So I've been keeping saltwater for about 2 years now. My corals always looked ok but not great. Growth was slow, colors were meh. I checked salinity every week with my refractometer and it always read 1.025. Then my buddy brought his calibration fluid over last Saturday. We tested mine and it was reading 1.025 when the water was actually 1.030. Turns out I never recalibrated after I dropped it on the floor back in March. The needle bent just enough to throw everything off. I felt like an idiot. Has anyone else trusted their gear for way too long without double checking it?
So the owner at Blue Reef Aquatics in Tampa told me to dose 0.5ml of vodka per 10 gallons to fight my cyano outbreak. Three weeks in, my skimmer went nuts, my torch corals started browning, and the cyano actually spread to the back glass. I pulled the plug on it and went back to manual siphoning and water changes, which fixed it in 6 days. Has anyone else had a 'pro' tip totally backfire, or am I just bad at following directions?
I finally had to make the call between a 32 gallon Biocube and drilling my 40 breeder for a sump. The sump route felt like the 'right' way everyone preaches, but I just didn't trust myself with plumbing in my apartment after a leak last year. I picked the Biocube, set it up last month with 20 pounds of live rock and two clowns. So far the filtration is fine, but my nitrates are creeping up to 15ppm and I'm already shopping for a HOB refugium. Has anyone else regretted skipping the sump for a simpler all-in-one when stocking bigger corals?
I bought a cheap UV sterilizer off Amazon back in March hoping it would finally clear up the green water in my 40 gallon display tank. Ran it for 3 weeks straight, tested the water every other day, and the algae got worse while my copepod population basically vanished. Anyone else blow cash on gear that just made things worse, or is it just me?
I always heard you just run skimmers non stop so I never shut mine off. Last month the power strip died and my skimmer was off for like 3 days before I noticed. During those 3 days my torch coral opened up bigger than ever before. Now I run the skimmer 12hrs a day opposite my light schedule and everything looks way happier. Anyone else find their tank does better with the skimmer on a timer instead of always on?
I bought one of those Hannah checkers during a sale back in March but never actually used it until last night. Figured my tank was doing fine, everything looked okay... then I tested and got 0.38 ppm, which is apparently stupid high for soft corals. Read on Reef2Reef that anything over 0.1 starts stressing LPS and I have a bunch of hammers and frogspawn. I've been wondering why my torch coral looked droopy for weeks and now I'm wondering what other basic stuff I've been sleeping on. Has anyone else put off testing something obvious and regretted it later?
I had about $80 to spend on my tank last month and I was stuck between a fancy new protein skimmer or a simple refugium light. I went with the light (a little clip-on one from Amazon) and put some chaeto in my back chamber. Two weeks later my nitrates dropped from 15ppm to like 5ppm, and the pods are going crazy in there. Has anyone else seen a bigger impact from a cheap refugium setup than they expected?
I was at the fish store in Tampa on Saturday and heard the owner talking to a guy about how many people push their heaters too close to the max rating. Said he sees melted controllers and cooked tanks all the time because folks think a 300 watt is fine for a 40 gallon. I came home and checked mine, I had a 200 watt in a 55 without a controller. I swapped it out before I lost my clownfish. Has anyone else had a heater fail like that?
I was at Reef Paradise in Denver on Saturday and saw they had a massive tank full of chromis that all looked super pale and stressed. The owner said they'd lost half the group in the last week to some kind of rapid wasting thing. Has anyone else dealt with a sudden chromis die-off like that and figured out the cause?
I was skeptical when my buddy said to use a PVC primer and cement combo for a bulkhead fix instead of the fancy marine epoxy. Slapped it on last Saturday after draining half the tank, and 5 days later not a single drip. Anyone else stay hesitant to use basic hardware store stuff on their saltwater setup?
I mean I started with a little 20 gallon nano three years ago and somehow I just kept adding tanks and upgrading. Last month I looked at my setup and realized I'm running a 40 breeder, a 55 gallon, and a 5 gallon quarantine all at once. That's 100 gallons total which just sounds crazy to me. My electric bill went up like $15 a month and my wife keeps asking when I'm gonna stop. But honestly the thing that surprised me most was my first big coral loss when my powerhead failed during a heat wave and I lost about $80 worth of zoas overnight. That hurt way more than I thought it would. Has anyone else accidentally crept up to a bigger setup than they planned and just rolled with it?
So I was at Reef Kings in Austin last month picking up a new clownfish and the guy working there, older dude named Dave, said I didnt need to quarantine because the fish looked healthy and my display tank was established. I figured he knows his stuff since Ive been going there for 2 years. Big mistake. Dropped that clown in on a Tuesday and by Friday my yellow tang was scratching on the rocks and my firefish had ich spots all over. Lost the tang after 3 days of trying to treat it in the display and the clown was fine but carried the parasite. Now I have to run my tank fallow for 6 weeks and watch all my coral suffer without fish poop. Has anyone else had a trusted LFS employee give bad advice that cost you?
So last month I got a gorgeous yellow tang from my LFS, and I was so excited I just floated the bag and put it straight in my 75 gallon. Three days later my clownfish had white spots and I spent $60 on meds frantically trying to save everyone. But my buddy swears he's never quarantined a single fish and his tank has been fine for 5 years. I'm honestly torn now because quarantine seems like the safe choice but setting up a whole second tank feels like a pain. What do you guys do when you get new fish, QT or straight to the display?
I was dead set on running my 75 gallon with just one big return pump and a couple of those nano powerheads. Figured more flow would just stress out my clownfish pair. Then I saw a video from some guy in Florida saying low flow causes dead spots where cyano takes hold. I threw in a $35 wavemaker from Amazon last month and aimed it at the back corner. Within two weeks the red slime almost completely vanished and my torch coral started opening way wider. Now I'm wondering if I should add a second one on the other side or just leave it alone. Anyone else had a similar thing happen where you thought less flow was better?
He watched my torches for like 30 seconds and said 'dude your flow is way too gentle, that's why they're not extending'. I set up a Jebao just for random intervals, now my corals actually sway and open up way more than before. Anybody else have a random guy at the fish store call out something obvious you were missing?
I was buying a rusty $40 skimmer from some guy's driveway in Tampa and he noticed my rookie setup and spent 20 minutes explaining his fishless cycle method for quarantine tanks. Said he lost $2,000 worth of tangs in one night before he started dipping every single coral in straight peroxide for 90 seconds. Has anyone else met a stranger whose random advice ended up saving you a ton of headache?
I spent 6 months wondering why my zoas were pale and my green star polyp wouldn't spread. Thought it was a nutrient thing so I kept dosing more stuff. Then last week I left for a 3 day trip and forgot to turn my lights on, came back and everything looked better. That's when it clicked I was frying them with 12 hour cycles. Dialed it back to 7 hours with a ramp up and stuff is coloring up finally. Anyone else catch themselves overdoing light time?
I ran a cheap Amazon LED strip over my nano tank for 6 months and my zoas barely grew, then I swapped to a used T5 fixture I found for $40 and everything started popping in like 3 weeks. Has anyone else noticed a massive difference between budget LEDs and older fluorescent lights for coral health?
Was having constant algae blooms. Kept testing phosphates and they showed zero. Bought a Hanna checker on a whim. Phosphates were actually 0.8. All those dead corals I blamed on my lighting? Probably the hidden phosphates. Has anyone else switched test kits and found out their old one was lying to them?
I came home after a 6 hour outage and my torch coral was all shriveled up (like it looked dead honestly). I did a quick 20% water change and bumped up my flow a tiny bit, and it bounced back in about 3 days. Has anyone else had corals freak out after losing power for a while?
Six months ago I lost three clownfish in a row over about four months. Each one would look fine for a few weeks then just go downhill. I was doing everything by the book, checking ammonia, nitrites, keeping temp stable. Finally took a water sample to my local fish store and the guy asked where I got my RO water. I told him the machine at Kroger. He said those store machines don't get maintained well and the TDS can creep up. I bought a small RO/DI unit for $150 and my tank has been stable ever since. Last batch of water tested at zero TDS. Has anyone else had trouble with those store machines?
I was at Blue Ocean Aquatics last Tuesday and saw a guy bring in a 5 gallon bucket full of dead coral and cloudy water. He said he added three new fish in one weekend and his cycle completely crashed. Has anyone else had to restart from scratch after getting too excited with new stock?
I thought my tank was cycled and stable but around month 4 things went south fast. Brown slime took over everything in a week, killed two zoa colonies and my hammer coral started receding. What changed was cutting my whites from 8 hours to 4 and blasting flow with a second Jebao wavemaker. Has anyone else had dinoflagellates stick around even after blackouts?
I was chasing pH and alkalinity for months with two-part and kept bouncing from 7.8 to 8.4 every other day. My torch corals would look fine one week then recede the next. A guy at my LFS in Nashville told me to try a simple kalk drip at night. I set up a 5 gallon bucket with a cheap dosing pump dripping 3ml per minute and now my alk sits at 9.0 steady for two weeks straight. Has anyone else dropped two-part for kalk and seen less stress in their LPS?