What are the most important things to you for maintaining a healthy reef? What brought biggest failures?

LRT

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Most important thing for me was getting source water clean! Everything pretty much came together for me after I zeroed out my RODI.
I think just as important was Stability. Temp, salt, ph and now finding all the major parameters kept in check is really making new tank upgrade super smooth. It just feels like its all working together really nicely with things balanced!
Oh yeah. When I realized my tank is entirely different from anyone's else's and quit chasing numbers.

What has brought you greatest success and failures?
 

flyfisher2

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Going slow. Think, and think again. Put your head into it and leave your hands out as much as possible.
I’m still learning this as it’s a process.
Doing things at the spur of the moment brought me major issues in the past.
Buying wrong fish, corals, and just going oooh and ahhhh to stuff I should have never been looking at for my setup.
Bottom line, Educate yourself more.
 
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LRT

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Great points. I forgot to add not being diligent enough with new frags I allowed a nasty nuisance algae in that took probably close to 6 months and 300 man hours to get a handle on. That coupled with not so great source water was a horrific combination.
Not only do I dip now but I remove every piece of plug or rock it comes on. If I cant I don't add that piece to my system. Period
 

flyfisher2

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Great points. I forgot to add not being diligent enough with new frags I allowed a nasty nuisance algae in that took probably close to 6 months and 300 man hours to get a handle on. That coupled with not so great source water was a horrific combination.
Not only do I dip now but I remove every piece of plug or rock it comes on. If I cant I don't add that piece to my system. Period
That’s what I’m talking about… EDUMICATION!!
 

Micro-Reefs Aquarium

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When you take into consideration well-being and what that means to your health, all you do is extend that to your aquariums. If you neglect your body, your body with time tell of that neglect. When you love your body, exercise, eat right, and love others as you would want them to love you, you have hit success for well being. Those that extend this concept to a reef tank will start to see the benefits of this in a fury, those that don't will see what you asked at the end of your question, FAILURE.
 
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Hal3134

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At first, success came with weekly tests for calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, nitrate, phosphate, temp, and salinity. Now I mostly just test my alk weekly and the rest monthly because my alk is the only one that changes.
Once I got my alk where it needed to be my corals actually started to live and grow.
 
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LRT

LRT

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When you take into consideration well-being and what that means to your health, all you do is extend that to your aquariums. If you neglect your body, your body with time tello f that neglect. When you love your body, exercise, eat right, and love others as you would want them to love you, you have hit success for well being. Those that extend this concept to a reef tank will start to see the benefits of this in a fury, those that don't will see what you asked at the end of your question, FAILURE.
I feel like there is alot to this statement and alot to learn on many levels. Well said. If you keep presence of mind, maintain your system to the best of your ability. Correct issues that may come up and stay in the zone with your reef you will have much less issues at the end of the day. As soon as I let something go, get frustrated or generally stop caring it is reflected significantly in my reef.
 

Micro-Reefs Aquarium

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I feel like there is alot to this statement and alot to learn on many levels. Well said. If you keep presence of mind, maintain your system to the best of your ability. Correct issues that may come up and stay in the zone with your reef you will have much less issues at the end of the day. As soon as I let something go, get frustrated or generally stop caring it is reflected significantly in my reef.
AMEN BROTHER, DITTO
 

Glenner’sreef

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No wrong answers here for sure. Sand vac and water changes and keeping mixed corals separate (toxins) are first that come to mind. When I visually scan my aquarium and see the success of corals and invertebrates that years ago were difficult to keep alive like clams and Gonioporas All three of the above mentioned tasks play a huge part in their success and my tanks.
 

davidcalgary29

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Accepting fellow local reefers' claims that they "keep a clean tank"...and then watching pests sprout, by magic, from the introduced frag.

Okay, I actually didn't listen to the reefer, and put those frags in a pest jar, but I was still peeved when my jar became overrun with caulerpa and majanos.
 

Strydon

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Ahem....listening to WWC's directions of NOT DIPPING the corals when I got them. Thanks for that 2 weeks of cleaning vermintide snails WWC. :rolleyes:

So for me, proper QT and dipping.
Yep, I bought a nice frag of AOI zoas from them last week.. then found they had aptasia in them. Sigh... dipped and in quarantine and hoping for the best.
 

Pico bam

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Any success I have comes from leaving everything alone and not messing with something constantly. Witch is exactly what I was doing for about 3 months when I first started out lol. Also having stable parameters witch is easier said than done!
 
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LRT

LRT

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Any success I have comes from leaving everything alone and not messing with something constantly. Witch is exactly what I was doing for about 3 months when I first started out lol. Also having stable parameters witch is easier said than done!
Lol leaving things well enough alone! Thats one thing I need to do a better job with.
 

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A healthy reef huh? Live rock does most of the work for me with all the bugs in the rocks and sand. I just go in and tidy up whatever needs to be taken care of. Blast the sand a couple of times, blast the rock to check for debris accumulating.
I check the tank parameters twice a month and manage additives accordingly. 2x a month water change currently. Make sure no one is hungry.
Overfeeding isn't a big issue as long as it's not 3xthe normal food amount.
To be honest, my involvement is minimal as possible. Until there is an illness. Doesn't happen often. And is rare.
 
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