Summary of my worst failures

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yes in written form but verbally it is indistinguishable from lime water. And googling lime water brings you this:

I would argue that we should just call the mineral Kalk and rename limewater to kalkwater.

It is a useless language
Nothing like spending 14 years learning it just to find there isn’t a German who can’t speak fluent English.

I think you will need to redo an awful lot of the english language if you want to protect people from words that sound alike but are different. lol

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It is nearly impossible to change terms. When real live rock was a thing, you could cure and cook it. Cure did not mean to treat nor to preserve...and certainly not a process where Robert Smith sings lead vocal. Cook never meant heat. At some point, probably some idiot did put some live rock in the oven or boiled it and everybody wanted to rename the process... only you cannot search the web or a site for the new terms. I always thought that it was stupid anyway... if people are dumb enough to boil or put live rock in the oven, then why won't they throw a basket of baseballs in their tanks when using the Balling method?

Reminds me…I’m still working on reefers to stop using the word melting. Nothing melts except frozen food in the world of reefing. lol

 

[jda]

Reminds me…I’m still working on reefers to stop using the word melting. Nothing melts except frozen food in the world of reefing. lol

#1 in my first post. Unbind vs leech (or leach) is terrible too. I have probably messed this up when typing fast, though.

Also think the hobby could be better if nutrients was not a catch all for anything that somebody heard, thought, saw, smelled or inferred that MIGHT benefit a coral. Just breaking down into energy vs building blocks could help a lot. Massive fail with this.

 

[Asm481]

Everyone has issues with their reefing efforts that they consider significant failures, and these are the ones that I consider worse than the usual loss of an organism...

1. For many years, I tried to steer the reefing community away from the utterly ridiculous unit of measure dKH for alkalinity. No scientist uses dKH. Almost no reefers can even tell you what it means. It's just a black box number to nearly everyone. But the continued lack of change by most of the hobby kit manufacturers to more reasonable units of measure (e.g., meq/L) defeated me, and I've largely given up.

2. For many years, I tried to steer the english speaking reefing community away from using german words for things that have perfectly good english words. Limewater (kalkwasser in german) is the prime example. Still trying, but failing.

3. I never had long term success with open brain (Trachyphyllia) corals. Not sure why.

4. I tried several times to try to maintain a large school of green chromis. They were nearly always described as easy fish. Always lost them one by one until only one or two were left. Now I far more often read that keeping such schools is actually fairly difficult, and I'm a bit relieved.

5. I lost the battle with vermetid tube worms. They were a significant reason for ultimately taking my tank down. Sounds like there are fish that might have done the trick, but I never tried them.

There are probably more that I'm just blocking out as a bad memory, but these are the ones that come to mind.

Perhaps others can follow up with what they consider their worst failures...

I can tell you why I use dKH, I can easily pronounce it! That meq/l business is just way to much to try and say. Simple as that. I do know what each means, but saying the initials is easier to say d k h as opposed to m e q back slash l. When I hear milliequivant per liter my ear shuts down somewhere around the q!

 

[Malcontent]

There are people in the hobby who believe UV sterilizers literally sterilize microorganisms.

And that ammonia can burn fish.

 

[Paullawr]

Everyone has issues with their reefing efforts that they consider significant failures, and these are the ones that I consider worse than the usual loss of an organism...

1. For many years, I tried to steer the reefing community away from the utterly ridiculous unit of measure dKH for alkalinity. No scientist uses dKH. Almost no reefers can even tell you what it means. It's just a black box number to nearly everyone. But the continued lack of change by most of the hobby kit manufacturers to more reasonable units of measure (e.g., meq/L) defeated me, and I've largely given up.

2. For many years, I tried to steer the english speaking reefing community away from using german words for things that have perfectly good english words. Limewater (kalkwasser in german) is the prime example. Still trying, but failing.

3. I never had long term success with open brain (Trachyphyllia) corals. Not sure why.

4. I tried several times to try to maintain a large school of green chromis. They were nearly always described as easy fish. Always lost them one by one until only one or two were left. Now I far more often read that keeping such schools is actually fairly difficult, and I'm a bit relieved.

5. I lost the battle with vermetid tube worms. They were a significant reason for ultimately taking my tank down. Sounds like there are fish that might have done the trick, but I never tried them.

There are probably more that I'm just blocking out as a bad memory, but these are the ones that come to mind.

Perhaps others can follow up with what they consider their worst failures...

Never mind Randy. I find Kalkwasser produces excellent dKH results! (I'm going already!!!)

 

[Paullawr]

Everyone has issues with their reefing efforts that they consider significant failures, and these are the ones that I consider worse than the usual loss of an organism...

1. For many years, I tried to steer the reefing community away from the utterly ridiculous unit of measure dKH for alkalinity. No scientist uses dKH. Almost no reefers can even tell you what it means. It's just a black box number to nearly everyone. But the continued lack of change by most of the hobby kit manufacturers to more reasonable units of measure (e.g., meq/L) defeated me, and I've largely given up.

2. For many years, I tried to steer the english speaking reefing community away from using german words for things that have perfectly good english words. Limewater (kalkwasser in german) is the prime example. Still trying, but failing.

3. I never had long term success with open brain (Trachyphyllia) corals. Not sure why.

4. I tried several times to try to maintain a large school of green chromis. They were nearly always described as easy fish. Always lost them one by one until only one or two were left. Now I far more often read that keeping such schools is actually fairly difficult, and I'm a bit relieved.

5. I lost the battle with vermetid tube worms. They were a significant reason for ultimately taking my tank down. Sounds like there are fish that might have done the trick, but I never tried them.

There are probably more that I'm just blocking out as a bad memory, but these are the ones that come to mind.

Perhaps others can follow up with what they consider their worst failures...

My worst failures.

1. Not listening to others failures or successes and learning from them.

2. Carrying out last minute aquarium maintenance or changing something before going on holiday. Once I added for some completely unknown reason a dechlorinator to the sink I decided to clean the skimmer in before heading off on our travels. 10 minutes in to re-installing skimmer it wasn't just producing fine bubbles they were emerging over the tank on to the floor - absolutely everywhere.
We left a good three hours later than anticipated (and I won't discuss words used by the better half on a public forum).

3. Attempting to fight Dinoflagelletes, from chemical cocktails, (Kalkwasser slurries - OK OK you win Limewater!) and elevating pH that high - it practically wiped everything out. I finally came to the conclusion you cannot beat them - you have to keep them in balance. It's still a tricky one - but one that I'm improving.

4. Trying to keep Acropora without really grasping the concept of Alkalinity swings.

5. Aiming for zero nitrate and phosphate levels - or closest that was measurable. Technology really aided with reaching those almost undetectable levels. Yet the best results I had was when I first started and really controlled water parameters with simple water changes.

 

[Dan_P]

Interesting. Do they school together?

They do this all day. When spooked they dive into the Xenia “bushes”.

 

[Miami Reef]

I have 12 chromis that are still alive over a year.

I think having lyretail anthias help a lot; they seem to keep the chromis in line. I feed once a day.

They shoal together.

My current failure involves plumbing. The sump is too small and I have to rely on check valves, which recently failed when I closed my return pumps (luckily I was there when it happened).

I paid a custom aquarium company to build my tank and sump because I didn’t want plumbing issues from the previous tank, but I’m back at the beginning.

I think my biggest failure is not planning on preventing these issues from happening. The custom aquarium company made other mistakes, too.

 

[Joekovar]

This has been my biggest failure. It's a 55G, and while I thought having columns would look cool with everything grown out, the tank is just too thin for it to work. The columns have been more of an annoyance than anything over the last 3 years.

I'm currently slowly fragging everything out of this tank, building up stock for when I replace this tank next year. Definitely not doing columns again.

 

[rishma]

2. Carrying out last minute aquarium maintenance or changing something before going on holiday. Once I added for some completely unknown reason a dechlorinator to the sink I decided to clean the skimmer in before heading off on our travels. 10 minutes in to re-installing skimmer it wasn't just producing fine bubbles they were emerging over the tank on to the floor - absolutely everywhere.
We left a good three hours later than anticipated (and I won't discuss words used by the better half on a public forum).


5. Aiming for zero nitrate and phosphate levels - or closest that was measurable. Technology really aided with reaching those almost undetectable levels. Yet the best results I had was when I first started and really controlled water parameters with simple water changes.

These two are spot on for me.

Don’t change water, don’t change GFO, don’t change anything before leaving. The key is, if there is an issue I must address before leaving, I must not procrastinate!!!! Oh the disasters I have caused….

This thread reminds me that my most successful reefs have been in the past. Low tech, high touch reefing. I had less knowledge, less money, more floods, more time and more success. If I didn’t know what the problem was, change water. Now I know what the problem is so I dose something or use a specific media to correct it, sometimes causing other problems.

My work and life just simply will not allow me keep a tank in the old ways, but I need to think more about why my old tanks were so good. I could be that my standards have also gone up and my memory is not quite right.

 

[areefer01]

I have also failed to get the truly excellent hobbyists to engage again to help others. This is my largest failure in my mind. I know a lot of them and they are so smart and experienced and happy to chat, text or email, but they cannot tolerate the stupidity from noobies full of bravado hidden behind computer screens enough to help.

What defines excellent?

Social media isn't helping. So many choices few behind paywalls or members only. Hobby is fractured and not everyone is welcome everywhere. Forums, discord, instagram, youtube, and more. Then there is the whole shopping around for answers.

We post replies but how do we judge credibility? Who currently maintains a display, when was the last display owned, who is an admin, sponsored, or paid admin answering questions? Some are outgoing, use real names, many don't, some are shy, etc. Crazy.

Many of us in the hobby go back to dial up or USENET or even printed media but would you know them from Adam today?

Reply aside worst failure would be not having a proper backup, electric or person, available while on vacation. It didn't help that it was a family reunion but I still could of paid the LFS or my neighbor. Long story short went on a family reunion vacation in 2000 summer but ENRON was creating artificial power shortages in California. Power went out, tripped the AC breaker, house temperature rose, evaporation kicked in, ATO ran dry, pumps ran dry, lost my 100 gallon display.

No one to blame by myself as I could have put measures in place to handle it.

 

[JAS927]

Limewater has an exact literal definition that is clear if you google it.

I took reading German as part of a two language requirement for my graduate chemistry degree. In retrospect it was the biggest waste of my time in those 4 years. lol

I always read “Kalkwasser” in a Brad Pitt, Seven Years in Tibet voice. Let’s normalize “limewater” so I don’t need to continue this.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I can tell you why I use dKH, I can easily pronounce it! That meq/l business is just way to much to try and say. Simple as that. I do know what each means, but saying the initials is easier to say d k h as opposed to m e q back slash l. When I hear milliequivant per liter my ear shuts down somewhere around the q!

Lol

Hard to argue with that.

 

[Garf]

The American contingent on here should probably just use their own units, that nobody else understands. Does that sound viable?

Edit - I believe Richard Ross calls them American Freedom Units.

 

[jda]

The American contingent on here should probably just use their own units, that nobody else understands. Does that sound viable?

It only works until your closest allies abandon you after a few hundred years. In the end, it is still a mess and nothing is gained. ...better to all be wrong together.

In some ways, Germany was first, so they win. If you think that this is bad in reefing, then don't venture into the freshwater world.

 

[Garf]

It only works until your closest allies abandon you after a few hundred years. In the end, it is still a mess and nothing is gained. ...better to all be wrong together.

In some ways, Germany was first, so they win. If you think that this is bad in reefing, then don't venture into the freshwater world.

My favourite reefing word is gelbstoff, lol

 

[areefer01]

The American contingent on here should probably just use their own units, that nobody else understands. Does that sound viable?

NASA Mars climate orbiter was lost due to someone forgetting to convert English units to Metric.... go figure.

 

[jimk60]

What defines excellent?

Social media isn't helping. So many choices few behind paywalls or members only. Hobby is fractured and not everyone is welcome everywhere. Forums, discord, instagram, youtube, and more. Then there is the whole shopping around for answers.

We post replies but how do we judge credibility? Who currently maintains a display, when was the last display owned, who is an admin, sponsored, or paid admin answering questions? Some are outgoing, use real names, many don't, some are shy, etc. Crazy.

Many of us in the hobby go back to dial up or USENET or even printed media but would you know them from Adam today?

Reply aside worst failure would be not having a proper backup, electric or person, available while on vacation. It didn't help that it was a family reunion but I still could of paid the LFS or my neighbor. Long story short went on a family reunion vacation in 2000 summer but ENRON was creating artificial power shortages in California. Power went out, tripped the AC breaker, house temperature rose, evaporation kicked in, ATO ran dry, pumps ran dry, lost my 100 gallon display.

No one to blame by myself as I could have put measures in place to handle it.

Seems like if you don't toe the line of the you tube Instagram people you will be dismissed as not understanding the current state of the hobby.

 

[Hans-Werner]

My worst mistakes. Is failures the same?

- Thinking I had to phosphate limit coral growth to meet "natural conditions" for some years. It took me some time to find out that in this case limitation was not good for corals.

- Giving too much credit to voices saying copper is bad and iron is good. It only worsened my trace elements formula. Someone even told me that the formula was better before the modification.

- Spending too little attention to some practical experience which was "impossible". Sometimes the observation was good and only the explanation was bad. With the proper explanation also the observation worked. Most recent example is nitrate as an oxidant and radical former instead as a nutrient at high concentrations.

- Keeping Acreichthys tomentosus and Euphyllia together. The coral slowly withered while it did thrive before. I think the fish picked from the coral.