To the 10 percent - a philosophical question

[Fenral]

There aren't many reefers out there that hold on for longer than a year or so. I'm curious as to those of you who have made it past that benchmark: How did you do it? How did you frame the failures (we all have them, admit it or not)? How did you survive to make it into the 10 percent? Do you treat reefing like baking or cooking (measure everything, put it in the oven, and pray? Or do you taste the soup along the way and adjust?)

I'm just curious - I'm hoping this helps some of the younger crew survive.

 

[DexterKarin]

Ryan from BRStv did a great 3 part series at the 2024 Reefpaloozes this year that speaks to this. It really inspired me and helped me contain my approach to reefing. He makes it way simpler . I'm only in 10 months and can say it can be so overwhelming and confusing without a structure to think about it all. . Watching this series and limiting most of my research to this site has helped me manage what im doing.

This is the first part.

 

[JayM]

100% taste the soup. I’ve been back in the hobby for just over a year after about 3 decades away. Long story short, during my research I was amazed about how much more difficult it had become. All of the “must have” equipment, testing for a dozen different things, sending water to a lab, etc.

KISS and patience are the two best tools you can utilize until you get some experience.

 

[buruskeee]

Is it really that low of a probability to make it past a year? I can see making it past 2 years, but 1 year seems like an easy task. I feel like the hardest time frame after starting a tank is from 12-18 month area because typically you’re past the ugly stage but almost in a stall where things are slowly starting to take off but you can’t really see it and so there’s nothing you can identify to “fix”. The ugly stage is not pretty at all, but there’s direction and a purpose for it. At least that’s how I feel.

 

[Fenral]

Is it really that low of a probability to make it past a year? I can see making it past 2 years, but 1 year seems like an easy task. I feel like the hardest time frame after starting a tank is from 12-18 month area because typically you’re past the ugly stage but almost in a stall where things are slowly starting to take off but you can’t really see it and so there’s nothing you can identify to “fix”. The ugly stage is not pretty at all, but there’s direction and a purpose for it. At least that’s how I feel.

subtopic: I don't understand this ugly thing that has come about in my absence. Why does everyone assume a tank will have to go through this stage? (My new tank is now at about 120 days of functioning. It's not ugly; I'm fairly sure there won't be either - but I keep my tank in a perpetual artificial state of imbalance)

 

[sixty_reefer]

Falling down it’s part of growing up, if we don’t learn from the fall it will be harder to get up.

 

[Duane family]

While I agree that there is a trend which you have highlighted I think the 1 year or so time line you mentioned is off. In my view over many years, a new marine aquarium keeper who leaves short term would do so between 2½ - 3 years after starting.

The reason for the trend I believe is rooted in advertising/marketing and a must have consumer culture. Marine aquariums are marketed all over and are so easy to source. Spending money is easy and within 3 days (according to LFS staff) you have a functioning aquarium. And they are not wrong, this is fact. But what you don't have is a thriving aquarium. After some time the aquarium owner realizes that spend the money was where the easy stopped and now this thing looks ugly, need tones of work and even with that things are still not getting back to where it was like at week 2 from new. Then they realize that in order to be successful its going to take learning and tons of it. So they start to learn a bit.
2 years down the road they realize that even though they have learned a fair bit they now lack discipline and patience. These two are the nail in the coffin because all the owner wanted was to spend some money and have a great looking tropical marine aquarium. He didn't sign up for a game of patience.

So why does it happen, because the world has a significant shortage of patience and discipline.

 

[Nano_Tuners]

100% taste the soup. I’ve been back in the hobby for just over a year after about 3 decades away. Long story short, during my research I was amazed about how much more difficult it had become. All of the “must have” equipment, testing for a dozen different things, sending water to a lab, etc.

KISS and patience are the two best tools you can utilize until you get some experience.

You can keep a successful modest reef with just a few hundred dollars, but the direction of this hobby has gone down the materialistic rabbit hole, where now for many people they are more interested with all the gadgets attached to their tanks rather than the livestock in them. Heck I’ve been sucked into that before too :(

Since coming back I’ve built a cheap little biocube setup that I’m having more fun with than a lot of much more expensive stuff I’ve had in the past

 

[sixty_reefer]

You can keep a successful modest reef with just a few hundred dollars, but the direction of this hobby has gone down the materialistic rabbit hole, where now for many people they are more interested with all the gadgets attached to their tanks rather than the livestock in them. Heck I’ve been sucked into that before too :(

Since coming back I’ve built a cheap little biocube setup that I’m having more fun with than a lot of much more expensive stuff I’ve had in the past

The instagram rabbit hole led to many leaving the hobby over here.

 

[JayM]

subtopic: I don't understand this ugly thing that has come about in my absence. Why does everyone assume a tank will have to go through this stage? (My new tank is now at about 120 days of functioning. It's not ugly; I'm fairly sure there won't be either - but I keep my tank in a perpetual artificial state of imbalance)

My only real “ugly stage” lasted about a month, at around the 10 month mark. GHA was running rampant. I was tempted to use all the different “silver bullets” for quick eradication, but I ended up adding more CUC and patience and within a few weeks it was gone.

 

[Fenral]

My only real “ugly stage” lasted about a month, at around the 10 month mark. GHA was running rampant. I was tempted to use all the different “silver bullets” for quick eradication, but I ended up adding more CUC and patience and within a few weeks it was gone.

I think (call me crazy) most of those silver bullets are insanity. The reason why I feel like I won’t see this mythical ugly stage / is while my new setup is unbelievably high tech - the foundation is ancient: allow life to establish feed said good life - let it lock up the stuff till something else eats it, or skim it out…so rather old school i have several gallons of phyto growing dripping into my tank constantly…

 

[Kmst80]

For me it's the other way around, after one year I upgraded from 100 to 200 gallons. My reeftank is my get away from reality, Friday afternoon it's phone of,music on and it's me and the tank(maintenance).
As long as it does Not become a chor I can't see me giving up and I had my set backs too. I am 3 years in now.

 

[Oldreefer44]

Started my first SW tank in 1974 and first reef in 2006. As a retired psychologist specializing in personality typing, I believe that the ability to be patient is one of the keys to longevity in this hobby. Nothing good happens quickly but a lot of bad things do. A temperament that doesn't overreact to inexplicable failures like RTN etc. is also helpful.

 

[Nano_Tuners]

I think (call me crazy) most of those silver bullets are insanity. The reason why I feel like I won’t see this mythical ugly stage / is while my new setup is unbelievably high tech - the foundation is ancient: allow life to establish feed said good life - let it lock up the stuff till something else eats it, or skim it out…so rather old school i have several gallons of phyto growing dripping into my tank constantly…

Sure I’ve had algae outbreaks, but in 20 years I’ve never had an ugly stage the way I’ve seen people deal with

Simple philosophy: Go slow. Don’t overwhelm the bioload. Feed fish not algae. Keep the lights low until you need them, keep up on algae with a healthy CUC… all the same things we knew 15+ years ago

 

[Idech]

I am in my fourth year. I’ve had dinos almost from the start, except the first year. It’s certainly been a battle but I’ve spent a lot of money and the only way to justify it was to last 10 years. Also the fact that I love this hobby, of course.

In six years maybe I won’t be physically able to maintain it, so we will see. But until then I am enjoying despite the constant challenges.

 

[aSaltyKlown]

4 years here. I stopped chasing numbers after about 6 months. Stopped forcing things to go how I thought it should be and just let the tank be. Picked a salt that had parameters that I wanted to keep. Did water changes to keep everything stable. Once I did that, the tank started to do very well. Eventually I did have the need to start dosing and went with Kalk. It's still working for me. Every now and then I need to dose for ALK.

 

[chemisfun11]

I've been reefing for over 20 years now. I am a science teacher which helps a lot and I am very patient person for the most part. I've had my ups and downs (Superstorm Sandy sucked) with my reefs over the years and I learned a tremendous amount over that time. Mainly like @Oldreefer44 said, good things take time and bad things happen fast in a reef tank.

I've been able to incorporate my love of marine life in my life with my family, students and friends over the years and made some great "fish friends" as my family likes to say. Some are still in the hobby some are not. I enjoy meeting other reefers and talking about our experiences good, bad or otherwise which really helps during your journey as a reef enthusiast.

I also managed to help a lot of people here on the forums by sharing coral or most recently my love of 3D printing. I managed to create some fantastic light spill shades, frag mounts, etc. My success is due to the people I've met through this forum and in this hobby. I would never have tried to create a small business on my own if I was encouraged and supported by the reefers I've met here on this forum.

 

[edsbeaker]

Something that I have thought about over the years is that when I started my first reef tank around 2005 we didn’t have all these chemicals and instant so-called fixes to use on our tanks. Basically, we couldn’t just add all this garbage to our tanks and hope for everything to magically correct itself overnight. We were forced to be patient, to let time be the fixer. Sometimes I think for a lot of people the ugly stage would have been a lot less ugly if we didn’t interfere with it causing a different problem to arise from trying to fix the previous. Maybe we ourselves are creating the uglies by not trusting nature to do what it does.

 

[fish farmer]

My tank is like soup...sometimes very green soup.

My first couple of years in reefing were excellent, easy softies/LPS, MH, Fiji live rock, kalk, routine water changes. This was in the early 2000's.

I was selling and trading xenia, mushrooms, etc. in my second year.

Into my third year after an upgrade I had a heatwave nuke everything. Considering the new tank and money spent I recycled the rock and there was a local club forming. That kept me going for a bit longer, but my reef struggled....fish were generally what lived long term.

Once I downgraded back to a similar sized tank I started with, things were easier to handle, although I still go through cycles of a really nice looking reef to an algae farm.

My pair of clowns are around 16 or 17 years old, they are the reason I still keep the tank going.

 

[CoastalTownLayabout]

Having kept reef tanks for about 30 yrs now I honestly feel like I began enjoying it even more after I lost interest in trying to replicate current on trend systems. Reef habitats are just so diverse and each one is interesting and beautiful in its own way. Best advice I can give is think about what you really like and dive into that.