Your Worst/Biggest Aquarium Frustrations??

[Saltysav96]

When you buy an expensive fish or coral and it dies....

Also the scratches on the glass or when you forget you have your ro unit running and it overflows.

 

[Saltysav96]

When you buy an expensive fish or coral and it dies....

Also the scratches on the glass or when you forget you have your ro unit running and it overflows.

 

[Fercho]

Dialing in my additives to achieve nice coral color on some of my sps.

 

[Rob Lion]

I created the PERFECT living space for a Bubble Tip anemone.... lovely curved bowl like mature live rock, set in the middle height of the tank, on back wall, under ideal lighting and flow, lots of foot holds so it could move up and down, left are right so that could get its best water flow and lighting.... everything was perfect.... it took me nearly 3 weeks of work to get it all ready... exactly where my 2 clowns already live, they spend hours cleaning the rocks there every day.... all perfect..... covered the wave makers and overflow with mesh......

Water parameters were were stable for many months, 0.2 nitrate, 0.015 Phosphates, 8.25 pH... temp never fluctuating by more than 1 deg C a day....

when it was all ready..... I ordered my pretty marble green bubble tip anemone..... next day it arrived.... took my time acclimating it.... I was so excited..... carefully lifted it up placed it, dead center on the curve of the rock bowl..... within minutes it opened up..... wow... so stunning... stretched out, sun bathing.... tentacles flowing in the gentle but turbulent water..... all was perfect..

The next day I woke up..... excited to see if my clowns were hosting it..... it was gone.... no where to be seen until it emerged later in the day right in the middle of my beautiful SPS !

And every time i move it..... it just goes back to the SPS spot ...... sigh.... :mad:

 

[Mr. Brooks]

All my Zoas refuse to open after months of trying EVERYTHING. Plus hair algae growing while cheato is going nuts. Triton test came back, I have extremely elevated iron in my tank. I tore the whole thing down looking for a rusted screw or something. Found nothing. Cheato is growing yellow instead of deep green as if there was an iron deficiency. I can't keep snails alive for the life of me. They die within days of being added. I'm completely stumped!

 

[jluspo]

Aptasia - cannot get rid of them

 

[maroun.c]

Aptasia
Cyano
fish that die for no apparent reason after being healthy for months
air bubbles that appears in the glass after 4-5 years and makes you question tank integrity and whether you need to replace glass as precaution and risk a restart of your tank or just wait it out risking a flood.

 

[Cory]

Algae and alkalinty testing.

Also, i have to stop diy... I suck at it

 

[NanaReefer]

2yrs with the worst sand bed I've ever seen! [emoji31][emoji31]

 

[Darth George]

Finding room for more aquariums. . . grrrrr!

 

[Randy Walker]

Advice......Forget the high tech crap ! Go old school , get out the 5 g buckets , fill em , empty them w/ your RO you will never over fill a tank that way ! Dump the skimmers , that's what water changes are for.My biggest upgrade in 20 years was a UV , made my own wet dry w/ a 5g bucket ran with an old Magnum ( wasn't old then ) Under gravel filters w/ power heads , no dirty sand in my tanks . A little hard work never killed a good fishman , controlling your tank with money and a remote control isn't for me !

 

[SydneyReefer]

Nitrates and Hair Algae Especially when it's over some corals.
Hate losing new fish for no obvious reason!

 

[Drauka99]

How differently some tanks act for no real reason. I have kept SPS before with minimal effort, current tank even with lots of effort they tent to slowly die. Everything is in check and LPS and other corals do well.

 

[Bob Escher]

Waiting till all cycles have completed to really see results. Worrying about every little change that happens EVERY day. Sighing over every loss and jumping for joy at every success

 

[JamesPettus]

Ich!
I just got ich a 3 weeks ago and I lost a lot of fish. Powder blue, powder brown, flame angle, lemon peel angle, Bartlett anthis, Psudochromis, orchard dottyback. And I was dosing kick ich (reef safe) but I think the ich started dying all at one time and my nitrites shot up and all my sps are dying and I have a huge alge bloom. And I've been doing weekly 20% water changes since I noticed the ich. Smh. I just want to tear down the tank.

 

[NeptuneGarden]

Niagra Falls in the living room at 2am, loud enough to wake me up (thank God) ..... been there done that.

 

[ahammer]

Receiving poorly shipped corals.

 

[Evan West]

Niagra Falls in the living room at 2am, loud enough to wake me up (thank God) ..... been there done that.

Worst fear right here, what happen?

 

[Clayalaleona]

spaghetti worms :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

 

[NeptuneGarden]

Worst fear right here, what happen?

It made a giant mess. It was on freshwater tank set-up with auto-water change system that went haywire. I got pretty luck and the wall the tank backed up to had the garage on the other side and most of the water ran under the wall and out into the garage. Good lesson on designing systems with back-ups for the back-ups.