Reefing's most puzzling conundrums..

revhtree · May 30, 2023

What aspect of reefing do you find most perplexing or challenging to comprehend?

For me there are certain things I can understand very well and yet other things that I struggle to wrap my head around! Maybe for you it's a popular reefing concept, a specific fragging technique, how certain pieces of equipment work together, why one coral thrives and yet another dies in your tank, the balancing act of water chemistry and a library more, full of examples!

So what is it for you? Maybe we can learn some things together!

What are reefing's most puzzling conundrums for you?

o2manyfish · May 30, 2023

I think the biggest challenge for me is dealing with a living organism. I can have 350 different corals in my tank and out of the blue one piece starts to go downhill without any known reason.

Even when running large scale frag production and have 10k frags in a warehouse. Every morning there are skeletons to pull. One out of 400 identical frags is toast. Frags that have been doing great and growing well for 4 months and then one day a piece just dies.

These 'issues' for which I can't do anything to avoid it happening again are what puzzle, confound, frustrate me the most. I mean if I have an Alk swing cause I'm lazy I know how to stop it from happening again. But random death is just mind boggling.

Dave B

Troylee · May 30, 2023

Stn and rtn…. Acros be tripping for no reason! 40 are happy and ones like “CHECK PLEASE”

Slocke · May 30, 2023

For me why everyone has different nuisance issues.
For example I can't seem to permanently get rid of cyano and whenever my nutrients go out of whack it comes back smothering my corals and making my tank ugly. On the other hand I know I have bubble algae, hair algae, and aiptasia in both my tanks but in all cases my first attempted solution has worked instantly. A foxface, urchins and mexican turbos, and either peppermint shrimp or a butterfly fish respectively. However I know from a recent poll that other people have completely different experiences.

o2manyfish said:
I think the biggest challenge for me is dealing with a living organism. I can have 350 different corals in my tank and out of the blue one piece starts to go downhill without any known reason.

Even when running large scale frag production and have 10k frags in a warehouse. Every morning there are skeletons to pull. One out of 400 identical frags is toast. Frags that have been doing great and growing well for 4 months and then one day a piece just dies.

These 'issues' for which I can't do anything to avoid it happening again are what puzzle, confound, frustrate me the most. I mean if I have an Alk swing cause I'm lazy I know how to stop it from happening again. But random death is just mind boggling.

Dave B

Totally agree with this. I buy from the same LFS and 90% of corals I get open immediately but for some reason randomly one won't or will just struggle for months. Just got a 3 pack of zoas. Two already have new heads the other only opened a little before wasting away.

zheka757 · May 30, 2023

Rts, and stn, are my unsolvable puzzles, another one is, 1 or 2 acro's will not grow at all, no PE, not losing tissue, just not growing what so ever. Maybe some corals are just not ment to stay happy in some systems.

Propane · May 30, 2023

That you can never replicate what someone else does by doing what they do. I get that it’s a living biome but you won’t be able to completely replicate results. There always seems to be an X factor.

zheka757 · May 30, 2023

Propane said:
That you can never replicate what someone else does by doing what they do. I get that it’s a living biome but you won’t be able to completely replicate results. There always seems to be an X factor.

In a way, I think you can, if you take half of this systems rocks and sand and plant a new tank, I think you can duplicate it.

Dburr1014 · May 30, 2023

The more we know the less we find out we don't know.
I'm struggling sometimes with this.

StatelineReefer · May 30, 2023

It is always... ALWAYS... the thing you said "I just checked that, it should be fine" when you have a reef tank issue.

Propane · May 30, 2023

Dburr1014 said:
The more we know the less we find out we don't know.
I'm struggling sometimes with this.

it’s why I love this hobby. The only endgame will be where I choose to stop.

EricR · May 30, 2023

I've seen it stated that HOB power filters do not provide sufficient aeration/oxygenation.

Seems to me that a moving sheet of water (from the HOB) with both sides exposed to air would actually work well for that,,, plus breaks up the water surface anyway.

*I get that a normal power head could be better at dispersing oxygenated water throughout the tank but I don't think that's what I've read as the reason HOBs aren't efficient (at oxygenation)

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 30, 2023

Mine are:

1. What precisely leads to specific pests becoming problematic in some tanks and not others.

2. What, if anything, does iodine do in a typical reef tank that is beneficial, and how does it do it?

3. An index of the goldilocks zone (not too high or too low) for each trace element for each organism we keep.

EricR · May 30, 2023

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
...
3. An index of the goldilocks zone (not too high or too low) for each trace element for each organism we keep.

I just trust the ranges recommended by whatever ICP test I picked and hope that someday I'll stumble onto some suggested ranges that YOU publish!
...just kidding,,, kinda

Gumbies R Us · May 30, 2023

Why is money always just vanishing from my bank account while trying to maintain my reef tank

JGT · May 30, 2023

Troylee said:
Stn and rtn…. Acros be tripping for no reason! 40 are happy and ones like “CHECK PLEASE”

This^^^and BJD for euphyllias. Params are perfect, corals growing, good color, and then bam! Outta left field and no explanation. Incredibly frustrating.

Gumbies R Us · May 30, 2023

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
1. What precisely leads to specific pests becoming problematic in some tanks and not others.

I have always wondered this as well. So strange how some people can deal with bad outbreaks while others don have any at all.

Troylee · May 30, 2023

Gumbies R Us said:
I have always wondered this as well. So strange how some people can deal with bad outbreaks while others don have any at all.

I’d say wrasse selection… 6lines are mean but they’re great for pest control.. I know a couple reefers who have had bouts with aefw and then all the sudden they didn’t have any problems…

jkcoral · May 30, 2023

After 20+ years, one question still plagues me:

Why do my clownfish hate me, why are they so mean?

I don’t understand it. I am kind to them, feed them way more than they could ever want, provide them anything they need, and give them a lot more leeway when it comes to their behavior than I allow other fish. Despite this, they still hate me and curse my existence. They remain violent and confrontational, and seem to enjoy the taste of my blood. Just wish I could understand.

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 30, 2023

jkcoral said:
After 20+ years, one question still plagues me:

Why do my clownfish hate me, why are they so mean?

I think you might need to look in a mirror. Mine loved me.

lol

Fritz05 · May 30, 2023

o2manyfish said:
I think the biggest challenge for me is dealing with a living organism. I can have 350 different corals in my tank and out of the blue one piece starts to go downhill without any known reason.

Even when running large scale frag production and have 10k frags in a warehouse. Every morning there are skeletons to pull. One out of 400 identical frags is toast. Frags that have been doing great and growing well for 4 months and then one day a piece just dies.

These 'issues' for which I can't do anything to avoid it happening again are what puzzle, confound, frustrate me the most. I mean if I have an Alk swing cause I'm lazy I know how to stop it from happening again. But random death is just mind boggling.

Dave B

Agree. The unexplicable changes for the worse in individual corals are very frustrating. I have begrudgingly learned to accept that certain corals die and any attempt to save them can endanger the other ones which continued to do great.