Summary of my worst failures

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Everyone has issues with their reefing efforts that they consider significant failures, and these are the ones that I consider worse than the usual loss of an organism...

1. For many years, I tried to steer the reefing community away from the utterly ridiculous unit of measure dKH for alkalinity. No scientist uses dKH. Almost no reefers can even tell you what it means. It's just a black box number to nearly everyone. But the continued lack of change by most of the hobby kit manufacturers to more reasonable units of measure (e.g., meq/L) defeated me, and I've largely given up.

2. For many years, I tried to steer the english speaking reefing community away from using german words for things that have perfectly good english words. Limewater (kalkwasser in german) is the prime example. Still trying, but failing.

3. I never had long term success with open brain (Trachyphyllia) corals. Not sure why.

4. I tried several times to try to maintain a large school of green chromis. They were nearly always described as easy fish. Always lost them one by one until only one or two were left. Now I far more often read that keeping such schools is actually fairly difficult, and I'm a bit relieved.

5. I lost the battle with vermetid tube worms. They were a significant reason for ultimately taking my tank down. Sounds like there are fish that might have done the trick, but I never tried them.

There are probably more that I'm just blocking out as a bad memory, but these are the ones that come to mind.

Perhaps others can follow up with what they consider their worst failures...

 

[wisnia99]

My failure was not to read enough valuable info and jumping it and buying "new expensive gear" that will solve my problem and make things easy

 

[Dom]

Everyone has issues with their reefing efforts that they consider significant failures, and these are the ones that I consider worse than the usual loss of an organism...

1. For many years, I tried to steer the reefing community away from the utterly ridiculous unit of measure dKH for alkalinity. No scientist uses dKH. Almost no reefers can even tell you what it means. It's just a black box number to nearly everyone. But the continued lack of change by most of the hobby kit manufacturers to more reasonable units of measure (e.g., meq/L) defeated me, and I've largely given up.

2. For many years, I tried to steer the english speaking reefing community away from using german words for things that have perfectly good english words. Limewater (kalkwasser in german) is the prime example. Still trying, but failing.

3. I never had long term success with open brain (Trachyphyllia) corals. Not sure why.

4. I tried several times to try to maintain a large school of green chromis. They were nearly always described as easy fish. Always lost them one by one until only one or two were left. Now I far more often read that keeping such schools is actually fairly difficult, and I'm a bit relieved.

5. I lost the battle with vermetid tube worms. They were a significant reason for ultimately taking my tank down. Sounds like there are fish that might have done the trick, but I never tried them.

There are probably more that I'm just blocking out as a bad memory, but these are the ones that come to mind.

Perhaps others can follow up with what they consider their worst failures...

1. I think you may have been unsuccessful to make this happen because the testing is geared toward hobbyists and not the professional scientist.
2. Nice idea, but, I find that people can be resistant to change.
3. This makes me nervous; I just added a frag of this to my tank about 6 weeks ago, its robust and with good color. But if you didn't have success, what are my chances?
4. I thought about adding a "schooling fish" to my tank, but it was always the same feedback; they kill each other off until only 1 or 2 are left.
5. Fighting that battle now. Didn't worry about it at first, but now they are becoming a problem. I'm off to buy some butterfly snails...

My biggest failure was when I tried to deploy 2-part dosing. Everything went sideways; not even a 50% water change got me back on track. Ended up tearing down the whole thing and starting over.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Like wisnia99, I rushed in too fast. And I also did the common thing that so many reefers do, I went for bigger and bigger tanks and then even to more and more tanks. I had a massive chiller failure (I'm in SW Florida, so a chillers were common before newer equipment started to run cooler). A 120g tank full of well grown sp and lps corals dies over night when the temp went below 60 degrees.

So I started downsizing. Now I have a 40g aio cube full of sps & lap corals with no fish. It's been so easy to care for.

And I'd just like to express my best wishes and thanks to Randy for the advice he gives. I've been using Dow Flake (Ca), swimming pool soda ash (alk) for years and years. It's saved me a ton of money!

 

[Spartan76]

Randy, I have been in the hobby since 1995, and your posts have helped me directly (along with countless others). Take heart in your successes and keep up the great work.

 

[Manpeckz]

Fighting that battle now. Didn't worry about it at first, but now they are becoming a problem. I'm off to buy some butterfly snails...

Bumblebee snails! I just recently put 4 in my 20L from ReefCleaners because it pretty much became a vermetid tank. I had one that was possibly a 3/16” tube. YUGE. At that point I had already cut 20-30 tubes about 1/32” off with a razor blade. They are some kind of pest in the right conditions.

 

[Dom]

Bumblebee snails! I just recently put 4 in my 20L from ReefCleaners because it pretty much became a vermetid tank. I had one that was possibly a 3/16” tube. YUGE. At that point I had already cut 20-30 tubes about 1/32” off with a razor blade. They are some kind of pest in the right conditions.

Right... bumblebee!

Isn't there a butterfly fish that eats them?

 

[jda]

1. Currently failing to convince people that terms matter. Bind/unbind vs soak up/leech. Melt vs dissolve. Phosphate vs Phosphorous. Nitrate vs Nitrogen.
2. That getting a frag to grow a bit is a different animal than keeping a colony.
3. That light beyond what human eyes can see is beneficial for most of the rest of life on earth.
4. New things are not always upgrades.
5. The more that you automate, the less chance of success that you have. Humans and tank contact > automation. I am speaking beyond basic dosing which is very reliable. I learned this the hard way and try and warn others.
6. Chromis and anthias always waste away for me too. No idea why since I feed a lot and they all eat.
7. Currently that ocean level parameters were not called Ultra Low when ULNS actually was a thing. This definition has shifted now from natural to Ultra Low. Failing. This changes the inferences, meaning and suggestions of older posts and articles.

 

[rennjidk]

1. For many years, I tried to steer the reefing community away from the utterly ridiculous unit of measure dKH for alkalinity. No scientist uses dKH. Almost no reefers can even tell you what it means. It's just a black box number to nearly everyone. But the continued lack of change by most of the hobby kit manufacturers to more reasonable units of measure (e.g., meq/L) defeated me, and I've largely given up.

I think this is an absolutely fabulous idea, as long as we can use mÄq/L instead, which is just the German abbreviation of milliequivalent per liter.

 

[jda]

I have also failed to get the truly excellent hobbyists to engage again to help others. This is my largest failure in my mind. I know a lot of them and they are so smart and experienced and happy to chat, text or email, but they cannot tolerate the stupidity from noobies full of bravado hidden behind computer screens enough to help.

 

[Manpeckz]

Right... bumblebee!

Isn't there a butterfly fish that eats them?

Darn Tootin’!

Copperband? Confirmation from a real reefer is needed lol

 

[Dom]

The more that you automate, the less chance of success that you have. Humans and tank contact > automation. I am speaking beyond basic dosing which is very reliable. I learned this the hard way and try and warn others

I agree completely with this statement.

While there is a place for automation (travel), I feel that automation in general creates a disconnect between the tank and the reefer.

For many people who use automation, they feel they can walk away from their tank. Then they come back a week later and find that their dosing system dumped a gallon of calcium supplement into the tank. This usually leads to a new thread tagged as an emergency.

 

[Dom]

Darn Tootin’!

Copperband? Confirmation from a real reefer is needed lol

Yep... that's the one.

 

[Reefer Matt]

My worst failure was letting a setback make me doubt myself. The truth is, bad things are going to happen to everyone. No matter how many years you have in, you will lose livestock, equipment, and money! Lol. The important thing to remember is to learn from those setbacks and apply them.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think this is an absolutely fabulous idea, as long as we can use mÄq/L instead, which is just the German abbreviation of milliequivalent per liter.

lol

I don't like those double dot things. i never know what to do with them lol

 

[jda]

I was just staring at my keyboard looking for a capital A with the umlaut over it. Ummm...

On my Mac, it is option+u and then the vowel. I had to look it up. Ä ä

 

[jimk60]

I would say my first biggest failure was actually an accepted practice when I started in the 80's. That was the down flow under gravel filter powered by two air stones. I could never keep it clean and it turned into a terrible mess. That's why I'm BB to this day. Second failure was thinking colonial hydroids were cute when I first saw them. What harm can the cause? Plenty I found out the hard way!

 

[Troylee]

I was just staring at my keyboard looking for a capital A with the umlaut over it. Ummm...

On my Mac, it is option+u and then the vowel. I had to look it up. Ä ä

Ä. Just hold down the letter A on a iPhone they all pop up.

 

[Troylee]

Biggest failure hmmmm… great question… I’m not sure what my biggest failure was.. I remember chasing down my sps tank years ago after a crash and watching my sticks just melt in front of me! I never figured it out, till one day I went to clean my mixing containers and found my kids threw some change in one of them! Guess they were making a wish! Haha! That was the cause I believe till this day… we didn’t have icp or anything back then. I have had plenty of failures like kalk top off over dose and little things like that but nothing catastrophic that I can remember.

 

[Pod_01]

That getting a frag to grow a bit is a different animal than keeping a colony.

I would love to know the secret???

I can get them SPS frags to nice size and wham they wither away…. Rinse and repeat…