Where do you most attribute to your success

[Paul B]

I started my tank way before computers or the internet was invented and there were no books.
I had more problems than I could say and didn't start having success until I realized it was bacteria, viruses and parasites that keep our tanks healthy and the less I messed with it, the more success I had.

After many years I learned that not quarantining and never using medication along with anything I can find with natural bacteria in it added to the tank allowed it to be stable and also enabled most of my fish to spawn and mostly live long enough to only die of old age or jumping out.

I really have no more problems today but it took decades of learning by trial, error and common sense.

 

[Joe462]

Trial and error, learned a lot from my failures. started taking advice from people that actually had good results. That is about half the challenge, just about anybody will offer advice and half of them don't know what they are doing, like literally no clue. My LFS couldn't keep SPS alive, but that didn't stop them from trying to tell others how to.
keeping in mind that there is no one way to do things in this hobby, find what works for you and if you are happy with the results be prepared to ignore the people telling you, you are doing it wrong.

 

[blaxsun]

I'll take "sheer blind luck" for $200 Alex.

 

[imustbenuts]

Trial and error, learned a lot from my failures. started taking advice from people that actually had good results. That is about half the challenge, just about anybody will offer advice and half of them don't know what they are doing, like literally no clue. My LFS couldn't keep SPS alive, but that didn't stop them from trying to tell others how to.
keeping in mind that there is no one way to do things in this hobby, find what works for you and if you are happy with the results be prepared to ignore the people telling you, you are doing it wrong.

Great advice!

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

For me
It was once I stop worrying about keeping things “stable” or “consistent”. I’m not saying stable is bad, but I don’t believe it plays a major role.

I highly recommend using a par meter and keeping par sps as close 200-450 as possible

 

[imustbenuts]

For me
It was once I stop worrying about keeping things “stable” or “consistent”. I’m not saying stable is bad, but I don’t believe it plays a major role.

I highly recommend using a par meter and keeping par sps as close 200-450 as possible

Interesting. That would seem to go against the experience of the majority here. I will say I am manually dosing 2 part in addition to Kalkwasser through a stirrer and add enough to increase my alk 1 dkh at a time. Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Interesting. That would seem to go against the experience of the majority here. I will say I am manually dosing 2 part in addition to Kalkwasser through a stirrer and add enough to increase my alk 1 dkh at a time. Thanks for your thoughts.

Alk and elevated nutrients/swings get way too much blame in this forum. Same goes for “flow”. Y’all would be shocked how little flow I have in my tank. The only thing that should be stable is lighting, but it needs to be the correct par and spectrum. I’m not saying let your alk swing from 7-12 but if some one tells you that a 7-9 swing wiped out your tank…they are wrong.

If stable was the only thing that mattered there wouldn’t be as many sps death threads on this forum. The majority of them claim everything is stable.

 

[NowGlazeIT]

The game changer for me was being able to manage nutrients and maintain stability.

Learning from many of the talented reefers on R2R will help tremendously. What I love about this hobby is that you never stop learning.

Could not have said it better.

 

[imustbenuts]

Alk and elevated nutrients/swings get way too much blame in this forum. Same goes for “flow”. Y’all would be shocked how little flow I have in my tank. The only thing that should be stable is lighting, but it needs to be the correct par and spectrum. I’m not saying let your alk swing from 7-12 but if some one tells you that a 7-9 swing wiped out your tank…they are wrong.

If stable was the only thing that mattered there wouldn’t be as many sps death threads on this forum. The majority of them claim everything is stable.

It will be interesting to see as your pictured frags grow if what you say about flow and stability holds true.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

It will be interesting to see as your pictured frags grow if what you say about flow and stability holds true.

I have colonies as well.

If half of the paranoia here was true I wouldn’t of been able to keep anything alive. I have over 70 Tenuis in this 50g cube. Yes a lot are or look like frags but do a bunch of trimming/selling/trading. I shipped 5 frags of my Sunday driver just this month.

 

[sgrosenb]

I've been through the ringer the past 3 years trying to keep SPS. I killed over 100 frags, easy. But now, finally, they're thriving. Here's my story and advice, for better or for worse:

I started in Nov 2018 with a tank with 100% dead rock and dead sand. I spent 18 months with what the reefing community considers perfect parameters, and couldn't keep an SPS alive to save my life. After 18 months, in April 2020, I took out ALL my rock and replaced it with 100% live rock from KP Aquatics, still in the water, directly into my tank. This is where things started to turn around. A good chunk of my SPS were actually not dying, but they still weren't growing and I was losing about 75% of the frags I bought, be it after a few weeks or a few months. After about 12 months with my live rock, I had finally attained what I viewed as sufficient time and stability for my tank, and had some decent success with stags, monti's and birdsnests. But many of my acros continued to not grow, and some still died. I had a RRC Marvin the Martian that literally looked beautiful - nice color, polyp extension, etc. But it did not grow 1mm in over a year. Same with some other corals.

Fast forward to today, my tank is thriving. Growth and color is awesome. The main difference that I attribute the growth and success to is lower phosphates. For years I had read so many people say "my phosphates are 0.2" or "mine or 1.0 and I still have beautiful corals". So when my test kits ready 0.08-0.1 consistently, I ruled that out as a factor. But then I bought a Hanna ULR Phosphorus meter and it was consistently reading 60+, which is around 0.2 PO4. I figured why not try bringing that down, and once I got it to 7-10 reading (0.03 PO4), my tank completely transformed. And this was in isolation - no other variables changed. I truly believe that the lower PO4 was the final key. I know every tank is different, but for me, this was huge.

So given that as a back story, I'd say the following, in order of importance, are key to SPS success:

1. Live rock with live bacteria. There is no bottled bacteria that can replicate this. If someone tells you they started a tank with 100% dead rock and dead sand and a bottle of bacteria, push back and really inquire what else they put in their tank. More than likely it was a piece of rock from a fellow reefer with something already established, or some type of live bacteria. If not, they are in the vast minority, they can create miracles, and I wouldn't suggest trying to emulate something like that which has very little success potential.
2. Time - There is no substitute for time. I'm no biologist, but I envision the tank as a bunch of different bacteria, battling it out on an epic stage for balance. This takes time. Once they all settle out (6, 12, 18 months), the tank has the stability and proper balance of bacteria, sponges, etc it needs to hold SPS.
3. Stability of Alk - I had a few times in my tank where my alk dropped by 1.5dKH over a few days, and I lost coral due to it. No question. It was a direct consequence of the alk drop. I certainly accept the argument that other aspects of the tank didn't play well to the coral, and someone with a long-established tank that is well run could weather an alk drop like that better than I, but it's unquestionably real and impactful on corals
4. Nutrient stability - I haven't noticed that nitrate has as much impact on my corals, so long as it's above 0. I've had it at 4ppm for quite some time, but it was at 25++ for a while and I didn't notice any difference. I could be convinced otherwise but I haven't noticed it personally. Phosphates though - Phosphates are key. Like my intro said - when I dropped PO4 down to 0.03 from 0.2 my whole reefing world changed. It was awesome.
5. Keep it simple - Lighting, flow, skimming, macroalgae, dosing, etc - there's a million ways to do these but it's pretty well documented on R2R how to achieve at least adequate lighting, flow, nutrient export, etc. Jason Fox says that flow is more important than lighting... who am I to disagree. He also loves water changes. I've read 100 posts that water changes aren't really that important, and 100 posts that they are critical. I'm sure you can be successful with either; I do 10% WC's every week or so. All these aspects seem pretty easy to dial in to be at least somewhat successful with SPS - they can be further tweaked once your sticks are growing and thriving. Numbers 1-4 above, though - that's where you'll at least have some decent success.

That's my 2 cents. I've only been in the hobby for 3 years but I feel like I've been through a lot, researched for countless hours, etc etc. I now feel like anyone could have a successful tank if they just follow the steps above. Took me a while to get there, but it's a beautiful hobby when it's going well.

Cheers,
Scott

 

[sgrosenb]

Alk and elevated nutrients/swings get way too much blame in this forum. Same goes for “flow”. Y’all would be shocked how little flow I have in my tank. The only thing that should be stable is lighting, but it needs to be the correct par and spectrum. I’m not saying let your alk swing from 7-12 but if some one tells you that a 7-9 swing wiped out your tank…they are wrong.

If stable was the only thing that mattered there wouldn’t be as many sps death threads on this forum. The majority of them claim everything is stable.

@Charlie’s Frags what would you attribute most SPS deaths on this forum to most likely, if not stability and nutrients?

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

@Charlie’s Frags what would you attribute most SPS deaths on this forum to most likely, if not stability and nutrients?

Tank maturity, lighting, over skimming/filtering, not enough fish, over dipping, not qt’ing, trusting lfs water and/or advice, Red Sea bottle labels, a lot of bad information here (usually given from ppl with limited to zero sps success of their own). That’s just off the top of my head.

Assuming they have uncontaminated good quality source water and salt, good temp range….I think the majority of the struggles come from chasing 0.03-0.05 po4 and 2-10 no3. Compounded by keeping a stable 9.0 alk (bc that’s what brs recommends)

I’m not saying just feed recklessly and not test. But if you test and your no3/Po4 elevated to 20/0.19 doesn’t mean your corals are about to die. It’s means you should feed a little less. Not hook up a gfo reactor or start carbon dosing. Basically….don’t freak out

 

[HB AL]

36 years of trial and error.

 

[sgrosenb]

Tank maturity, lighting, over skimming/filtering, not enough fish, over dipping, not qt’ing, trusting lfs water and/or advice, Red Sea bottle labels, a lot of bad information here (usually given from ppl with limited to zero sps success of their own). That’s just off the top of my head.

Assuming they have uncontaminated good quality source water and salt, good temp range….I think the majority of the struggles come from chasing 0.03-0.05 po4 and 2-10 no3. Compounded by keeping a stable 9.0 alk (bc that’s what brs recommends)

I’m not saying just feed recklessly and not test. But if you test and your no3/Po4 elevated to 20/0.19 doesn’t mean your corals are about to die. It’s means you should feed a little less. Not hook up a gfo reactor or start carbon dosing. Basically….don’t freak out

Fascinating. I guess that's what makes this hobby so interesting - so many different opinions and experiences. I had an exact opposite experience vs. the one you speak of, but for every one of me, there's someone else who has success with high nutrients or some other different variable. I guess if there was a perfect script for this and frags grew like weeds, we might tire of the hobby too quickly. Cheers.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Fascinating. I guess that's what makes this hobby so interesting - so many different opinions and experiences. I had an exact opposite experience vs. the one you speak of, but for every one of me, there's someone else who has success with high nutrients or some other different variable. I guess if there was a perfect script for this and frags grew like weeds, we might tire of the hobby too quickly. Cheers.

Great write up. Do you have any pics of your acros? I can’t seem to find any.

 

[sgrosenb]

For sure - here's some before and after picks of some sticks and a few acros that have finally gotten some good traction. This is in full spectrum light and as you can tell I'm no photographer... In the realm of growth and maturity, I'm in the infancy and certainly don't have the color that the pros do, but whenever I see colored tips and growth on an acro right now, I'm pumped. A far cry from where I was a year, two, three ago. Now that my coral are growing, I can finally dial in to try and perfect it. But I'll do that slowly and just enjoy the success for now.

Stag 5/2020:

Stag 5/2021:

ORA Hawkins Echinata 5/2020

ORA Hawkins Echinata 6/2021:

Green slimer (I think?) 3/2021:

Green slimer 8/2021:

Walt Disney 11/2020:

Walt Disney 8/2021:

a few current pics of frags I got about 3 months ago - they're all growing and living! Woohoo!

WWC Yellow Tips & some other acro I can't remember: (first pic is the coral that I can't remember, second picture it's the one on the right about 2 months later)

Boom Corals Boomberry acro - nice growth in the past few weeks:

Paletta Tri-Color - don't have an old pic of this but it was about 1/3 the size 6 months ago:

Also note the blue coral on the upper right of the tricolor pic - that's a WWC Cookie Monster and it was all but dead about 4 months ago. It's actually one of my favorite colors in the daylight.

Also - last side note - my polyp extension in recent months has been much less (which is a bummer - I love the look of polyp extension). I'm attributing it to the filefish I added in an effort to tackle aptasia. It's also my understanding that chasing good PE is a fools errand so I haven't tried.... but I plan on donating the filefish to my LFS soon in hopes of getting better PE.

Cheers!

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

For sure - here's some before and after picks of some sticks and a few acros that have finally gotten some good traction. This is in full spectrum light and as you can tell I'm no photographer... In the realm of growth and maturity, I'm in the infancy and certainly don't have the color that the pros do, but whenever I see colored tips and growth on an acro right now, I'm pumped. A far cry from where I was a year, two, three ago. Now that my coral are growing, I can finally dial in to try and perfect it. But I'll do that slowly and just enjoy the success for now.

Stag 5/2020:

Stag 5/2021:

ORA Hawkins Echinata 5/2020

ORA Hawkins Echinata 6/2021:

Green slimer (I think?) 3/2021:

Green slimer 8/2021:

Walt Disney 11/2020:

Walt Disney 8/2021:

a few current pics of frags I got about 3 months ago - they're all growing and living! Woohoo!

WWC Yellow Tips & some other acro I can't remember: (first pic is the coral that I can't remember, second picture it's the one on the right about 2 months later)

Boom Corals Boomberry acro - nice growth in the past few weeks:

Paletta Tri-Color - don't have an old pic of this but it was about 1/3 the size 6 months ago:

Also note the blue coral on the upper right of the tricolor pic - that's a WWC Cookie Monster and it was all but dead about 4 months ago. It's actually one of my favorite colors in the daylight.

Also - last side note - my polyp extension in recent months has been much less (which is a bummer - I love the look of polyp extension). I'm attributing it to the filefish I added in an effort to tackle aptasia. It's also my understanding that chasing good PE is a fools errand so I haven't tried.... but I plan on donating the filefish to my LFS soon in hopes of getting better PE.

Cheers!

File fish could definitely be the culprit. I wiped out 99% of aiptasia with aiptasia x and peppermint shrimp. I used the aiptasia x on as much as I could reach and the peppermints took care of the rest. The secret step to aiptasia x is you have to siphon it out with some airline tubing after it sits for 30 minutes in zero flow. I haven’t seen any aiptasia in over a year

 

[sgrosenb]

File fish could definitely be the culprit. I wiped out 99% of aiptasia with aiptasia x and peppermint shrimp. I used the aiptasia x on as much as I could reach and the peppermints took care of the rest. The secret step to aiptasia x is you have to siphon it out with some airline tubing after it sits for 30 minutes in zero flow. I haven’t seen any aiptasia in over a year

Nice! I added the file fish and peppermint shrimp at the same time and my aptasia is down by about 75%. Hoping that it gets fully wiped out eventually. I attribute all to the shrimp... I haven't seen a file fish touch it at all

 

[lemonade]

Common sense + keeping things super simple is a recipe for success. Always run NSW levels. Feed fish a lot(once corals are growing consistently). Never start a system with dead/dry rock or sand. Always use T5s, and always spend more money on corals than equipment.