Mistakes

[SaltyReefer7/17/2024]

Out of curiosity what is the biggest mistake you've made on your saltwater/reefing journey???

I've made every rookie mistake in the book... got handed an aquarium a year ish ago knew nothing about it. Little 32 flouval AIO for freshwater loaded with a gobey royal gramma and a coral beauty.... did my water changes with my well tap water... not knowing a dang think.. just a really hard crash course. Eventually started corals and had no idea about lighting flow or anything.. upgraded to a 55 once I did a little research and once everything was going smoother and was buying RO water and doing regular changes with that had better lights and flow I felt I was getting the hang of it.. fast forward to 4ish months ago. Went and broke down a 220 from an hour away loaded with fish and zoas and 10 anenomes... got home all set up new RO system all set.. going good. Got a dragonet from someone on Facebook... boom ICH... never practiced quarantine until now... now all I can do is ich management.. but I learned... everything the hard way... but now I know..

 

[paragrouper]

Out of curiosity what is the biggest mistake you've made on your saltwater/reefing journey???

I've made every rookie mistake in the book... got handed an aquarium a year ish ago knew nothing about it. Little 32 flouval AIO for freshwater loaded with a gobey royal gramma and a coral beauty.... did my water changes with my well tap water... not knowing a dang think.. just a really hard crash course. Eventually started corals and had no idea about lighting flow or anything.. upgraded to a 55 once I did a little research and once everything was going smoother and was buying RO water and doing regular changes with that had better lights and flow I felt I was getting the hang of it.. fast forward to 4ish months ago. Went and broke down a 220 from an hour away loaded with fish and zoas and 10 anenomes... got home all set up new RO system all set.. going good. Got a dragonet from someone on Facebook... boom ICH... never practiced quarantine until now... now all I can do is ich management.. but I learned... everything the hard way... but now I know..

I just went through a major effort redoing my entire tank Fluval 32, because I didn’t consider where I placed corals with respect to other corals. I ended up with fights all over the place. The Goni pictured below was particularly vicious and expanded to 6” tentacles.

 

[Tahoe61]

Too many changes aka interventions at one time to resolve a possible issue. Don't start changing lighting, flow and chemistry all at once. Don't change routine for one coral if all other corals are doing well.

A fish shipped may look close to death, acclimate them slowly, they may surprise you.