Post your mistakes made with SPS dominant systems

[Scorpius]

I get pretty upset with myself when I do something to my system that causes the entire ecosystem to suffer.
Recently I started using gfo at a rate that I thought was slow. It wasn't. I couldn't pin point why I kept losing Acropora randomly to stn/rtn until it dawned in me that I bottomed out my phosphates. Hurt the algae, hurt your coral is my new saying.

Hopefully I can get some phosphates into my system and it rebalances with nitrates on it's own as all I do is screw the balance of the tank up. lol


What have you done to your sps tank that you regret? Mistakes for me at least is when I learn the most, but it sure does hurt sometimes.

 

[cFloor]

I've probably made every mistake possible, and have definitely killed colonies with GFO.

 

[tripdad]

Sorry, double post.

 

[tripdad]

Got caught up chasing numbers other people said were " the key". Now I watch the corals and test major Params but don't over-react and make fast changes. Slow and careful, after thinking it through first.

 

[gig 'em]

Running an RO unit without a DI stage.
Not dipping corals.
Controlling my CaRX via pH, a pH probe that ultimately was faulty and inconsistent causing my Alk to swing wildly. Now I just put my CO2 on a timer for consistency. Much better results.
Not light acclimating a coral at the bottom of my tank and moving it up to higher PAR over time.

 

[NikoO]

Temp swing

 

[NikoO]

Temp swing

 

[jda]

New tech. I let everybody else figure the new stuff out and once it is good for 3-5+ years, I might dive in.

 

[Mark Gray]

not having an apex to watch over things

 

[Ocelaris]

Phosphates bottoming out and stupid mistakes with calcium and alkalinity programming in the Apex have been my biggest problems. I do keep pretty good tabs on the numbers, but finding that one canary in the coal mine coral is always the beat indicator that something is amiss.

 

[Terry Le]

Chasing numbers

 

[2Wheelsonly]

Listening to people regurgitating information that seems to get overused in this hobby.

All I read and heard “don’t dose anything you can’t test for” “use gfo” “nitrates are bad” “every tank needs carbon” “T5 can’t grow sps” “low nutrients are key”

All that info above has burned me and cost me thousands of dollars in dead corals over the years. Such over-played useless trash advice.

Dosing trace elements (Red Sea colors) without testing all Parms due to poor test kits for some elements. Tank growth and color has gone up 500x better. At this point I feel I can grow any coral out there.

Threw my GFO in the garbage, started feeding heavier don’t even bother testing nitrates and again massive improvement in my LPS and SPS.

 

[adtravels]

Not being patient, not seeing the big picture. Changing several variables at once.
Getting complacent. Liking angelfish too much. Liking anemones too much.

 

[Bpb]

Going too fast with acropora on a new tank. I’ve learned that mature enough for fish isn’t the same thing a mature enough for acropora. I cannot seem to get a single acro to live long enough to cover a plug if the tank hasn’t gone at least 1 year without having the rocks messed with

 

[ihavecrabs]

Not quarantining corals and introducing aeceol flatworm and aefw. While I won the battle against these two foes, the aftermath of the stability sent me through months of dino and cyano outbreaks.

 

[me & my baby]

I had just added kalk powder to my reactor and turn my auto top off on the full the reactor . Walked away and forgot about it . Needless to say when I walked back the tank and saw a white tank I remembered. Needless to say lost a lot of SPS and several fish .

 

[Hans-Werner]

My biggest mistakes where that I dosed unbalanced nitrogen compounds because I thought corals should rather be phosphate limited and phosphate supports algal growth. Among the nitrogen compounds nitrate as calcium nitrate was the worst.
Today I know its just vice versa, nitrate and other nitrogen compounds support algal growth and corals need phosphate for growth. I needed years to get that far.

 

[DaveRaz]

A new tank transfer with all new rock cost me a tank full of colonies. Hard crash and burn. Tough lesson.

 

[Z3speed4me]

Temp issue; I was chasing false problems for months with stuff dying due to a bad probe

Believing that GFO was a good idea, due to chasing this utopia of a ULN system that. Now I ensure my alk/calc balance is in place and just feed the hell out of my fish and coral... everything else is now finally at a stable point that it is taking care of itself and things are finally encrusting and growing that literally sat there practically unchanged as frags for probably months.

 

[reefrf]

Good thread:
For me is was not dipping corals & not knowing what to look for & understanding how these pests multiply. Red Bugs & AEFW.