Your reefing nightmare

[ReeferSteve]

Story time anyone?

Long time battle with illnesses? Coral dying for no reason? GHA takeover? Fish dropping like flies? Tank fracture? Power outage?

Let’s hear those stories of your single most nightmarish reefing experience you’ve encountered in your own tank!

And maybe you can spread the knowledge learned from those experiences that can help a fellow reefer.

 

[ahiggins]

Not mine, but my brother who insisted on getting a tank going after he saw how pretty they could be. No knowledge. Had me set it up for him. Didn’t see it for about 6 months and it was a hot mess. He loved the anemones (aptasia) growing on all 4 sides of the tank AND in the sand, filter pad was so dirty it wasn’t allowing water to move through, nitrates at 100+, at one point the powerhead fell off and blew sand over all the corals and they grew around it so they were bumpy and deformed. It was just plain bad lol

 

[ReeferSteve]

Not mine, but my brother who insisted on getting a tank going after he saw how pretty they could be. No knowledge. Had me set it up for him. Didn’t see it for about 6 months and it was a hot mess. He loved the anemones (aptasia) growing on all 4 sides of the tank AND in the sand, filter pad was so dirty it wasn’t allowing water to move through, nitrates at 100+, at one point the powerhead fell off and blew sand over all the corals and they grew around it so they were bumpy and deformed. It was just plain bad lol

Honestly, some of that made me laugh lol.

Did any fish survive?

 

[ahiggins]

Honestly, some of that made me laugh lol.

Did any fish survive?

I laugh about it now lol but yea none of his fish died. It was a 30 gallon with 2 clowns and a cardinal. They were still alive when we took them back to the lfs hahaha I tore that tank down after that. Poor guy had no idea what he was getting into.

 

[Victor_C3]

This was more than 10 years ago, but I lost nearly all of my corals while I was gone on vacation for two weeks.

I had a friend come by every other day to feed and check on things. He had no aquarium experience, but I wasn’t too concerned. For some reason, the lights didn’t turn on. My buddy didn’t think anything of it and so he didn’t bother to fix it or let me know. After 10 days, when I came home, every one of my SPS colonies had died. My friend didn’t think the lights were important.

As for lessons learned, I think they speak for themselves. Don’t trust even the best intentioned friends to keep an eye on your tank if they don’t have any firsthand experience with reefkeeping.

 

[ReeferSteve]

This was more than 10 years ago, but I lost nearly all of my corals while I was gone on vacation for two weeks.

I had a friend come by every other day to feed and check on things. He had no aquarium experience, but I wasn’t too concerned. For some reason, the lights didn’t turn on. My buddy didn’t think anything of it and so he didn’t bother to fix it or let me know. After 10 days, when I came home, every one of my SPS colonies had died. My friend didn’t think the lights were important.

As for lessons learned, I think they speak for themselves. Don’t trust even the best intentioned friends to keep an eye on your tank if they don’t have any firsthand experience with reefkeeping.

Oh man that’s tough.