Hello! Sad Story but a decent ending

DeepBrew · Sep 3, 2016

I've been lurking about R2R, posting a little and really like the people here so I think it's time for an introduction. Things are going well in my tank now, but I'll be honest, I killed far too many animals trying to get started and it really hurt.

I started keeping a 25 gallon freshwater aquarium about 8 years ago when my daughter was 5 because she was really into fish. It's always done well and I thought I had this aquarium thing down pretty good.

In September of 2015 we decided to add a saltwater aquarium and bought a 75 gallon reef ready system which I planned to run as a FOWLR. I did a ton of research online and at the LFS. Given my success with freshwater I though I was prepared. I was wrong.

The tank was set up the first week of October and the first couple of months were horrible. I made every mistake possible, the biggest of which was forgetting how to do nitrate tests correctly and thinking everything was OK when the nitrates were actually sky high. Several fish were lost after a few weeks, then disease swept through the tank just before Thanksgiving and killed everything within two days. It was devastating and I nearly walked away from the hobby.

Ultimately we decided as a family to try again. We let the tank go fallow for 13 weeks. During that time I built a better sump and added a protein skimmer and a Reefkeeer Lite controller. We also got an RO/DI filter. Oh, and read half a dozen books and spent lots of online researching to try our best to get it right this time.

We started carefully stocking the tank at he end of February 2016. This time all fish were fresh water dipped, went through the tank transfer method and were treated with Prazipro before being allowed into the main tank. It has gone much better and we have started getting more into corals.

This is the tank today:

Everything is healthy and it's really starting to thrive. There are still upgrades I'd like to make and I'll be asking questions soon. Hopefully I can also share what I've learned from my mistakes and try to help others avoid them.

See you in the forum,

DeepBrew

Joey waid · Sep 3, 2016

How long are you fresh water dipping? I have always been scared to. I hate putting chemicals on my fish. This may be a option for me.. I know a lot of people do it...

kschweer · Sep 3, 2016

Welcome to R2R!! Unfortunately our mistakes are some of the best lessons and learning experiences we get. I'm glad to hear everything is going well for the tank now. Looks great!!

Robink · Sep 3, 2016

Welcome to R2R!!! Glad you stuck it out! Your tank looks great!

Mike_J · Sep 3, 2016

Your tank looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing your journey. Your hardships starting off in the hobby are relatable to most of us, indeed. Even with all the research that we do, "newbie" mistakes are inevitable, but we learn from them and gain knowledge and experience. Best of luck to you. I love that it's a family affair. Keep up the great job and enjoy what you've created!

cameronh · Sep 3, 2016

Welcome to reef2reef! Glad you got everything under control and have a better understanding on reefing. If you have any questions ever, feel free to ask!

ReeferMaddness843 · Sep 3, 2016

Welcome to the madness. Tank looks beautiful. Glad to see you didn't give up. There are many hurdles in this hobby. You can read and study all you want, but actually getting your hands wet and first hand experience are what you will learn the most from as every tank is different. Congrats on the rebuild!!

dbl · Sep 3, 2016

Welcome to R2R. As others have said, the important part of our mistakes (and we've all made them) is to learn from them. Sounds like you've made a great rebound and so glad you stayed with it. Congrats and your tank looks terrific.

DeepBrew · Sep 3, 2016

Joey waid said:
How long are you fresh water dipping? I have always been scared to. I hate putting chemicals on my fish. This may be a option for me.. I know a lot of people do it...

We do a 2 minute freshwater dip with methylene blue added to RO/DI water. We make sure the water temp a 1 degree warmer than the fish bad water. Also, you need to have an air stone bubbling in the dip bucket. We let it bubble for several minutes before dipping the fish.
We did a ton of research before we dipped our first fish and didn't run across the air stone tip, even stuff from very respected authors didn't mention it. It wasn't until we lost the first fish we dipped that we found someone who said use an airstone, especially if you are using RO/DO water. The fish seemed fine during and after the dip but died the next day. We're pretty sure it was the lack of oxygen in the dip bucket. We've dipped 5 fish using the airstone and all are still healthy and happy. That's not that many but I'm confident enough in our process now that I'll keep using it.

Joey waid · Sep 3, 2016

DeepBrew said:
We do a 2 minute freshwater dip with methylene blue added to RO/DI water. We make sure the water temp a 1 degree warmer than the fish bad water. Also, you need to have an air stone bubbling in the dip bucket. We let it bubble for several minutes before dipping the fish.
We did a ton of research before we dipped our first fish and didn't run across the air stone tip, even stuff from very respected authors didn't mention it. It wasn't until we lost the first fish we dipped that we found someone who said use an airstone, especially if you are using RO/DO water. The fish seemed fine during and after the dip but died the next day. We're pretty sure it was the lack of oxygen in the dip bucket. We've dipped 5 fish using the airstone and all are still healthy and happy. That's not that many but I'm confident enough in our process now that I'll keep using it.

I'll have to see about the methylene blue. I was hopping for a no chemical pre dip..

DeepBrew · Sep 3, 2016

Joey waid said:
I'll have to see about the methylene blue. I was hopping for a no chemical pre dip..

We read about it in Bob Fenner's book "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist." He recommends it as a gentler alternative to using formaldehyde. The reason we tried it is because it's supposed to help keep oxygen levels high in the dip water.

BTW, if you haven't read the book I highly recommend it. It helped me figure out what I needed to do to be more successful the second try. It was also very helpful when we started trying to choose fish.

Joey waid · Sep 3, 2016

DeepBrew said:
We read about it in Bob Fenner's book "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist." He recommends it as a gentler alternative to using formaldehyde. The reason we tried it is because it's supposed to help keep oxygen levels high in the dip water.

BTW, if you haven't read the book I highly recommend it. It helped me figure out what I needed to do to be more successful the second try. It was also very helpful when we started trying to choose fish.

Just ordered it. It was 6.47 shipped..

melypr1985 · Sep 3, 2016

Welcome to R2R! Great story too. I'm glad you didn't give up and I'm also glad you did the research and learned from your mistakes. It's one of the most difficult parts of the hobby.... to fail and fail, then learn from those and keep going.

DeepBrew · Sep 3, 2016

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement everyone! I'm still paranoid all of the time (like, is that ich on the wrasse, OMG the tank's about to die again! Wait, it's gone, that was just sand on his tail. He's a wrasse, he plays in the sand.) but it's finally settled down to where I can spend time just watching the beautiful creatures I'm taking care of.

4FordFamily · Sep 3, 2016

Welcome home, you will love it here!

We have all messed up royally, part of why I take my "job" here of helping people so seriously. I have to make up for all of the wrong in this hobby I did and all of the fish I killed thinking I was different and I could get away with things.

Nice tank!

DeepBrew · Sep 3, 2016

Thanks 4Ford Family, I really appreciate the encouragement. I too hope I can eventually help other avoid my mistakes. That's one reason I posted the grim details above.

Pruett-nc · Sep 4, 2016

Welcome aboard. Sometimes you fall off your bike as a kid learning to ride . Do you not get back on . Sure you do because you have that desire and drive to learn . Keep learning and before long you will say wow look at what I created.

KJ · Sep 4, 2016

Welcome to R2R!!!

tonto95 · Sep 5, 2016

Welcome to r2r. I like the tank setup. I would like to make a suggestion to you. On utube look for a series called 52 weeks of reefkeeping. It is by bulk reef supply. They go step by step from the beginning to completely finished tank. It was very informative.