Summary of my worst failures

[IPT]

I can relate to most if not all that has been written. Some good insight and nothing like learning from one's mistakes (your own or others).

The one thing that comes to mind as my "biggest mistake" is over-reacting to things. Get a parameter swing and rapidly trying to correct it. I think the response is sometimes worse than the event.

Along those lines is not accounting for testing errors (and reacting to erroneous information). I've learned to test and re-test. If things read off, but things look healthy, it seems out of line with the normative data, and nothing I know of has changed, I will usually wait before responding.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
I may just be blind or not searching correctly as I figured you would have an article on it.

Why do you prefer meq/l over dKH?

To me a number is a number, doesn't matter whether it's in meq/l or dKH but like you mentioned, most kits provide results in dKH so that's what I've used.

Coming back to expand on this.

1. This is the definition of meq/L: add up the molar concentrations of all ions present that contribute to alkalinity. If any add more than one unit of alkalinity (like carbonate does) multiply that concentration by the number of units of alk added.

2. here's the definition of dKH

from wikipedia:

one dKH corresponds to the carbonate and bicarbonate ions found in a solution of approximately 17.848 milligrams of calcium carbonate(CaCO3) per litre of water (17.848 ppm). Both measurements (mg/L or KH) are usually expressed as mg/L CaCO3 – meaning the concentration of carbonate expressed as if calcium carbonate were the sole source of carbonate ions.

Of course, seawater has more things in it than carbonate that impact alkalinity. Bicarbonate, borate, phosphate, silicate, etc.

Knowing how much borate is present, how do I determine how much alkalinity that is adding? In meq/L, it is easy: the molar concentration. To get that in dKH, I have to go through a number of different calculations, including getting the molar concentration, and then converting that into what it would have been if it were calcium carbonate.

I don't like to pretend that borate is calcium carbonate, and reject this unit as a historic freshwater unit run amok in the world of seawater.

 

[Reeferbadness]

I've only been reefing for 4 years and have 2 x 200g tanks but here's a few blunders in this short tine

1. Added a red legged hermit early in my first tank - Doctor Destructo. He knocked over and alter ate most of my early soft corals) and was an absolute menace.
2. GSP. Uggg, took me a while to eradicate (fenbendazole did the trick). Absolute invasive and very hard to get rid of (until i discovered fenbendazole)
3. Adding RO/DI 5 gallons of water when i was doing a water change (10 g change so not a disaster but still very dumb). I put stickers all over that 5g container to help avoid in the future.
4. Not testing parameters for the first 6 months. Thought that this was a nice to have vs need to have and this really slowed the development of my tank down - could only keep softies and even then many died. Not sure how i missed the memo about dKh/Calcium/Mag levels being so important.

The list of dumb things could go on but these are top of mind.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

This site’s server doesn’t have the bandwidth for me to list all of my failures

 

[SPS2020]

Biggest failure: Not finding the Reef2Reef website sooner!

 

[Hal3134]

Never, ever leave water running, RO or otherwise, when you leave the house or go to sleep. Flooded part of my basement when the RO waste line became detached from the sink drain while I slept through the night.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Never, ever leave water running, RO or otherwise, when you leave the house or go to sleep. Flooded part of my basement when the RO waste line became detached from the sink drain while I slept through the night.

FWIW, I frequently overfilled my RO water storage. lol

 

[Roatan Reef]

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...

What's funny is, as I'm a Freshwater person 1st, still have my 125 fresh...in similar fashion...I always tried to do schools of Monos...Argentus or Sebae.
(Fun fact) Monos can be brackish of full salt, as I have 2 lfs buy me that one sells for reef tanks and the other has them as Freshwater.

I was always told they are a schooling fish, many online articles, and many LFS say same.

Well...I'd start with 5. The 4 would find the weak link and then down to 4, the 3 would find the weak link and then down to 3, the 2 would find the weak link and then down to 2...the 2 left would absolutely terrorize each other until 1 was left. The 1 being bored now would terrorize other fish.

The last one standing that I had left, I eventually gave to my brother in laws 125 African Cichlid tank, and because he has some big daddy cichlids who rule the tank, he's a model citizen.

I've often thought about Chromis for my tank, but your story and others like it make me say...

 

[Js.Aqua.Project]

Coming back to expand on this.

1. This is the definition of meq/L: add up the molar concentrations of all ions present that contribute to alkalinity. If any add more than one unit of alkalinity (like carbonate does) multiply that concentration by the number of units of alk added.

2. here's the definition of dKH

from wikipedia:

one dKH corresponds to the carbonate and bicarbonate ions found in a solution of approximately 17.848 milligrams of calcium carbonate(CaCO3) per litre of water (17.848 ppm). Both measurements (mg/L or KH) are usually expressed as mg/L CaCO3 – meaning the concentration of carbonate expressed as if calcium carbonate were the sole source of carbonate ions.

Of course, seawater has more things in it than carbonate that impact alkalinity. Bicarbonate, borate, phosphate, silicate, etc.

Knowing how much borate is present, how do I determine how much alkalinity that is adding? In meq/L, it is easy: the molar concentration. To get that in dKH, I have to go through a number of different calculations, including getting the molar concentration, and then converting that into what it would have been if it were calcium carbonate.

I don't like to pretend that borate is calcium carbonate, and reject this unit as a historic freshwater unit run amok in the world of seawater.

After reading your article here https://reefs.com/magazine/chemistry-and-the-aquarium-what-is-alkalinity/ I have some more questions.

I understand why meq/L would be a more accurate measuring tool, but other than an ICP test how would I know if my alkalinity is broken down the way mentioned in the article:

Chemical Species	Relative Contribution To Alkalinity
HCO3– (bicarbonate)	89.8
CO3— (carbonate)	6.7
B(OH)4– (borate)	2.9
SiO(OH)3– (silicate)	0.2
MgOH+ (magnesium monohydroxylate)	0.1
OH– (hydroxide)	0.1
HPO4— and PO4— (phosphate)	0.1

I only took basic chemistry in high school in college and I can understand the reaction equations and such. If I wanted to maintain my alkalinity to match the above chart, how would we do that as our tests only measure alkalinity as a whole?

My brain wants fixed numbers, such as we use for Calcium (ppm), Magnesium (ppm), and Iron (ppb) for each one of those. I know that Alk can also be referred to in ppm but that seems the least used of the three that I've seen.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

My biggest failures were:
1) Not quarantining my last additions to my 180 back in 2014. I added 3 wrasses which were supposed to be my final fish...and velvet was introduced to my system. All my fish in that tank died over the next 2 weeks.
2) One night (several years ago) I fell asleep while filling my ato with my RODI system. I woke up to a tank that had dropped to almost no salinity and a flooded apartment floor. All inverts were dead.

Both of those were hard bought lessons on avoiding stupid mistakes.

 

[Curiousbranching]

Biggest failure is listening to them

 

[Captain-Barnacle]

I inhale a bit too much to get a siphon started, and always regret it. Also, playing God and falling short takes a toll.

 

[radiata]

Right... bumblebee!

Isn't there a butterfly fish that eats them?

Butterflies don't have sufficient dentition to break open the stony tubes of vermetids. I asked my AI App about fish that would eat vermetids. The reply was "Some boxfish or filefish species have a taste for tube worms and might eat vermetid snails too. However, these fish can be aggressive and eat corals or other invertebrates in your tank."

I'm heartened by the above suggestion of using a Canary Wrasse (Koty - above thread post 31). But, I'd like to know the size of the vermetids that his Canary Wrasse eats. We need some sort of metric to get people to use when describing their vermetids. Mine vary from some that have tiny tubes that I can snap with my fingers, to larger ones with tubes that hit 3 to 4 inches in length when they are left undisturbed.

 

[SimbaAnto]

1. Never had success with Anthias Schools. Always had in 3 or 5 females. But always ended up with just 1 male.

2. Never had luck with Goniopora. Always good for the initial 6 months, then takes it down. Tried manganese and all other stuffs but still.

3. Never had my phosphate lesser than .5(yes .5). But I got to know for my style of reefing, I keep higher phosphate and all are thriving and encrusting(This might not be a failure, but in terms of keeping phosphate low)

4. Partial failure with BJD. Always comes back on 6 months or so and attack my euphiiliya ( Use Cipro to save the rest, but always the one that's affected first goes down as martyr)

 

[flying4fish]

I sympathize with your failure to keep open brain corals! A gorgeous display of Trachies in Hong Kong convinced me to jump in to the reefing hobby. I've bought many trachy's, lobo's, acanthos and scolies...so much $$ down the drain. I don't know why I can't keep them when other seem to have no trouble at all.

Another big failure for me was asking my house sitter to keep the glass clean with my Flipper Magnet; I came home to a large number of terrible scratches in the glass of my Red Sea Reefer! I have natural sand and she obviously picked some up while cleaning the glass. Unlike acrylic, there's no way to get them out.

 

[Swbvegas]

Trying to run a 75g with HOB and Canister filter while working 60 hours a week.

 

[jl002837]

The one thing that comes to mind as my "biggest mistake" is over-reacting to things. Get a parameter swing and rapidly trying to correct it. I think the response is sometimes worse than the event

I believe this to be true.
My setup is I believe 16 years apparently.
I had great success the first 4 years then I tried to help a friend with a sick coral.CRASH
I tried again only to have the algae issue of the year.
I then gave up on appearance and took care of my fish for several years.
If you don’t run a lot of lights you don’t get algae
I decided to try coral again because my set up was running good.
This was 5 plus years ago
Again algae
right now I am fighting red slime that I have had for the last year are so.
Many years ago I decided not to use chemicals to control problems, it just sways the aquarium for 1side to the other. I have been reading many of Randy’s articles and have been instigating a change in my setup.
I now am noticing the red slime changing to green algae. Someone will eat that, and some of my old coral frags that I left in are showing life.
This has happened over a 8 month period.
My setup has never been taken down
It’s challenge
Thanks Randy for your articles that inspired us

 

[jl002837]

I believe this to be true.
My setup is I believe 16 years apparently.
I had great success the first 4 years then I tried to help a friend with a sick coral.CRASH
I tried again only to have the algae issue of the year.
I then gave up on appearance and took care of my fish for several years.
If you don’t run a lot of lights you don’t get algae
I decided to try coral again because my set up was running good.
This was 5 plus years ago
Again algae
right now I am fighting red slime that I have had for the last year are so.
Many years ago I decided not to use chemicals to control problems, it just sways the aquarium for 1side to the other. I have been reading many of Randy’s articles and have been instigating a change in my setup.
I now am noticing the red slime changing to green algae. Someone will eat that, and some of my old coral frags that I left in are showing life.
This has happened over a 8 month period.
My setup has never been taken down
It’s challenge
Thanks Randy for your articles that inspired us

 

[Dom]

Butterflies don't have sufficient dentition to break open the stony tubes of vermetids. I asked my AI App about fish that would eat vermetids. The reply was "Some boxfish or filefish species have a taste for tube worms and might eat vermetid snails too. However, these fish can be aggressive and eat corals or other invertebrates in your tank."

I'm heartened by the above suggestion of using a Canary Wrasse (Koty - above thread post 31). But, I'd like to know the size of the vermetids that his Canary Wrasse eats. We need some sort of metric to get people to use when describing their vermetids. Mine vary from some that have tiny tubes that I can snap with my fingers, to larger ones with tubes that hit 3 to 4 inches in length when they are left undisturbed.

Not my imagination; there have been a noticeable reduction in tubes on my rock work since adding a Saddleback puffer.

To me it makes sense as puffer fish in general crunch on things to maintain their beak plate.

Now, while the tubes are gone, the snails remain. But if the tubes are gone, can the Vermetids survive?

 

[Doctor Derp]

Never trust an ATO (or any piece of gear) that has given you cause not to.