Post your mistakes made with SPS dominant systems

[erky]

asking a neighbor to take care of my tank, i came home to deal corals and a wet floor! not even sure what happened!

 

[hatfielj]

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.

1. Making too many changes too quickly. 2. Not quarantining new additions

Top 10 things that contribute to success with an SPS tank...#1 thru 9 are STABILITY, #10 is everything else

 

[HiddenUser]

When things started to look bad, I left everything alone thinking it would 'sort itself out'.

 

[64Ivy]

Chasing numbers. Riding bandwagons.

 

[markalot]

I see people saying po4 bottoming out. I think (but I don't know) the real issue is dropping too fast, not getting too low. I understand why people use GFO but I think GFO has killed more corals than PO4 ever will. My other big mistake was removing too much live rock trying to get rid of a pest, then spiking KH as growth slowed. Massive losses.

 

[Scorpius]

My P04 is sloooooowly coming back up and I can see a 100% turnaround on some of my Acro's. Once they get their nutrients back it's like a kid in a candy store.

 

[TUSI]

Just did one tonight. Did not check my kh and it dropped to low which I am getting ready for some very unhappy corals in next few days

 

[Paul Howard]

Miracle Mud in the fuge is not so miraculous, when you stir it up and kill 80 % of your coral! Did that 10 yrs. ago. I should have paid more attention to that sulfur smell...

 

[pirate2876]

• Always dip. No matter who you get frags from
• Invest in a good heater
• Invest in a good chiller
• Don't chase numbers. Let you corals show you how they are doing

 

[nashorn]

Forgetting the mistake and doing it over and over again.

 

[Hitman]

1. Chasing numbers and not writing in my log what dose changes I made.
2. Doing above with out a auto doser.
3 Trying to make changes way to fast my I knew what I was doing. Then getting on here years after being in the hobby and reading several threads that made me tell myself that I truly didn’t know jack about water chemistry.
4 Not acclimating anything!!! Hard lesson learned on a 300 gallon I had that crashed and while dismantling the tank out of anger for my dumb and lazy mistake I dropped 2 large rocks on accident and smashed my 6 month old tank as they hit other large rocks bouncing around that took me over a year to save up for. And to think what the price of that tanks was back in the mid 90’s compared to today’s price.

 

[Christopher Davis]

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.

Can I ask what GFO you ran? I run phosguard almost full time? I am thinking maybe I should ditch it as well? But it seems to be working for me and my stuff is growing? Also I run t5HO

 

[Christopher Davis]

Not testing consistently for the big 3, and adding the big three in random ammounts. Bought a doser and it’s been all good! Not realizing stability is key!
The big 3 being alkalinity, calcium, Magnesium.

 

[jduong916]

quick changes when nothings wrong
carbon dosing
letting vermetids to their thing

 

[RussiReef]

Not keeping my hand off the tank. Every day moving something, relocating,adjusting , etc. When I stopped messing with my tank on a daily basis ,corals get much happier. ,

 

[ikanayam]

Pincusion urchin that picked up and relocated every unglued frag, or just plain knocked then into an impossible to reach spot. Frags were unglued as I was figuring out where was the best spot to put them.

 

[Slodoc07]

I don't have any experience with SPS coral but i'm looking to get some soon. Stability in my tank is pretty good but the temp does fluctuate 1-2 degrees between night and day time. I only have a 85 gallon tank with a 20 gallon sump and i'm running a 300w heater. not really sure why the temp fluctuates the way it does. Is this a problem for keeping SPS corals?

 

[EastSideBAy]

1. Chasing number especially phosohates
2. leaving Flatworm Ext in too long
3. Not running enough flow
4. recently letting Vermatid snails overcome my tank resulting in me completely resetting my tank with new live rock

 

[Potatohead]

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.

The bolded part - You are saying dosing the RSCC was good or bad?

 

[2Wheelsonly]

The bolded part - You are saying dosing the RSCC was good or bad?

Good, very very good. Like it changed the hobby for me; never realized the color and growth I can get out of sps. I went from wondering if I can keep a frag alive after three months to running out of room on my rocks and buying rare more expensive sps and not being afraid it will die.