What is your reefing unpopular opinion?

[mindme]

Growing algae for nutrient removal is stupid, expensive and flawed.

How is it expensive? It's free unless you are talking about initial costs. But even then - compared to water changes, it's way less expensive.

 

[Hermie]

zoanthids are overrated

 

[Jekyl]

How in the world is NSA a bad practice?

No real areas for fish to hide and sleep.

 

[LegendaryCG]

That you need to wait a long time before adding corals.

 

[Lowell Lemon]

I have used Lace rock with success in a reef aquarium in combination with live rock.

I experienced fish loss in a large display caused by a temperature rise to 90 degrees which caused Tricodina to become pathogenic and killed 50% or more of the stock. Stopped it by addition of U.V. and a chiller. Medications had little to no effect. Visible symptoms look like ich. Fish lost ability to regulate osmotic pressure leading to organ failure and death. Tricodina is normally present on all fish fresh and salt and it eats sloughed epithelial cells keeping the fish looking vibrant and healthy. Spent lots of money on that education but most people say what? Dr. at Vetranary school at Washington State University did the decropsies and microscopic examination. He experienced similar events in the aquaculture industry. Now all the fish experts here on Reef to Reef say no way.....that is my story and I just don't know any better.

My best tanks used 100% seeded live rock and the wide variety of life was a joy to watch. Yes even the trouble makers like mantis shrimp and gorilla crabs. We could turn on a flashlight at night and watch various plankton swimming in the tank. Fish often spawned as well as some inverts.

Best live rock ever was from Walt Smith before the man-made products.

I have used both U.V. and ozone with good success in the past.

I have kept sharks and rays for years in some of the large displays I built for customers. I would not do that again. They belong in the ocean. But they are awesome fish and very fun to watch. Kept a nurse shark in a 300 gallon brute stock tank for years with some live rock big protein skimmer an lots of water flow. He got big enough he was eating 12" trout. After placing him in a 1000 gallon tank for a few more years the store owner shipped him back to the collector in Florida for release into the ocean.

I used many trickle (wet/dry) filters with great success back in the day. I would use them again for fish only live rock tanks due to the oxygen saturation.

I love acrylic aquariums. Only one seam failure in over hundreds if not more tanks that I built over more than 25 years. Tanks from 5 to 1600 hundred gallons.

I kept a jaubert (deep sand bed and plenum) tank running for almost 15 years with an Eheim canister filter as the mechanical filter support. Very few water changes.

I love macro algae dominate aquariums with some LPS and soft corals and maybe an anemone.

I ran most of these tanks before the Internet was a thing for most people. Way before I carried two cell phone that take better pictures than my old Cannon T50.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

Additional opinions:

Ultra low maintenance reef tanks are a disaster waiting to happen.

Going with a skimmer or skimmerless is too much of a debated topic fwiw

My YouTube channel doesn’t get enough views (it is new in its defense. shameless promotion: link is below, go check it out)

Most people don’t know how to save money in this hobby.

 

[Bribo12]

If you can afford a $1500 coral, you can afford to send one to me too

 

[mindme]

No real areas for fish to hide and sleep.

That's not really true. In my tank for example there are overhangs and ledges everywhere for the tangs to hang out, and at night they have their spots. The rest of the fish all find homes really easy under rocks etc, especially since I have a lot of really low ledges, but you can't actually see that they are because the sand is just deep enough that only the top of the rock is showing and it looks like it's touching something. Yet, under it is hollow and goby's and such use it for a home.

Not a single fish in my tank lacks a home, unless you count the pajama cardinals. And if I felt one did, I could still easily keep my NSA and add some more rocks in the back to create one. Small fish have tons of places to go, only the bigger tangs have limited spots, but still more available than what they use.

They seem to love the swimming space. And they are easily able to move around the back of the tank when they are scared by movement in the front due to all the space.

 

[attiland]

It’s clownfish not nemo, it’s blue tang not dory, and it’s mandarin goby not small blue fish

What about Latin names for the sake of identification? I don’t know what happened with them. Common names are misleading.

Clownfish is no better than Nemo as not exactly identifies the species.
When I grow up it was like common-name (Latin aka scientific name). That worked better

 

[Tamberav]

You don’t need to test calcium and magnesium.

 

[Naso110]

Macro algae is fine in a DT. Tanks lit up with 75% blue or violet look terrible. You absolutely don't need a skimmer and if you're patient most all "trending" corals come out of focus and the price comes way down. 100w DIY LEDs are awesome. That feels better...

 

[kagisexton]

What about Latin names for the sake of identification? I don’t know what happened with them. Common names are misleading.

Clownfish is no better than Nemo as not exactly identifies the species.
When I grow up it was like common-name (Latin aka scientific name). That worked better

This. For both corals and fish. I work in the horticulture industry and almost everybody uses scientific names, making things so much easier to identify. It is so frustrating to buy an acro and get some weird made up BS name, a scientific name would be so much more appropriate.

 

[Andreas' Reef]

I’ll tell mine:

Gorgonians suck and destroy the look of a tank

 

[i cant think]

This. For both corals and fish. I work in the horticulture industry and almost everybody uses scientific names, making things so much easier to identify. It is so frustrating to buy an acro and get some weird made up BS name, a scientific name would be so much more appropriate.

Yes, scientific names should be used more, the only things easy to figure out from common names are C. scottorum and C. lubbocki the common names TMC give some of the wrasse are absolute BS, C. lubbocki = Multicolor wrasse, C. naokoae = Sharkfin wrasse, Genicanthus melanospilos = Swallow tail angelfish, and corals are even worse I only recently got used to the Latin names and now they’re dragging in common names at the LFS I go to, I end up stuck trying to think of the common name for a good minute before realising what it is

 

[chaostactics]

NSA and TTM are both bad practices.

Nvm Googled it

 

[chaostactics]

Also fleece rollers and wasting RODI waste water (when you have the means to recycle it) are inherently selfish wastes of resources that sorta fly in the face of ocean/planet conservancy.

 

[chaostactics]

I’ll tell mine:

Gorgonians suck and destroy the look of a tank

but if you can't have calciferous sticks it's like the next best thing.

 

[chaostactics]

zoanthids are overrated

From someone who has a tank that's 95% zoa, can kinda agree. But can't have anything else in HI worthwhile

 

[mindme]

Also fleece rollers and wasting RODI waste water (when you have the means to recycle it) are inherently selfish wastes of resources that sorta fly in the face of ocean/planet conservancy.

What could the RODI waste water be used for?

Also, is it really that much of a waste?

 

[Chessmanmark]

Unpopular opinion; All tanks have ich.