What do you hate about reefkeeping?

[littlefoxx]

If you've had the opportunity to keep a marine aquarium you know that it can bring some of the greatest joy and happiness of your life, but it has its moments when it's frustrating, devastating, or just is alot more challenging than what you signed up for. Whether it be a tank crash, a loss of your favorite fish, or just something that's downright annoying and frustirating like an aptasia or a hair algae and cyanno outbreak. That being said, what is something that you absolutely despise about reefkeeping, I'll go first.

1: vermited worms or burrowing clams, the wild favia I just picked up is infested with them and they're very hard to kill

2: tank crashes. Self explanatory

3: cyanno. also Self explanatory

4: GFO. Great at removing phosphates but covers anything in a 3 foot radius with GFO powder, a pain to clean up

5: water changes with a smaller RODI filter, it takes 8 hours


What's your list?

BRISTLE WORMS

 

[drolmaeye]

Prices as of late

lack of availability of certain livestock and equipment

At times - required maintenance

Risk of pests and disease

Tanks are tranquil, relaxing, colorful and unique opposed to many freshwater systems and other hobbies

Couldn't have said it better myself (so I'm glad you did, LOL).

 

[littlefoxx]

Not being able to get what you want. I’d love a dwarf lionfish, but the two I ordered online died within a few days, and my only other option is to just hope it shows up at a local store.

I love my fuzzy! Shes my favorite fish. She showed up at my LFS the size of a quarter plus her fins one day when I was going for food. Ended up bringing her home. Sooo adorable! Highly recommend if you can get one at the LFS.

 

[19Mateo83]

The part I hate the most is the constant evaporation and the associated humidy it adds in your home.

 

[air_run]

I dislike how much the reefing hobby is equipment centric and uses expensive equipment as the bar for competent reefing.

Guilty.

I have been learning and have learned the hard way. What a slap in the face over the last few years of getting in the hobby.

 

[InactiveAcct]

I hate the coral naming / designer corals and prices. 15 years ago you went to a LFS and a beautiful 3 inch monti was called “$15”. Just personal preference but in my tanks I’ve focused on growing a handful of large colonies vs variety of designer corals. That said the equipment is much better now.

 

[apb03]

Dinos
Aptasia
Wasting money on useless or wrong stuff
Losing fish
Losing coral

Every action has a reaction. Nothing is ever truly reef safe. Even shutting down the lights for a couple days will blow up something. This fact really annoys me.

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

Not being able to get what you want. I’d love a dwarf lionfish, but the two I ordered online died within a few days, and my only other option is to just hope it shows up at a local store.

Try ordering one through your LFS, fish stores usually get regular fish shipments from a wholesaler, something like quality marine, if you go there alot and are a good customer they might order one in for you

 

[bakbay]

Peppermint shrimp
You need to add say 10, you will never see aptasia again, ever

I’ve added 10 peppermint shrimps but only 1 survived. 100s of aiptasias multiplied instead. Did the same with nudibranches — they all died.

I gave up — just zap them manually with Kalk paste every few months. Painful but I’ve learned to live with aiptasias.

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

Peppermint shrimp
You need to add say 10, you will never see aptasia again, ever

And a only a few of your corals if you're lucky

Though seriously I've heard horror stories with peppermint shrimp, I'd much rather take my chances with a copperband, even if they eat your LPS they are stunning

 

[One Reefing Boi]

Two of my favorite reef related things are zoanthids and puffer fish. I refuse to keep either of them bc of the toxins associated with each.

And now that I’m finally in my 40s … water is heavy. I have to figure out a better way of handling weekly water changes. Lugging buckets upstairs and outside isn’t as much fun as it used to be.

For what it's worth, Palytoxin really isn't too bad if you just use gloves and don't like boil or eat the zoa's. Would hate for you to not keep them because of this, I have hundreds in my tank and they are so beautiful and unique! But if it isn't worth the risk then no issues, but figured I would let you know.

The ones that are the biggest risk are the jumbo brown and green palys, most of the designer zoas are pretty safe if you practice safe husbandry and handling!

 

[CoralB]

I dislike power surges and outages . Even though I’m prepared with backup generators . the skimmer always gets filled up prematurely and shuts off when the power comes back on . Plus surges lately have been numerous to the point it has rendered a couple sockets on my surge protector useless .

 

[jimfish98]

Staying away from pests and such, focus on the hobby....

1- The insane cost of things. I get some things, but most stuff is marked up so high it is mind boggling. Went to the LFS for LifeRock, asked to match online price, and they couldn't. Admitted they can only get it about $10 less than online price, yet the store was charging $80 more than the online price. The online store was giving free shipping, so I can't imagine how low their cost is to offer free shipping. Then look at the makers of our stuff. Vectra's smallest pump is twice the cost of my koi pond DC pump that pushes over 5000gph. Pick a piece of equipment and the same applies. Coral is the obvious with prices all over the place. I think the prices keep most people from entering the hobby and the long term costs end up resulting in closed tanks.

2- The feeling like I have to keep the tank running for future generations to enjoy what is dying in the wild. Costs, time, etc is up there but the alternative kind of sucks. Great barrier, bleached. South Florida after this summer, bleached. This summer I went snorkeling off Venezuela and a lot of it was bleached. Look at the axolotl where it thrives in hobby, nearly extinct in the wild. I feel reefs/corals around the world are heading in the same direction. My family, nieces, etc love seeing the tanks and I wonder if my grandkids will only see coral in my tank or an aquarium and never in the wild.

 

[bushdoc]

Snake oil salesmen trying to convince me that their product is so unique that it will resolve all my reefing problems.

 

[Hhaynie]

I am still less than a year In with my first tank, and I already hate how “copy-and-paste” rules the reefing hobby. I have a few years of freshwater experience, and there is a million completely different types of freshwater tanks, and different ways to do each one. I think the freshwater culture is less concerned with what everyone else is doing. You can be the aquascaper, or the apistogramma nerd, or the domestic betta parent: reefs though, are too similar for me.

And then the weird mix of elitism and equipment prices. Everything has to be ecotech, or it’s not really reefing

 

[Barncat]

1. The expense; I'm poor as dirt right now so I can't really buy the fish I actually want to buy. I want a royal gramma but they cost $80+ here so I'm putting serious thought into a yellowtail damselfish because they are only $15 and I am SO tired of how my baby clownfish is always hanging out behind my rockwork so I can't see either of my fish most of the time. (My goby is also almost always out of sight.) I also want a picasso clown but instead I'm probably just getting a black photon. Corals? I have to forget about those entirely for a while which sucks because I have this theory that if I had a euphillia coral Moby the clownfish would live with it (and therefore hang out where I can actually see the little jerk.)
2. How danged loud my stupid emergancy air pump is. Its buzzing is supremely annoying but I can't afford a quieter emergency pump for now.
3. How my aquarium equipment is exposed, but again, can't afford a proper stand.
4. How my very high prey drive (but extremely adorable) cat has scared my fish. Thankfully this is something that I'm working on and unlike my other problems, is likely solvable with some fortifications (namely getting more dollarstore 'pigeon' spikes.) A better, taller stand would help enormously with this too though.

Thanks for the opportunity to whine.

 

[exnisstech]

RTN OR STN to a single piece when everything else in the tank is fine. I'm new to sticks and it has only happened a couple of times but when it does it's always one of my favorite ones.

 

[FrugalReefer]

When people at my work view me as just a maintenance guy who makes 15/hour and does simple things like changing light bulbs or unclogging toilets when the reality is I’m a maintenance electrician making much more than 15/hour building, repairing and troubleshooting complex electrical work that you would never understand. Just kidding. Let’s see, vermetids, bristle worms, bubble algae, reef keepers on other social media platforms who have insanely nice tanks, which there’s nothing wrong with of course, but feel the need to post every day to every other day just to show off how insanely nice their tanks are. I just to want to comment on these posts ‘Ok, we get it already, you have a really nice tank’, but then I would come off looking like a jerk.

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

When people at my work view me as just a maintenance guy who makes 15/hour and does simple things like changing light bulbs or unclogging toilets when the reality is I’m a maintenance electrician making much more than 15/hour building, repairing and troubleshooting complex electrical work that you would never understand. Just kidding. Let’s see, vermetids, bristle worms, bubble algae, reef keepers on other social media platforms who have insanely nice tanks, which there’s nothing wrong with of course, but feel the need to post every day to every other day just to show off how insanely nice their tanks are. I just to want to comment on these posts ‘Ok, we get it already, you have a really nice tank’, but then I would come off looking like a jerk.

This is so relatable, we work on our tank for hours every week and someone always seems to do it better.

 

[adinath]

definitely Vermitid Snails ! I just hate them. they suddenly come from nowhere! and once they start reproducing, it's really pain in hole to take them out! I just hate them!