Why so hard?

[Sump Crab]

Do you have any stony corals? What do you dose?

Just LPS and softies for me. Only ever tried one birds nest frag back around 2009. SPS just don’t do it for me. No dosing what so ever.

 

[mcgallagherc]

This is such a humble brag post that doesn't add any meaningful discussion...

Somethings come very easy to people and others not so much. Trying to wrap my brain around all the information I received when my guy set it up was overwhelming. I run a car dealership and had a scholarship to play golf, I could blow somebody's mind in 5 mins with the information I have on these subjects to somebody who is a beginner. Stay humble my friends..

 

[Sump Crab]

It's because you've been lucky.

Go buy a raffle ticket.

Id rather be lucky than good lol! My luck seems to have been holding really strong since 2005. Hope it doesn’t run out anytime soon…

 

[Sump Crab]

This is such a humble brag post that doesn't add any meaningful discussion...

My mission on this forum is to promote the use of real live rock and emphasize taking on a more holistic approach to the hobby. Threads like this help bring awareness to the cause. I genuinely care about the hobby and can’t stand seeing all the posts about people constantly struggling and battling the hobby when it can be so easy if a different approach is taken.

 

[mcgallagherc]

My mission on this forum is to promote the use of real live rock and emphasize taking on a more holistic approach to the hobby. Threads like this help bring awareness to the cause. I genuinely care about the hobby and can’t stand seeing all the posts about people constantly struggling and battling the hobby when it can be so easy if a different approach is taken.

I also was set up for success using live rock, everything so far has been relatively easy other than why I can't keep my water level meter to stop beeping and pumping too much water from reservoir and and such.. livelihood and quality of tank has been a breeze, I do have a guy check up on it every 2 weeks but still all is well in that department.

 

[131696]

I spend all day everyday seeing about my tank it's that big..lol

 

[Swbvegas]

Wait so you had someone set your tank up and you pay them to maintain it but you're bragging about how easy this hobby is? Huh?

 

[mcgallagherc]

Wait so you had someone set your tank up and you pay them to maintain it but you're bragging about how easy this hobby is? Huh?

No, I'm not the one bragging about how easy this is, it's very difficult to me with the spare time I have for the upkeep and just beginning this hobby. Read back through post, I not once said this was easy to me

 

[Sump Crab]

We didnt have these forums and seminars as we do now. there is a required level of discipline and patience to be successful BUT with little effort now

reefcentral and wet web media were king in the era I started.

Its seems youre very pro live rock and pests looking at your other posts and see them as part of the ecosystem. For the most part id agree with you, my 15+year old 265g has aiptasia, bubble algae, invasive palys, and more. To be honest none of them have kept the reef from thriving. But you know what will? Nudibranchs, flatworms, bugs, etc. They will decimate colonies no matter what fish and inverts you have that eat pests. Ive dealt with montipora eating nudis, and ever since then everythings been quarantined. Losing all my 5-8 year old monti colonies one after another is quite painful and not something i want to go through again.

Live rock certainly makes things easier on start up and establishes a health biome very fast. I am by no means saying it doesnt work, but i certainly dont want to embrace any pests coming in. Ive setup tanks both with live rock and dry and both ways can be equally successful but dry does take more effort.

I believe most of the failures from new hobbyists come from rushing into things. Even with live rock if you are inexperienced you will most likely have difficultly keeping a thriving reef right off the bat. These hobbyists spend a ton of money of what their lfs tells them to, do everything theyre supposed to but throw coral and fish in immediately. Then when discouraged by the death of their new live stock thats usually when they come in here for help and saying this hobby is hard. And i would agree, compared to keeping other animals reefing is quite difficult.

I certainly agree that there are some real nasty pests out there, who do deserve that label. I recently dealt with a couple of mushroom eating fireworms. It’s the vermetid snails, asterina stars, red planaria, bristle worms, sponges, tunicates, etc of the world that I more so refer to. I see countless threads of ppl trying to eradicate plague like proportions of these guys. It’s like people can’t understand that these critters only take over a tank that lacks the proper competition to provide a natural check and balance. If a tank is allowed to run as a well balanced ecosystem these critters all find a happy place within their little world and help to provide the stability we all strive for.

 

[ZoWhat]

No mention of what corals are being kept

Complexity and level of husbandry skills has everything to do with what corals one is keeping.

.

 

[Jib]

My mission on this forum is to promote the use of real live rock and emphasize taking on a more holistic approach to the hobby. Threads like this help bring awareness to the cause. I genuinely care about the hobby and can’t stand seeing all the posts about people constantly struggling and battling the hobby when it can be so easy if a different approach is taken.

Then why not make a post with that sentiment? Why ask some vague question like "why is this so hard for you but easy for me"? Giving no thoughts or any real meaning to the post? No new reefer will ever find help with this kind of stiff.

 

[Sump Crab]

Then why not make a post with that sentiment? Why ask some vague question like "why is this so hard for you but easy for me"? Giving no thoughts or any real meaning to the post? No new reefer will ever find help with this kind of stiff.

I do and have. Read my past posts if you care. Get a life.

 

[Jedi1199]

My mission on this forum is to promote the use of real live rock and emphasize taking on a more holistic approach to the hobby. Threads like this help bring awareness to the cause. I genuinely care about the hobby and can’t stand seeing all the posts about people constantly struggling and battling the hobby when it can be so easy if a different approach is taken.

This is an issue that has 2 sides. Using live rock certainly will eliminate some of the issues many newbies incur. At what cost? Live rock, harvested from the reef? Is this a tradeoff worth taking? Live rock comes with its own issues.

A stable aquarium can be had with all of the same benefits of live rock with a simple few pieces of rock from an established tank. Further, there is truly no need at all for using live rock at all. ALL of my tanks were started with dry rock. I used a couple pieces of established dry rock to seed the bacteria I needed to skip cycle all of my tanks.

I am not sure what you are trying to promote here? Harvest live rock from the already decimated natural reefs to save yourself a bit of extra learning or work?

This attitude is absolutely opposite of everything we are trying to teach here on this forum.

Please clarify what your position is intended to promote?

 

[Sump Crab]

No mention of what corals are being kept

Complexity and level of husbandry skills has everything to do with what corals one is keeping.

.

Certainly true. A canoe takes a lot less maintenance than a motor boat. In many cases the answer to “why so hard” could be “because I choose take care of challenging critters”.

 

[Jib]

I do and have. Read my past posts if you care. Get a life.

Then post that stuff instead of giving poor attitude...my life is just fine, you seem like the cranky one...

 

[Sump Crab]

This is an issue that has 2 sides. Using live rock certainly will eliminate some of the issues many newbies incur. At what cost? Live rock, harvested from the reef? Is this a tradeoff worth taking? Live rock comes with its own issues.

A stable aquarium can be had with all of the same benefits of live rock with a simple few pieces of rock from an established tank. Further, there is truly no need at all for using live rock at all. ALL of my tanks were started with dry rock. I used a couple pieces of established dry rock to seed the bacteria I needed to skip cycle all of my tanks.

I am not sure what you are trying to promote here? Harvest live rock from the already decimated natural reefs to save yourself a bit of extra learning or work?

This attitude is absolutely opposite of everything we are trying to teach here on this forum.

Please clarify what your position is intended to promote?

Clearly you are unaware of all the operations that sell aquacultured live rock these days.

 

[Sump Crab]

Then post that stuff instead of giving poor attitude...my life is just fine, you seem like the cranky one...

Clearly I’m the problem.

 

[Tamberav]

I just don’t understand why people seem to think a reef is a ton of work? All I do is clean the glass, feed the fish, top off ato 2 times a month, and do a 5 gallon water change once a month.

What’s all this about tons of work and time to keep a tank from going sideways? Is it because people are not using real live rock from the ocean? Is it because they are constantly trying to prop up a broken ecosystem due to their anti “pest” protocols? Just wondering what the deal is and please pardon my ignorance. Thanks!

You can make it as hard or as easy as you want.

Some more difficult set ups would be NPS (I don't mean sun corals) or wild acropora.

A ton of work would be mini sea horses... well you have to hatch food every day at least and keep the water clean.

or you can do a softy or generalized average reef tank with a mix of things with popular common fish. This won't be a huge amount of work. I am not sure most think it is a ton of work? Maybe beginners get the wrong idea it is... since the hobby sells so much excess 'stuff'.

It's likely more work to say chase min/max color of acro's and growth/PE then it is to ... just keep acro's.

Some people just do 2 part (and some not even that) and others min max every trace element. Just depends what you are after.

 

[Jedi1199]

Clearly you are unaware of all the operations that sell aquacultured live rock these days.

Clearly, you are unaware of the proper wording needed to post your opinion in a way that does not produce an unintended reaction.

 

[Jedi1199]

Clearly you are unaware of all the operations that sell aquacultured live rock these days.

Based on this post alone, I could say that this is exactly what I have done. I used established dry rock. You could call it "live", to seed all of my tanks. I got all of the benefits of the bacterial colonies needed to skip cycle my tanks, with zero eco-footprint.

My tanks all use dry rock that has been seeded from those same 2 pieces of established dry rock.