What makes you discouraged ?

[Jing_xoxo]

Im trying to get through a few setbacks that are shaking my stability in this hobby. Do you guys have any disheartening moments?

Ill go first. Im really meticulous on how I check my tank. I do it everyday in the morning before school, and night before bed. My zoas were all great then suddenly a few of my favorites fell sick and Im fighting to keep them strong. I isolate, glue, dip, I dont understand where its coming from.

I lost the baby watchman that I suspect my blenny ate in the first two days of getting it, and lost the partner to the bangaii cardinal just a week after that.

My parameters are on spot and I do strict water changes.

My blenny hasnt popped up in a few days but Kyles keeping me calm and ive got advice from him that ill be following today.

What about you guys ?

 

[Zippy69]

Zoas and paly are like that. I when I started got a magician 3polyp paly. Grew like crazy to 12 in like 2 months. Then, wham all regressed and died. In the sps world the same can happen where they rtn for no reason. Take it with a grain of salt and realize as your tank keeps aging the microscopic balance gets better and thing grow well. I do believe a tank really matures in 7 months or so. What discourages me most is vacation. No matter what I have set up you never know what you come home to. Lol. That said, I like manual when I'm home, alk,Ca,replacement water. The less moving parts the less likely for failure and it forces me to keep a daily ritual/ eye on my system.

 

[mnat]

We ran into issues because we were doing everything right and had equipment failure. That was disheartening when you are doing everything you can and a piece of equipment (or several) fail and leave you shaking your head.

 

[iTzJu]

this hobby is full of dissapointments but you'll eventually learn that it is part of the hobby. as much as their are discouraging times, there are far more rewarding moments you'll come across.

my recent discouraging moment was when my chiller decided to fail while I was away over the weekend during that heat wave we had over the summer. basicly, lost all of my sps and left many of my other corals pissed and in bad shape in my frag tank.

I was on the brink of selling everything and stepping away but some fellow reefers encouraged me not to leave. I just stepped away for a while but kept the frag tank going to keep what corals I had left. I know have a new build in the works and will definitely be working my way back to having a nice collection of sps.

 

[ThatGuy]

Dino's.....and all pest algae.

 

[JRWOHLER]

Dino's.....and all pest algae.

+1 mystery deaths are always annoying too.

 

[dppitone]

Over the course of your hobby, the very great majority of livestock you get will not make it, mostly in the first few years - whether because of (1) physical weakness, (2) failure to acclimate over the short or long term, (3) accidents, (4) predation, (5) difficult species to keep, etc. Except for acclimation and difficult species, the other factors are all present out in the wild. Far less than 1% reach parent-hood. So we're going to see that in our tanks. For every one fish that you have for 10 years, you'll have lost many along the way. The ones that weren't meant to make it won't. That's why I don't take heroic steps to save livestock. And I try to get stuff from other folks that have had them for awhile, rather than the LFS. The only time I buy retail is usually online for fish for something specific I want. After your doing it for ten years, you get a feel for the artistic/intangible side of the hobby and you'll rarely lose anything. The first few years, while your developing that feel, is much trial/error and learning.

I get discouraged by stray current. Every once in a while I'll put my hand in a tank without putting my sneakers on, and eventually it'll catch up with me and I'll get a shock for whatever reason. I really hate that.

Also I suggest redundancy. The main one - keep two return pumps running, with one hooked through a UPS. And use several smaller heaters rather than one larger one, operated by a main thermostat box, which are cheap to buy $50). And run one of the heaters through the UPS.

 

[Jing_xoxo]

Thanks guys, you're all really encouraging.

Mnat, how did you know it was your equipment that was hurting the tank?

Pete, im having trouble finding the source to the zoa problem. My first guess was fungus, then zoa pox, then eggs, then back to fungus. Theyre yellow looking ulcers but ive covered thm or scraped them out of the water to get them off. So it made me think it was eggs. But my zoas all open. Right now I think ive gotten most of it off, but because I dont know what it is, im afraif itll come back. I cant tell if im solving the problem or delaying it.

Itzju, I was just looking at your build thread a few weeks ago, im so glad everythings getting better again for you. I dont wanna go further than my 29g biocube, so if it ever failed through completely, id really throw in the towel.

Dppitone, im just a little tired of losing fish, I think. I went from 4 to 1 in less than a month with no harsh changes. But live and learn I guess.

Thatguy, omg what's a Dino. .

 

[ThatGuy]

Thanks guys, you're all really encouraging.

Thatguy, omg what's a Dino. .

But in all seriousness, its a pest algae that no one is 100% about what causes it or how to cure it. There's a bunch of different opinions out there. Some say they work others (myself) tried a bunch of ways and still have them.

 

[TanksNStuff]

If anyone ever tells you they never had a problem or lost a fish or coral in this hobby, they're lying. Is it sad and discouraging? Sure is... but it's also a learning experience. The fact is, like Dave said below me, there are too many factors that can cause a fish or coral to die. It may be just the fact that it wasn't strong enough to adapt before the stress got to it (or perhaps something else ate it first) so in reality there probably wasn't anything you did wrong.

However, you have to realize that you're not buying a puppy that only requires food, water, and a walk every day. That's not meant to demean you Jing... I know you take this seriously and are trying your best to do everything right. But, a fish tank is a small contained environment that is a never ending chemical reaction. Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are always being produced and it takes a well established system to sustain those changes. The more fish/corals you add at one time will unbalance that system and the "cycle" may not be able to keep the pace. That leads to too many toxic chemicals in the water column that can stress out a fish and affect their health. Also, each fish and coral needs a different set of circumstances for it to be "optimal" and if you stray too far away from that optimal range, that fish or coral will have issues.

So, even something as simple as adding too many livestock at once can throw off your chemical balance. Also suttle things like the wrong amount of light, the wrong amount of flow, the wrong amount of food (all of which could be too much or too little for any of those) could lead to a problem for one of your inhabitants. And, what might be perfect for one may be too far from optimal for another. So, finding the perfect balance is an ongoing job and takes a long time to master.

Your system is still very new, and is also a smaller system. These take a long time to be "self sufficient" with regards to handling the chemical balance required. Until then, you need to take it as slow as possible and try not to overstock it right away. I'm not saying this is the reason you had some losses, but it can contribute to some in the future if you're not careful. Overstocking is probably the most common cause for beginners and is the only reason I'm mentioning this here. With so many awesome creatures that you can put in your tank, it's hard not to just go buy them. That's OK, you just have to space them out and not get them all right away. Otherwise, the bioload can get unbalanced and then your fighting an uphill battle.

So, I urge you to keep at it and not give up. This can be a very rewarding hobby once you get some experience and pick up your own little tips and tricks.

 

[Classklown90]

No matter what I try, I cant rid my tank of this dino

Sent from my galaxy s4

 

[kschweer]

This hobby certainly has its ups and downs. I have almost thrown in the towel on several occasions, the worst being loosing just about everything in my tanks due hurricane sandy and being evacuated for 8-9 days. It was very hard seeing everything dead and all my hard work down the drain. But as stated earlier I have made many good friends through this hobby and was pushed to keep going. I ran my small frag tank since the storm and am now finally starting the rebuild of my display tank. Just like everything in life I need to look at the positives and not dwell on the negatives. Problems with no apparent cause are usually the hardest to deal with mentally. Sometimes it takes a second look or even a second set of eyes to figure it out. My best advice is to keep up with what you are doing and sooner or later it will pay off (hopefully) sooner. If you are thinking its bacterial I would suggest doing a dip in 1/2 dose of coral dip (revive or coral rx) mixed with 1/2 dose of melafix. Hope you get to the bottom of it.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Jing, next time you see some of those yellow "eggs" can you take a pic and post it here? Maybe we can help ID what it is.

 

[Classklown90]

My story of heartache relates to one chemical, the one that every sps keeper hates. Alkalinity. I cant begin to say how many irreplaceable sps ive lost from overdosing, under dosing or just random swings if alk. Ive had two major alk swings in my little over 3 years of reefing that have started my tank 95% over. Like I and everyone else are saying, sometimes you can do everything right but if one thing goes wrong then its disaster. Like I told you, this hobby wouldn't be so rewarding if it was easy.

Sent from my galaxy s4

 

[jgraz]

The most discouraging thing I had to go through was the STN of my Acro's, which ultimately lead to the loss of 95% of them including several large colonies. The reason? Don't know, though I can trace it directly back to two things. The addition of dosing pumps added to make my life easier, and a coral group buy of wild acros. I'm leaning towards the coral buy since there were a few of us involved that had issues shortly after the addition of the acros. But ultimately I will never know.

 

[mnat]

Our corals were doing amazing for while when we started to notice some recision at the base of some of our SPS. We started testing and alk was coming back 9.3 (or something similiar) so we just kept an eye on things. Corals started to get worse, we kept testing and everything was coming back fine. Continue to do water changes and monitor as corals start to look worse. Get a new test kit, alk is 6.1 so we check the calcium reactor which is no longer bubbling at all. Reset the calcium reactor, raised alk a bit too fast but it steadied. Then the CA reactor started spitting micro bubbles in the bubble counter, dropped alk again. Reset, steady alk, boom more micro bubbles alk drops. The steady change in alk basically lead to all of our corals saying, forget this we are out and that lead to a coral crash. It was kind of a domino effect.

What have we changed? Got a new CO2 tank just to make sure, got a new regulator, test alk daily and have mutliple test kits on hand. Since MACNA we have been stable and have been enjoying coral growth and color again, but it was really hard to lose a lot of corals that we had grown out from little frags and some corals that I cannot replace. But this hobby is a tempting mistress so we are back at it again.

 

[dppitone]

im just a little tired of losing fish, I think. I went from 4 to 1 in less than a month with no harsh changes. But live and learn I guess.

29 gallon is a very unforgiving size for an environment. So you were going uphill before you started. Aging the tank is your best friend here. If you could do what you wanted, I'd add a 55 gallon tank with some rock in it as a sump just to triple your water volume. Or a tub if not a tank. You can put it on the floor or in the closet. That not to say that folks don't succeed with small biocubes - some people run them with no problems I'm certain. But adding water volume would your biggest bang for the buck. I'm of the opinion that the display tank should be no more than 1/2 your system water, and preferably 1/3. So just a thought.

Believe it or not, the livestock that survives in your tank long term are hardy rock stars - the hardiest of the individuals in the wild. They have to be very tolerant to thrive in a home system.

 

[Jcurry@wesketch]

I've posted this before but it's such a good explanation that I'll post it again. It's from Eric Borneman's now defunct Marine Depot forum:

...Tank maturity seems to be even more of an issue without the sand bed. The sand bed just takes some time to get enough nutrients in it to sustain populations and stratify into somewhat stable communities and become functional. So, here's the tank reason, and then I'll blow into some ecology for you. When you get a tank, you start with no populations of anything. You get live rock to form the basis of the biodiversity - and remember that virtually everything is moderated by bacteria and photosynthesis in our tanks. So liverock is the substrate for all these processes, and also has a lot of life on it. How much depends on a lot of things.

Mostly, marine animals and plants don’t like to be out of water for a day at a time...much less the many days to sometimes a week that often happens. So, assuming you are not using existing rock from a tank, or the well-treated aquacultured stuff, you have live rock that is either relatively free of anything alive to begin with, or you have live rock with a few stragglers and a whole lot of stuff dying or about to die because it won’t survive in the tank. Some, if not most, rock exporters have a “curing process” that gets rid of a lot of the life to begin with and some of this is to keep it from dying and fouling further, but some of it would have lived if treated more carefully.

From the moment you start, you are in the negative. Corallines will be dying, sponges, dead worms and crustaceans and echinoids and bivalves, many of which are in the rock and you won't ever see. Not to mention the algae, cyanobacteria, and bacteria, most of which is dehydrated, dead or dying, and will decompose. This is where the existing bacteria get kick started. Bacteria grow really fast, and so they are able to grow to levels that are capable of uptaking nitrogen within...well, the cycling time of a few weeks to a month or so. The “starter bacteria” products give me a chuckle. Anyone with a passing knowledge of microbiology would realize that for a product to contain live bacteria in a medium that sustains it would quickly turn into a nearly solid mass of bacteria, and if the medium is such that it keeps them inactive, then the amount of bacteria in a bottle is like adding a grain of salt to the ocean compared to what is going to happen quickly in a tank with live rock in it.

However, if you realize the doubling time of these bugs, you would know that in a month, you should have a tank packed full of bacteria and no room for water. That means something is killing or eating bacteria. Also realize that if you have a tank with constant decomposition happening at a rate high enough to spike ammonia off the scale, you have a lot of bacteria food...way more than you will when things stop dying off and decomposing. So, bacterial growth may have caught up with the level of nitrogen being produced, but things are still dying...you just test zero for ammonia because there are enough bacteria present to keep up with the nitrogen being released by the dying stuff. It does not necessarily mean things are finished decomposing or that ammonia is not being produced.

Now, if things are decomposing, they are releasing more than ammonia. Guess what dead sponges release? All their toxic metabolites. Guess what else? All their natural antibiotic compounds which prevents some microbes from doing very well. Same with the algae, the inverts, the cyano, the dinoflagellates, etc. They all produce things that can be toxic – and sometimes toxic to things we want, and sometimes to things we don’t want. So, let's just figure this death and decomposition is going take a while.

OK, so now we have a tank packed with some kinds of bacteria, probably not much of others. Eventually the death stops. Now, what happens to all that biomass of bacteria without a food source? They die. Some continue on at an equilibrium level with the amount of nutrients available. And, denitrification is a slow process. Guess what else? Bacteria also have antibiotics, toxins, etc. all released when they die. But, the die-off is slow, relative to the loss of nutrients, and there is already a huge population, and yet you never test ammonia. "The water tests fine.” But, all these swings are happening. Swings of death, followed by growth until limited, then death again, then nutrients available for growth, and then limitation and death. But, every time, they get less and less, but they keep happening – even in mature tanks. Eventually, they slow and stabilize.

What's left? A tank with limited denitrification (because its slow and aerobic things happen fast) and a whole lot of other stuff in the water. Who comes to the rescue and thrives during these cycles? The next fastest growing groups...cyanobacteria, single celled algae, protists, ciliates, etc. Then they do their little cycle thing. And then the turf algae take advantage of the nutrients (the hair algae stage). Turfs get mowed down by all the little amphipods that are suddenly springing up because they have a food source. Maybe you've bought some snails by now, too, or a fish. And the fish dies, of course, because it may not have ammonia to contend with, but is has water filled with things we can't and don't test for...plus, beginning aquarists usually skimp on lights and pumps initially, and haven't figured out that alkalinity test, so pH and O2 are probably swinging wildly at this point.

So, the algae successions kick in, and eventually you have a good algal biomass that handles nitrogen, produces oxygen through photosynthesis, takes up the metabolic CO2 of all the other heterotrophs you can’t see, the bacteria have long settled in and also deal with nutrients, and the aquarium keeper has probably stopped adding fish for a spell because they keep dying. Maybe they started to visit boards and read books and get the knack of the tank a bit. They have probably also added a bunch of fix-it-quick chemicals that didn’t help any, either. Also, they are probably scared to add corals that would actually help with the photosynthesis and nutrient uptake, or they have packed in corals that aren't tolerant of those conditions.

About a year into it, the sand bed is productive and has stratified, water quality is stable, and the aquarist has bought a few more powerheads, understands water quality a bit, corallines and algae, if not corals and other things are photosynthesizing well, and the tank is "mature." That's when fish stop dying when you buy them (at least the cyanide free ones) and corals start to live and grow and I stop getting posts about "I just bought a coral and its dying and my tank is two months old" and they start actually answering some questions here and there instead of just asking questions (though we should all always be asking questions, if not only to ourselves!).

So, ecologically, this is successional population dynamics. Its normal, and it happens when there is a hurricane or a fire, or whatever. In nature though, you have pioneer species that are eventually replaced by climax communities. We usually try and stock immediately with climax species. And find it doesn't always work.


You're not the first person to lose livestock and certainly won't be the last. After 25 years in this hobby I still lose corals and fish for unexplained reasons and I supposedly know what I'm doing. LOL

 

[jgraz]

I've posted this before but it's such a good explanation that I'll post it again. It's from Eric Borneman's now defunct Marine Depot forum:

...Tank maturity seems to be even more of an issue without the sand bed. The sand bed just takes some time to get enough nutrients in it to sustain populations and stratify into somewhat stable communities and become functional. So, here's the tank reason, and then I'll blow into some ecology for you. When you get a tank, you start with no populations of anything. You get live rock to form the basis of the biodiversity - and remember that virtually everything is moderated by bacteria and photosynthesis in our tanks. So liverock is the substrate for all these processes, and also has a lot of life on it. How much depends on a lot of things.

Mostly, marine animals and plants don’t like to be out of water for a day at a time...much less the many days to sometimes a week that often happens. So, assuming you are not using existing rock from a tank, or the well-treated aquacultured stuff, you have live rock that is either relatively free of anything alive to begin with, or you have live rock with a few stragglers and a whole lot of stuff dying or about to die because it won’t survive in the tank. Some, if not most, rock exporters have a “curing process” that gets rid of a lot of the life to begin with and some of this is to keep it from dying and fouling further, but some of it would have lived if treated more carefully.

From the moment you start, you are in the negative. Corallines will be dying, sponges, dead worms and crustaceans and echinoids and bivalves, many of which are in the rock and you won't ever see. Not to mention the algae, cyanobacteria, and bacteria, most of which is dehydrated, dead or dying, and will decompose. This is where the existing bacteria get kick started. Bacteria grow really fast, and so they are able to grow to levels that are capable of uptaking nitrogen within...well, the cycling time of a few weeks to a month or so. The “starter bacteria” products give me a chuckle. Anyone with a passing knowledge of microbiology would realize that for a product to contain live bacteria in a medium that sustains it would quickly turn into a nearly solid mass of bacteria, and if the medium is such that it keeps them inactive, then the amount of bacteria in a bottle is like adding a grain of salt to the ocean compared to what is going to happen quickly in a tank with live rock in it.

However, if you realize the doubling time of these bugs, you would know that in a month, you should have a tank packed full of bacteria and no room for water. That means something is killing or eating bacteria. Also realize that if you have a tank with constant decomposition happening at a rate high enough to spike ammonia off the scale, you have a lot of bacteria food...way more than you will when things stop dying off and decomposing. So, bacterial growth may have caught up with the level of nitrogen being produced, but things are still dying...you just test zero for ammonia because there are enough bacteria present to keep up with the nitrogen being released by the dying stuff. It does not necessarily mean things are finished decomposing or that ammonia is not being produced.

Now, if things are decomposing, they are releasing more than ammonia. Guess what dead sponges release? All their toxic metabolites. Guess what else? All their natural antibiotic compounds which prevents some microbes from doing very well. Same with the algae, the inverts, the cyano, the dinoflagellates, etc. They all produce things that can be toxic – and sometimes toxic to things we want, and sometimes to things we don’t want. So, let's just figure this death and decomposition is going take a while.

OK, so now we have a tank packed with some kinds of bacteria, probably not much of others. Eventually the death stops. Now, what happens to all that biomass of bacteria without a food source? They die. Some continue on at an equilibrium level with the amount of nutrients available. And, denitrification is a slow process. Guess what else? Bacteria also have antibiotics, toxins, etc. all released when they die. But, the die-off is slow, relative to the loss of nutrients, and there is already a huge population, and yet you never test ammonia. "The water tests fine.” But, all these swings are happening. Swings of death, followed by growth until limited, then death again, then nutrients available for growth, and then limitation and death. But, every time, they get less and less, but they keep happening – even in mature tanks. Eventually, they slow and stabilize.

What's left? A tank with limited denitrification (because its slow and aerobic things happen fast) and a whole lot of other stuff in the water. Who comes to the rescue and thrives during these cycles? The next fastest growing groups...cyanobacteria, single celled algae, protists, ciliates, etc. Then they do their little cycle thing. And then the turf algae take advantage of the nutrients (the hair algae stage). Turfs get mowed down by all the little amphipods that are suddenly springing up because they have a food source. Maybe you've bought some snails by now, too, or a fish. And the fish dies, of course, because it may not have ammonia to contend with, but is has water filled with things we can't and don't test for...plus, beginning aquarists usually skimp on lights and pumps initially, and haven't figured out that alkalinity test, so pH and O2 are probably swinging wildly at this point.

So, the algae successions kick in, and eventually you have a good algal biomass that handles nitrogen, produces oxygen through photosynthesis, takes up the metabolic CO2 of all the other heterotrophs you can’t see, the bacteria have long settled in and also deal with nutrients, and the aquarium keeper has probably stopped adding fish for a spell because they keep dying. Maybe they started to visit boards and read books and get the knack of the tank a bit. They have probably also added a bunch of fix-it-quick chemicals that didn’t help any, either. Also, they are probably scared to add corals that would actually help with the photosynthesis and nutrient uptake, or they have packed in corals that aren't tolerant of those conditions.

About a year into it, the sand bed is productive and has stratified, water quality is stable, and the aquarist has bought a few more powerheads, understands water quality a bit, corallines and algae, if not corals and other things are photosynthesizing well, and the tank is "mature." That's when fish stop dying when you buy them (at least the cyanide free ones) and corals start to live and grow and I stop getting posts about "I just bought a coral and its dying and my tank is two months old" and they start actually answering some questions here and there instead of just asking questions (though we should all always be asking questions, if not only to ourselves!).

So, ecologically, this is successional population dynamics. Its normal, and it happens when there is a hurricane or a fire, or whatever. In nature though, you have pioneer species that are eventually replaced by climax communities. We usually try and stock immediately with climax species. And find it doesn't always work.


You're not the first person to lose livestock and certainly won't be the last. After 25 years in this hobby I still lose corals and fish for unexplained reasons and I supposedly know what I'm doing. LOL

Heck, after reading that I might just throw in the towel. LOL

 

[iTzJu]

I just pictured someone dropping the mic and walking away after reading that. lol definitely a good read and made me not want to put anything in my tank but hardy corals and cheato lol