Ready to give up :(

[JadeM]

since the upgrade from my established 4 foot reef to the 6 foot things haven't gotten any better, 2 fish commit by jumping out from the gap in the lid thats 2 inch by 2 inch.. :( zooanthids going each night (caught a large bobbit worm in the 4 foot) fish dying without a trace. etc. thinking about going nano but transfer the 6 foot into a FOWLR. any thoughts and experience to keep on going would be great thanks :)

 

[Wiz]

Its always rough. I just upgraded and started all kinds of trouble. Gonna be some work but the endgame is where its at! A fowler won't make you happy. Once you've had coral..... this is the best place in the world to work out the trouble. Fish jumping is an easy fix. Disappearing could be a bobbit or other pred. If so send it to me. Especially the bobbit! ;-) but a decent clean up crew will also make a dead fish disappear overnight. Take a step back and breathe. One issue at a time I'm sure everyone here including me is dying to share experience and help. Just start askin. In the mean time, check out some mature tanks and remember what can be! I'm so glad I never gave up.
Took a long time and 2 full tank crashs not to mention smaller issues. But I'm pretty good now. And you can be too. Dont leave us! ;-)

 

[Robink]

I'm in the process of doing the same thing. Don't give up. Remember, it's like starting over. Whole new tank. I would maybe take it slower and take all the precautions necessary to make sure everyone survives, i.e. QT everybody...:).
Stuff happens all the time. Fish jump out, corals die, very disheartening. I've had the same things happen.
I would start with parameters and just try and keep them as stable as possible till the tank matures. How long has it been set up?
I'm also transferring from a 4 foot to a 5 foot. Slow process.

 

[JadeM]

Its always rough. I just upgraded and started all kinds of trouble. Gonna be some work but the endgame is where its at! A fowler won't make you happy. Once you've had coral..... this is the best place in the world to work out the trouble. Fish jumping is an easy fix. Disappearing could be a bobbit or other pred. If so send it to me. Especially the bobbit! ;-) but a decent clean up crew will also make a dead fish disappear overnight. Take a step back and breathe. One issue at a time I'm sure everyone here including me is dying to share experience and help. Just start askin. In the mean time, check out some mature tanks and remember what can be! I'm so glad I never gave up.
Took a long time and 2 full tank crashs not to mention smaller issues. But I'm pretty good now. And you can be too. Dont leave us! ;-)

thanks, inspiration and that always helps, tha'ts why i wanted the nano hahaha i still want coral but hate doing the massive water changes as i use natural sea water from the coast. that boobit worm got the fresh water and freezer after whta he did! and that was months ago too haha he is long gone... beautiful tank love the aquascape too. thanks

 

[Wiz]

Thankyou. Mmy opinion, nano shmanno. You just upgraded to 6 foot and now you're going to try to drop to a nano? I don't think you'll be happy.
Poor bobbit:-( but I get it.
I was not doing water changes at all and it took more than a year to affect my tank. Now I have settled on one 50% water change every 6 months. But that's my tank. Each tank is different. My point is that there are ways around everything. Don't let it beat u

 

[JadeM]

I'm in the process of doing the same thing. Don't give up. Remember, it's like starting over. Whole new tank. I would maybe take it slower and take all the precautions necessary to make sure everyone survives, i.e. QT everybody...:).
Stuff happens all the time. Fish jump out, corals die, very disheartening. I've had the same things happen.
I would start with parameters and just try and keep them as stable as possible till the tank matures. How long has it been set up?
I'm also transferring from a 4 foot to a 5 foot. Slow process.

yep all fish in QT currently and cleaning media renewing carbon and doing water changes just making sure even salinity are fine. my old 4 foot was about three years old but sand and rock from 4 foot refugium must have been 4 years old - converted old FOLWR into refugium which was connected to the 4 foot reef above. the current 6 foot has the rock- QT from the 4 foot, sand was QT along with new sand, the tank had natural sea water and was set up march this year but established with algae and microscopic little plankton things swimming around on glass and in refugium. Hahah i forgot the name of them, thanks :)

 

[JadeM]

Thankyou. Mmy opinion, nano shmanno. You just upgraded to 6 foot and now you're going to try to drop to a nano? I don't think you'll be happy.
Poor bobbit:-( but I get it.
I was not doing water changes at all and it took more than a year to affect my tank. Now I have settled on one 50% water change every 6 months. But that's my tank. Each tank is different. My point is that there are ways around everything. Don't let it beat u

yep, same its been 6/7 months since a water change, half of the reason is due to the effort and struggle to collect sea water and collect enough to make an effect on nitrates etc. parameters are perfect ph in perfect range, nitrates basically 0 and so on i cant believe how it hasn't change even with a zebra moray eel and greedy wrasse ahaha

 

[MamaLovesHerReefTank]

@JadeM don't give up. Take a deep breath and slow everything down to a crawl. I'm still relatively new to this and I'm learning so much just from asking questions and seeing what everyone else is asking.
We had a 55g that seemed to get too small too fast. We made the jump to a 125g and our tank crashed twice due to velvet. Learned a lot of expensive lessons. We were very close to giving up.
I wasn't a member on R2R yet but I was always searching the forums. The one piece of advice I kept seeing was to "slow down, nothing good ever happens fast in this hobby". I took this advice. Took our time to get our tank stable, quarantined everything before putting it in our dt. I have just recently started adding a few corals here and there (still learning about corals). I could never go back to a smaller tank after this one. I sit and stare at it all the time.
This is my tank, right, left and middle. Hard to get a fts with my phone.

 

[JadeM]

@JadeM don't give up. Take a deep breath and slow everything down to a crawl. I'm still relatively new to this and I'm learning so much just from asking questions and seeing what everyone else is asking.
We had a 55g that seemed to get too small too fast. We made the jump to a 125g and our tank crashed twice due to velvet. Learned a lot of expensive lessons. We were very close to giving up.
I wasn't a member on R2R yet but I was always searching the forums. The one piece of advice I kept seeing was to "slow down, nothing good ever happens fast in this hobby". I took this advice. Took our time to get our tank stable, quarantined everything before putting it in our dt. I have just recently started adding a few corals here and there (still learning about corals). I could never go back to a smaller tank after this one. I sit and stare at it all the time.
This is my tank, right, left and middle. Hard to get a fts with my phone.

yeah QT fish due to a couple of fish with white spot, annoying disease goes... comes back.....repeat ugghhh. i'm ready to tackle it and have a happy established tank :) its always disheartening when you see a fish on the floor next to the tank from a gap the size of a thumb or corals going missing but all this advice has made me think twice... thanks :)

 

[Wiz]

My 30g dsb macro fuge keeps nitrates and phos to low to show on my tests. The only reason i just started to do water changes every six months is im 90% sure a chemical deficiency started to kill all my montis. It was weird. I have acros and all types of other coral. But only my 8+ types of monti all started dying at once. The thing that stopped it was a 50% water change. Lost 2 types and only had small pieces of the rest. Beautiful colonies. All decimated so fast. :-( anyway, they are recovering now :-). I also noticed my btas are now belling up again. :-D so one change every six months. Took about 18 months for the problem to start. So i think thats good.

Just one of the crazy trials of this hobby. Setosa in top left completly gone. And my gorgeous cap colonies! :'(

yep, same its been 6/7 months since a water change, half of the reason is due to the effort and struggle to collect sea water and collect enough to make an effect on nitrates etc. parameters are perfect ph in perfect range, nitrates basically 0 and so on i cant believe how it hasn't change even with a zebra moray eel and greedy wrasse ahaha

 

[JadeM]

My 30g dsb macro fuge keeps nitrates and phos to low to show on my tests. The only reason i just started to do water changes every six months is im 90% sure a chemical deficiency started to kill all my montis. It was weird. I have acros and all types of other coral. But only my 8+ types of monti all started dying at once. The thing that stopped it was a 50% water change. Lost 2 types and only had small pieces of the rest. Beautiful colonies. All decimated so fast. :-( anyway, they are recovering now :). I also noticed my btas are now belling up again. :-D so one change every six months. Took about 18 months for the problem to start. So i think thats good.

Just one of the crazy trials of this hobby. Setosa in top left completly gone. And my gorgeous cap colonies! :'(

oh no!, i hope the small pieces grow big! Mmm i know how you feel i had a star polyp colony about a hand size and a half..... bobbit worm wants to buy the property and decides to dig a hole right through the middle and eat everything around each night!! all gone now but in the end i killed the darn thing... thanks for the info! :)

 

[Wiz]

Look foward to seeing future pics of your six foot reef! ;-)

 

[JadeM]

Look foward to seeing future pics of your six foot reef! ;-)

mmmm needs some aquascaping yet and a wait till fish are out of QT as soon as i get on top of it i'll be spamming hahahah, i can't wait

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

You got this @JadeM, and we've all got your back, so don't give up!

 

[hybridazn]

Transferring to a new tank always has its issues. Just ride it out and this time next year it'll be like nothing happened. :)

 

[JadeM]

Transferring to a new tank always has its issues. Just ride it out and this time next year it'll be like nothing happened. :)

thanks, things went alright this morning good news that i managed to catch most fish except the zebra moray eel, moon wrasse and sarget major damsel, bad news.... my baby 1 inch niger trigger passed this morning- he was in QT one more day than the rest but failed to eat :( its a surprise seeming he has eaten before in QT like a boss....

You got this @JadeM, and we've all got your back, so don't give up!

thanks! :) great to know that

 

[JadeM]

Display tank now with perfect parameters, fish without visible disease going back, worried as well as some fish are not eating, fish with more symptoms will still be in QT untill clear.... hope this works fingers crossed

 

[germs101]

I've been feeling the same way. 3 years ago I went from a 50 gallon and bought a 265 gallon. I've still not got this thing down. I now have qt tanks everywhere trying to dodge velvet again ( dealing with it now). I've been fallow twice this year! What keeps me going is finally get active on R2R and seeing the potential my tank does have. This hobby can really be a downer at times for sure, but I love it.

 

[Cory]

There is something wrong with your water chemistry. Its not bad luck. Give a run down of all your parameters. Test new.

 

[germs101]

Oh, things are looking better now A lot of it was tweaking equipment and aquascaping woes. Lighting wasn't enough, then I upgraded and killed some corals. The first fallow was my first encounter with Velvet, and my second was precautionary after I bit the bullet and bought nice live rock. Now I'm battling velvet but in qt this time. It's still depressing, but not nearly as much as tearing a tank apart to catch fish, then seeing them die one after the other, and then fishless for months. It just seems to be a long story of one thing after the other. I guess that's true with life