Help, I’m trying not to quit.

[sharkbait-uhaha]

Don't be me!!!! I had a 90G crash and burn years ago and it's only now that I'm getting back into it. I use the excuse that the kids needed me more than my tank mainly to make myself feel better about quitting. But truth be told, I could have managed both just fine. Worst mistake I have made in the past 30 years. And to think what my tank would have rebooted into!!!! Formulator pretty much said it all. Follow the advise and just move ahead slow and steady.

This was me !!!! I bought a reefer350 about 3 years ago set it up , was excited for it then my daughter came and I started ignoring the tank and yea ... im now barely going to reboot it and hope to get back in the game.. currently rebooted my 10g waterbox so well see what happens.

 

[sharkbait-uhaha]

One thing here and I see it a lot is:
So, you have some cool soft corals and a torch and an anemone all doing well.
You have a decent number of fish all presumably doing well.

You are placing your success on how well you do with SPS and LPS and yet you have a decent amount of success already.

First thing is to note that the problem is likely fixable since you have other livestock doing well.

3 years ago my reef crashed and I lost about 30 corals and 15 fish.

The tank was empty for about a month.

I just left it there. Auto top off was still running and all but that was it.

I still had some freshwater tanks that I took care of but I mostly left my saltwater tank alone.

Then one day about a month after the crash, my yellow coris wrasse turned up alive although I had assumed he died even though I never found a body. Apparently he hid in the sand bed and survived the whole ordeal. I instantly gave him some food then did a water change and turned back on the light.

The tank went from a barren graveyard of dead corals to suddenly having a bright yellow fish moving around.

That fish is the reason why I rebuilt that tank and the whole reason why I kept my saltwater tank as a reef instead of switching that tank to freshwater.

Sometimes you just have to take stock of what is going well because if something is going well then you have a start towards the tank you want.

I can also relate to this as I had some lyretail anthias that nuked my fish with some disease... killed off my wrasse , yellow tang and some other fish... I got some what depressed from all that I left whatever was in there be .. fast forward some time and my clown fish ended up surviving !!!! so I tossed them in my 10g and will be redoing the bigger tank again .. just now have to do a deep clean on it as its a dang swamp as I never really took it offline

 

[Blopple]

One thing here and I see it a lot is:
So, you have some cool soft corals and a torch and an anemone all doing well.
You have a decent number of fish all presumably doing well.

You are placing your success on how well you do with SPS and LPS and yet you have a decent amount of success already.

First thing is to note that the problem is likely fixable since you have other livestock doing well.

3 years ago my reef crashed and I lost about 30 corals and 15 fish.

The tank was empty for about a month.

I just left it there. Auto top off was still running and all but that was it.

I still had some freshwater tanks that I took care of but I mostly left my saltwater tank alone.

Then one day about a month after the crash, my yellow coris wrasse turned up alive although I had assumed he died even though I never found a body. Apparently he hid in the sand bed and survived the whole ordeal. I instantly gave him some food then did a water change and turned back on the light.

The tank went from a barren graveyard of dead corals to suddenly having a bright yellow fish moving around.

That fish is the reason why I rebuilt that tank and the whole reason why I kept my saltwater tank as a reef instead of switching that tank to freshwater.

Sometimes you just have to take stock of what is going well because if something is going well then you have a start towards the tank you want.

Wow, I really like this story.