Debating leaving the hobby

[Rick's Reviews]

I refuse to spend another dollar towards the tank.. but I am willing to try some new things.

Hey SurfTrack, please do not give up on your hobbies, majority of comments you will receive will be in regards to your aquarium however the main concern is you, try to think back why you started this adventure and how many times it has brought you joy, from when you first purchased the aquarium to setting it all up, for most it's the best part.. the build, then think what was your first fish? Everyone knows The name of 1st fish? think of the countless hours you have enjoyed your aquarium... That's definitely a hobbiest.

You can decide if all the time and money you have dedicated to months/ years of enjoyment perseverance is worth it, only you and your family know.
There is definitely something that you enjoy in keeping this beautiful sea life in your heart that made you ask reef2reef so I would follow that feeling.

From what I have read, the best advice in my opinion is to reduce aquarium size/ smaller aquarium this way you can enjoy and keep the corals or fish you used to love watching without the hardship of cleaning or maintenance of a larger tank.
maybe you took on too much....
However, only you know what's best suited to your lifestyle and reef2reef offers the best answers for your marine care

 

[t5Nitro]

If your tank is more headache than it is enjoyable, I'd bail on the hobby. I can relate a bit with cyano battle. It never ends. What an ugly thing to hang around indefinitely and plague your corals. For me personally, I've just stopped caring about its growth and what it does to the corals in my tank. I keep the tank up because I like the fish.

 

[Udest]

Slow and simple actions will rectify all the issues , one thing I'd do is rinse the sand really well , scrub the rocks down with some peroxide and get as much gunk out of the tank.

Honestly I find tearing down and rescaping a tank quite enjoyable.

 

[Rene']

112 gallon red sea system, UV sterilization, skimmer, mechanical filtration.

So this summer the tank was neglected and ever since mid August I have made it my mission to get the tank back on track. Before the summer I was dino free and the tank looked great. Ive tried running GFO, carbon, and purigen. I changed all my filters to my RODI, water is at 0 TDS. I do weekly water changes and I have also done a few 50 gallon changes. I havent tested in some time though ill be honest.

Another downer is that my huge hammer which was doing great is receding, I think it has some sort of bacterial infection.

I really dont want to just give up but I have to say im reaching that point where its all just kinda bleak. But I do really enjoy the tank when its in its prime so I'm trying to make myself give it one more shot.

My personal experience, since I fought the same battle you're going through, is not to do so many water changes, especially large ones. It causes a kind of new tank syndrome, Anna can really stress certain corals... Like hammers.
Getting some good sand cleaning snails, it a purple sea urchin works great, and they're cheap.
I only do monthly water changes of around 15%, and my tank had been stable and diatom free for a long time. Also, using 100+ micron filter socks and changing them every 3 days has kept everything sparky.

How this helps a little... Best of luck, this hobby can be very frustrating when things go wrong.

 

[Susan Edwards]

I was in your boat. After I lost my mom (she lived with us) my now old tank was neglected. Here are 2 before and after shots. Taken about a year apart September 2020 and March 2021. It took a year to bring the tank around. Could not grow lps or sps (due to the huge toadstool). I used both vibrant and microbacteria 7 to get rid of the algae. I got rid of it once--about oct/nov 2020 but it came back with a vengeance. At the time I just tore the tank down, it was beautiful, new corals growing and thriving and good parameters. But it took a year of work. No real money except the vibrant and microbacteria 7 and testing often. Didn't do a lot of water changes either.

You can do it. But once neglected it takes time to fix.

I keep these 2 pics as reminders that miracles do happen!! I changed my sandbed, scrubbed rocks except ones with corals, replaced lights. Yes, there are fish in there. Did not lose a single one.

March 2021.

 

[SurfTrack]

I was in your boat. After I lost my mom (she lived with us) my now old tank was neglected. Here are 2 before and after shots. Taken about a year apart September 2020 and March 2021. It took a year to bring the tank around. Could not grow lps or sps (due to the huge toadstool). I used both vibrant and microbacteria 7 to get rid of the algae. I got rid of it once--about oct/nov 2020 but it came back with a vengeance. At the time I just tore the tank down, it was beautiful, new corals growing and thriving and good parameters. But it took a year of work. No real money except the vibrant and microbacteria 7 and testing often. Didn't do a lot of water changes either.

You can do it. But once neglected it takes time to fix.

I keep these 2 pics as reminders that miracles do happen!! I changed my sandbed, scrubbed rocks except ones with corals, replaced lights. Yes, there are fish in there. Did not lose a single one.

March 2021.

So sorry to hear that. Your tank looks amazing.

 

[SurfTrack]

Thanks everyone for your comments, sorry for the slow reply I got a little busy. But in the meantime I bought a test kit and here are the results. Im not sure if this is the right place to post but if anyone has any insight id greatly appreciate!!

Again thanks for the replies I appreciate!


Nitrate - greater than 4ppm (my test kit is low range but the color was pretty close to 4ppm)


Phosphate - between .01ppm


Nitrite - Between .05


Alkalinity - 3.92 meq/l


Ammonia - 0

 

[SurfTrack]

Hey SurfTrack, please do not give up on your hobbies, majority of comments you will receive will be in regards to your aquarium however the main concern is you, try to think back why you started this adventure and how many times it has brought you joy, from when you first purchased the aquarium to setting it all up, for most it's the best part.. the build, then think what was your first fish? Everyone knows The name of 1st fish? think of the countless hours you have enjoyed your aquarium... That's definitely a hobbiest.

You can decide if all the time and money you have dedicated to months/ years of enjoyment perseverance is worth it, only you and your family know.
There is definitely something that you enjoy in keeping this beautiful sea life in your heart that made you ask reef2reef so I would follow that feeling.

From what I have read, the best advice in my opinion is to reduce aquarium size/ smaller aquarium this way you can enjoy and keep the corals or fish you used to love watching without the hardship of cleaning or maintenance of a larger tank.
maybe you took on too much....
However, only you know what's best suited to your lifestyle and reef2reef offers the best answers for your marine care

I cant say you are wrong at all, I'm going to just do my best to keep it up and running because I do enjoy it, and this is just part of the hobby, even if its not the best part.

 

[Adamantium]

Thanks everyone for your comments, sorry for the slow reply I got a little busy. But in the meantime I bought a test kit and here are the results. Im not sure if this is the right place to post but if anyone has any insight id greatly appreciate!!

Again thanks for the replies I appreciate!


Nitrate - greater than 4ppm (my test kit is low range but the color was pretty close to 4ppm)


Phosphate - between .01ppm


Nitrite - Between .05


Alkalinity - 3.92 meq/l


Ammonia - 0

Numbers seem mostly fine to me.

Did you consider this being dinos? Pictures would help a lot. Your saying water changes make it worse is a pretty classic symptom of dinos.

 

[Jeffcb]

I know its more money but Flow. Don't know if yours is Cyano but I got rid of Cyano after trying many things by adding more flow. I added 2 WAVs to the 3 ReefWaves I already was running in my 192. Long battle but mine is gone. For now lol..

 

[Casket_Case]

I cannot even see the sandbed thats how orange it is with diatoms, and for the last month ive been trying to hard to remove it, and I see spots of cyano!

Sometimes you gotta find something new. I was super scared to get rid of my reef tank but I did and I got a pet chameleon and now I’m happier than ever.

 

[SurfTrack]

I know its more money but Flow. Don't know if yours is Cyano but I got rid of Cyano after trying many things by adding more flow. I added 2 WAVs to the 3 ReefWaves I already was running in my 192. Long battle but mine is gone. For now lol..

I have two huge pumps, and extremely fine sand bed. So when I ramp them up sand flies EVERYWHERE. I'm going to give them a vinegar bath and try to position them so I get good flow but not make the sand go everywhere

 

[SurfTrack]

Numbers seem mostly fine to me.

Did you consider this being dinos? Pictures would help a lot. Your saying water changes make it worse is a pretty classic symptom of dinos.

It could be dinos, I attached some pictures earlier in this threat, can that help determine whether its dinos or not? At night, they entirely disappear.

 

[Adamantium]

It could be dinos, I attached some pictures earlier in this threat, can that help determine whether its dinos or not? At night, they entirely disappear.

Ah, I see them. This looks like a combination of cyano, which is pretty easy to deal with, and amphidinium dinoflagellates, which is harder, but still very doable. First, keep your nitrates between 10 and 20. Then just dose silicates. I used Spongexcel by Brightwell. Works a treat. Then when you get the eventual diatoms from the silicates, you just vacuum them up and stop dosing.

It’s no surprise you’ve been frustrated with the tank. Water changes literally make this problem worse. Good luck

 

[HeyLookItsCaps]

Honestly if I were in your shoes I would start over, the excitement of new rock/cycle/hitchhikers/scaping etc has put me back to the beginning before. I know it’s “spending more time and money” but sometimes a full blown restart is your best attack

 

[dvgyfresh]

Good job staying in , I wanted to quit almost daily when dealing with Dino’s - all this work for my tank to be creating toxic algae that kills everything didn’t bring joy to me either. I didn’t buy a ton of equipment to deal with it either , I think a UV could actually be making yr progress slower, Dino’s thrive in low nutrient / non diverse biome. The UV kills both good and bad things , keeping a low diversity in which Dino’s could keep up the population , I would run the UV only at night for 8 hours.

 

[Miami Reef]

I see some misinformation in this thread.

First: a tank reset that included bleaching/all new rocks is not going to solve Dino’s. Every reef tank has dinos, and it’s the condition we keep the tank in that causes the Dino’s to bloom.

A UV sterilizer is an excellent way to combat Dino’s. I believe OP has osteoporosis (can’t be 100% sure since he didn’t microscope). Those Dino’s leave the substrate every night. A UV can certainly send them into remission in about a week! The main reason it won’t for osteoporosis is if the UV isn’t plumed correctly. Either undersized or flow too quick to sterilize. )

 

[Mywifeisgunnakillme]

Its been YEARS since I had it even remotely this bad, during my cycle stage

If you're done you're done. But this looks entirely fixable. I have had it much worse and pulled through.

1. UV
2. Manual Removal, filtering out, water changes, etc., continual as needed.
3. Debate black out for a couple days if not very many corals
4. Reefbrite Live Rock enhance
5. Microbacter clean or other bacterial supplement.
6. Add easy corals like leathers and zooathids for bacteria on them and take up nutrients.
7. add macro algae to refugium
8. feed and keep nitrate and phosphate within normalish ranges.


Those are things i did and i don't have any issues now. My 2 cents

 

[TheHunterYall]

Also check the uv tube, may be cruddy, and the lamp that it’s operational.

 

[Adamantium]

I see some misinformation in this thread.

First: a tank reset that included bleaching/all new rocks is not going to solve Dino’s. Every reef tank has dinos, and it’s the condition we keep the tank in that causes the Dino’s to bloom.

A UV sterilizer is an excellent way to combat Dino’s. I believe OP has osteoporosis (can’t be 100% sure since he didn’t microscope). Those Dino’s leave the substrate every night. A UV can certainly send them into remission in about a week! The main reason it won’t for osteoporosis is if the UV isn’t plumed correctly. Either undersized or flow too quick to sterilize. )

What makes you say ostreopsis and not amphidinium? Looks more like amphidinium to me, and that would also explain it not getting better with UV.

https://humble.fish/community/index.php?attachments/dinoflagellateid12_12_2019-1-pdf.6827/