know, but hey there's a thousand ways to skin a cat so you do you and I'll stick to my UV, Par meter, weekly water changes, and keeping my hands out of my tank.

You missed the point. There was no discussion in my reply about water changes or leaving ones mittens out of the display. It was strictly addressing the comment of what they said is real gear (uv, ozone, par meters, and...).

You and I do agree with a thousand ways to run a system and keeping our mittens out of the display. We don't with regards to what "real gear" is. Tools may be a better choice of words and hobbyist will pick what works best for them. Onus is always on the hobbyist.

 

[Dan_P]

What are some things you consider to be misinformation in this hobby?

I’m fighting a tank crash right now because I got lazy with my tank. I think this is ultimately due to overcomplicating things that I hear people say are necessary on YouTube, on these forums, or online.

Sorry about the crash!

While we in the hobby like to say “every tank is different”, I suggest we take that one level deeper in a cause-and-effect analysis and say “every aquarist is different”. Some folks follow the rules, some follow trends, while others have fun making it up as they go along and maybe most do it all. The aquarist is the prime mover of events in an aquarium, not anyone else. And the quality of information the aquarist uses determines how aquarium management decisions are made.

This seems off topic from “what is misinformation” but we are more vulnerable to accepting misinformation as true the less we know about the subject and the less we question whether that information could be true. Skepticism is a valuable skill to develop before. We can’t catalogue misinformation or get rid of misinformation, but we can become more critical about the things we accept and believe.

 

[unchaotic]

Since we are all here talking about misinformation in the reefing hobby shouldn't coral names be at the top of the list?

Bubblebath unicorn
Pearlberry
Holy grail

List goes on, and on.

I don't know if that qualifies as misinformation. My Red Dragon coral is red and warms my tank by breathing fire.

 

[Crustaceon]

Completely agree with #2 IME. Especially those heaters.

And even simple setups like that look amazing. I was chasing a setup I didn’t want for the longest time. Now I’m letting the corals I don’t like die in this tank die off (while that does sound bad, I am doing something about it) and keeping the softies I love.

interesting, going to read up on it. There’s a very narrow view of success in this hobby and a lot of information out there that only applies to a group of people who want and can be dedicated to that way or success.

yes, and the latter is what I ultimately meant. I advice could be good or bad for your tank. My point is just when companies, people, or websites claim or make an implication that there’s a universal way and if you do it differently then it’s not right.

And even simple setups like that look amazing. I was chasing a setup I didn’t want for the longest time. Now I’m letting the corals I don’t like die in this tank die off (while that does sound bad, I am doing something about it) and keeping the softies I love.

This makes me want to post a full review of my current system because that was my goal going in after running super labor-intensive, super $$$ systems. Everywhere you look at my system, it screams "wow, this is a cheap tank, it must look terrible" right until the moment you actually see the display. I've personally serviced $50k tanks in La Jolla ($$$ San Diego) that looked like barren wastelands blasted sterile by Radions and days away from catastrophic failure because "this and that" were constantly being added to the tank by an overly fussy owner. It's amazing what can be accomplished with equipment most new reefers would poo-poo because BRS is selling something supposedly miles better than what works fine and simply letting things be good enough. "It's good enough"... that should be the true motto for success in this hobby. In reality, it comes down to knowledge, experience a maintenance schedule that you can reliably stick to and picking equipment that's actually needed and not just desired for the tank.

 

[Crustaceon]

Chasing numbers, just find what you’re able to maintain and match that with your salt you mix. Otherwise you’re having a swing every time that you do a water change. So keep it simple and repeat.

100%. What most don't realize is, our critters don't require an exact number to thrive. They live within a range. It's when we try to "optimize" things that we start running into instability issues, which leads to livestock death and nuisance algae/dinos/etc. For anyone who thinks you NEED to keep alk at 9 dkh, keep in mind, the ocean where your critters come from is only 7dkh. I'd take a stable 7 dkh which is EASY to achieve over a constantly fluctuating 9 dkh.

 

[unchaotic]

"It's good enough"... that should be the true motto for success in this hobby.

This is killing me right now. I've got an old Ocean Revive light above my office tank with a new Hydra 32HD sitting in the cabinet below. I want to switch, I think it might look better after I do and the corals MIGHT do better with the new light ... but everything seems to be doing well so I'm dragging my feet on it.