What are your earliest mistakes that are a big part of your reefing process now?

[Wuffletoast]

Back when I started almost a year ago, I didn't realize how big of a deal drip acclimation and having a QT process was. Due to that, two fish and a shrimp were lost.

I was just curious what others did or did not do at the start of their reefing hobby that now seems impossible to forget due to the outcome of not knowing.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Not quarantining cost me all but 2 of the fish in my 180 several years back (lost them to velvet). QT is very important.

 

[Wuffletoast]

Not quarantining cost me all but 2 of the fish in my 180 several years back (lost them to velvet). QT is very important.

What type were the fish that made it? Did you dose the DT to try and save all of them? Or did you QT when some showed signs?

 

[i cant think]

One of my earliest mistakes was using fresh salt water at 35ppt for topping off.

This.
My biggest mistake was this and I couldn’t figure out why my tank crashed. Then I noticed salt encrusting where water evaporation appeared and noticed why it went wrong. I now warn new people coming into the hobby about this.

 

[bushdoc]

Told my wife that I bought new LED lights for 2k+

 

[JoJosReef]

Not an "early in reefing" mistake, but day 1 of my new 40g Long, mixed in a bunch of Fiji Mud with my special grade sand in hopes of kick starting diversity. 40 gallons of water changes later still trying to clear up the muddy water.

Might have accomplished some added biodiversity, but man is it annoying changing so much water and cleaning off brand new equipment that gets coated in mud.

Had to do it over, would probably have just gone with new gulf rocks and gulf sand and dealt with the inevitable fallout after the wife sees (another) plane ticket for rocks!

 

[bushdoc]

Actually years ago I bought piece of Live rock with "beautiful" little "Anemone". It was gorgeous! After few years my tank looked like this:

 

[snorklr]

Cheaping out on equipment. Saw the light when I upgraded from a coralife skimmer to a euro-reef (hot stuff back in the day).

still using a coralife 65 skimmer on my 40b...bought it used about 15 yrs ago...

 

[Christian0505]

Not sending out an icp test to confirm your issue…. My acroporas started to STN over a time period of a few weeks. My phosphate measured at 0.21 ppm so that had to be “the cause”. I tried multiple things too lower/stabilize it but it didn’t work. Somebody recommended to remove some of sand which actually made the PO4 worse. A few weeks later komt my phosphates under controle, but lost all my sps… now my lps is going downhill and I lost some expensive goniopora and catalaphyllia. I finally send in an ICP test eventhough many people told me to do it sooner, but I was too stubborn as the phosphates had to be the cause…. ICP results came back, and heavy metals were through the roof… a faulty doser had been consistently overdosing (5 times the rate) the Red Sea Trace elements C which contains all the heavy metals. Sending in the ICP test could have saves me thousands of euros in coral…

 

[Wuffletoast]

Actually years ago I bought piece of Live rock with "beautiful" little "Anemone". It was gorgeous! After few years my tank looked like this:

As someone with just rock still, I think it looks great! Did you keep it as is? Or frag and sell most of it at this point?

 

[Wuffletoast]

Not sending out an icp test to confirm your issue…. My acroporas started to STN over a time period of a few weeks. My phosphate measured at 0.21 ppm so that had to be “the cause”. I tried multiple things too lower/stabilize it but it didn’t work. Somebody recommended to remove some of sand which actually made the PO4 worse. A few weeks later komt my phosphates under controle, but lost all my sps… now my lps is going downhill and I lost some expensive goniopora and catalaphyllia. I finally send in an ICP test eventhough many people told me to do it sooner, but I was too stubborn as the phosphates had to be the cause…. ICP results came back, and heavy metals were through the roof… a faulty doser had been consistently overdosing (5 times the rate) the Red Sea Trace elements C which contains all the heavy metals. Sending in the ICP test could have saves me thousands of euros in coral…

I've heard about situations like this happen before. Depending on the area and pricing, I've heard of people sending in samples once a year to every six months depending on tank size to make sure that doesn't happen to them again. Do you test for everything you dose now? If so, how often?

 

[bushdoc]

As someone with just rock still, I think it looks great! Did you keep it as is? Or frag and sell most of it at this point?

I have heard about some people keeping Majano anemones on purpose. It kinda looks cool. Problem is that no other coral or anemone stands a chance if this things goes ballistic, like in my tank. I had to break tank down and started from scratch.

 

[snorklr]

oh yeah no matter how expensive basically none of it can be trusted, so have spares handy(especially heaters) and the less stuff you have the fewer things can potentially go wrong

 

[Charles Zinn]

First LFS fave me his biased advice which was limited to his history and was limited if he wasn't knowledgeable to equip or product. Learning that an ICP test can tell you aloy about your reef microbiome or lack of diversity and cause algae outbreaks, can case your big parameters to not hold steady and corals and fish to die. Copepods can help alot. Have no found a local fish store with 30 years in business. He has helped me create a better microbiome and tank diversity

Now I have a problem of Rainbow Bubble Tip Invassion. They multiply every full MOON. They are making it hard to establish sps landscape. They are smart little buggers as they can shrink and crawl into porous rock. Started with 6. Had a house move have worked with LFS to take surplus still have half my rock covered , about 5 feet of 8 foot tank

 

[Charles Zinn]

Not sending out an icp test to confirm your issue…. My acroporas started to STN over a time period of a few weeks. My phosphate measured at 0.21 ppm so that had to be “the cause”. I tried multiple things too lower/stabilize it but it didn’t work. Somebody recommended to remove some of sand which actually made the PO4 worse. A few weeks later komt my phosphates under controle, but lost all my sps… now my lps is going downhill and I lost some expensive goniopora and catalaphyllia. I finally send in an ICP test eventhough many people told me to do it sooner, but I was too stubborn as the phosphates had to be the cause…. ICP results came back, and heavy metals were through the roof… a faulty doser had been consistently overdosing (5 times the rate) the Red Sea Trace elements C which contains all the heavy metals. Sending in the IC

Not sending out an icp test to confirm your issue…. My acroporas started to STN over a time period of a few weeks. My phosphate measured at 0.21 ppm so that had to be “the cause”. I tried multiple things too lower/stabilize it but it didn’t work. Somebody recommended to remove some of sand which actually made the PO4 worse. A few weeks later komt my phosphates under controle, but lost all my sps… now my lps is going downhill and I lost some expensive goniopora and catalaphyllia. I finally send in an ICP test eventhough many people told me to do it sooner, but I was too stubborn as the phosphates had to be the cause…. ICP results came back, and heavy metals were through the roof… a faulty doser had been consistently overdosing (5 times the rate) the Red Sea Trace elements C which contains all the heavy metals. Sending in the ICP test could have saves me thousands of euros in coral…

Do an ICP COULD BE IRON,COBALT,IODINE,MANGANESE OR a few other trace elements
P test could have saves me thousands of euros in coral…

 

[Charles Zinn]

I have heard about some people keeping Majano anemones on purpose. It kinda looks cool. Problem is that no other coral or anemone stands a chance if this things goes ballistic, like in my tank. I had to break tank down and started from scratch.

Yea til the 2nd or 3rd full moon and you now have over 40 anemones and growing over everything.

 

[Christian0505]

I've heard about situations like this happen before. Depending on the area and pricing, I've heard of people sending in samples once a year to every six months depending on tank size to make sure that doesn't happen to them again. Do you test for everything you dose now? If so, how often?

Well that’s the thing, hobby testkits are not accurate at all for the Red Sea trace elements. So I stopped using Red Sea and went over to the Triton method with icp testing ever 3-4 months. This way I only have to adjust the more dangerous elements right after an ICP test.

ph has increased from 8,2 max to 8,45 max in the day. Kh consumption increased by over 40% within a few days after the switch. Triton was definitely an improvement for me

 

[exnisstech]

I converted a freshwater tank that had a Rocky 3d background and left the background in because I liked the looks and it hid plumbing and wires. Hindsight, hair algae loves to attach to it probably as much if not more than the rocks and I can't scrape it. So I get to pluck it off with forceps. If the tank wasn't doing so well I would set up another and move everything over.

 

[Scubadoo4u]

Unfortunately I've learned a lot of lessons the hard & expansive way....almost thank God for being a plumber.