When does this become fun?

[Chris27]

This hobby is always fun....you just can't see it yet. After a few months of pulling your hair out, emptying your wallet and loosing sleep, out of the blue it'll just be fun. Things will start going your way, the tank will start running itself, and everyone who walks through the front door will comment on how cool it looks.

Patience is not an easy trait to master with this hobby. In the beginning you want to move at the speed of light and make every adjustment possible; it really just ends in disaster most times.

Approach things slowly, from the lowest common denominator. Sometimes you get lucky, and one small tweak can make a world of difference.

Take your phosphate level for example, I have a funny feeling that if you do a large water change and leave the lights off for a few days, it will turn around quickly....

Keep at it, just remember that there is always someone who had it worse then you.

[Spyderturbo007]

Originally Posted by chrisfont23

Spyder... this is a great post. Honestly. Let me try to give you some advice. First and foremost, I don't think there is a day that goes by where I say to myself that life would be easier without my 27g hex, my 10 gallon cardinal shoal, my 250g koi/cat pond or my 30 gallon water garden (I have resigned myself to minimally mentally keeping one), my 29 gallon Fire Belly Toad Vivarium (complete with [spawning] fish) or my 90g reef tank. Simple. But then what would I do?

That's a lot of water to take care of every day, but I imagine it's beautiful.

Originally Posted by sjnovakovich

In your equipment list, I didn't see any circulating pumps. Good circulation helps keep things like cyano away and the flow through your live rock will increase the filtration of your water.

Oops. I must have missed that when I typed up the list. I currently have one Koralia Evolution 1050. I was planning on picking up one for the other side, but I haven't decided what I want to buy. I was drooling over the ReefKeeper Elite V2 today and see it doesn't work with the Koralia pumps. I'm still up in arms for now.

Originally Posted by Bolivian Ram

Good. Betta bowls suck.

That's what I had him (Frank) in to begin with, but I just couldn't imagine how it was a good environment for him. It's amazing how much more active he is and how much more vibrant his colors have become since moving into his new tank.

Originally Posted by Chris27

This hobby is always fun....you just can't see it yet. After a few months of pulling your hair out, emptying your wallet and loosing sleep, out of the blue it'll just be fun.

Sounds just about where I'm at right now.

Originally Posted by Chris27

Take your phosphate level for example, I have a funny feeling that if you do a large water change and leave the lights off for a few days, it will turn around quickly....

Is it OK to turn off my lights for a few days with the Zoanthids in there? I won't kill them or anything? I'm assuming the snails and hermit crabs won't mind, but I thought they needed light.

I've settled on the BRS Deluxe GFO reactor. I spent about 3 hours yesterday re-wiring my cabinet and moving everything around. I was able to gain enough space to install a GFO reactor.

[Allmost]

you gotta make the maintanance fun for yourself !

I enjoy working on my tank ... so I can spend the whole weekend on it and wouldnt trade it with doing anything else ...

the evolution of my glass box amazes me ...

[ibefishy]

Originally Posted by Allmost

you gotta make the maintanance fun for yourself !

I enjoy working on my tank ... so I can spend the whole weekend on it and wouldnt trade it with doing anything else ...

the evolution of my glass box amazes me ...

I second that. Its how I relax now. Water change and some weekend tank maintenence is a great weekend.

My earlier remark about never being "fun" was sarcasm. Just wanted to clarify.

[Spyderturbo007]

Well, I guess the answer to my question would be that it became fun yesterday. I recently picked up some hammer coral and a small polyp. My CUC has been running around in there keeping everything nice and clean for me. Every once in awhile, I throw in some extra brine shrimp when I'm feeding my Fire Fish that's in QT. I've never turned on the pumps or paid any attention to what happens after adding the couple pieces of food.

Well, yesterday after work I decided I was going to try and feed my hammer coral. I shut the pumps off, grabbed some shrimp from the freezer, thawed it out and gave each head once small piece. It immediately grabbed it and moved it to it's mouth. By this time my wife was really interested in what was going on and pulled up a chair.

There was a hermit crab milling the hammer coral trying to figure out how to steal the food, so I figured I would give him a small piece for his effort. I dropped it on the sand and was absolutely shocked when things started appearing from all over the tank. Within a few minutes there were snails coming from the other side of the tank. Hermit crabs appearing out of nowhere. It was insane.

I have no idea how they knew the food was there when they were on the other side of the tank. There were things coming out of the woodwork. One of the snails got into a battle royal with the hermit crab for about 5 minutes fighting for the food.

Two of the other snails couldn't figure out how to get past the hammer coral and looked like they kept getting stung trying to find a way around. Some little transparent thing that I've never seen before appeared out of the sand and started darting around the tank. It ended up right in the area where the food was and started digging in the sand. All of a sudden, it popped out, starting flying around and boom, right into the hammer coral. The coral grabbed a hold of it and had another meal.

I have to say it was a lot of fun watching all this happen. I was genuinely surprised at the ability of these little buggers to find the food from the other side of the tank.

I can only imagine what it will be like in 6+ months with fish and more coral.

[aandfsoccr04]

aww everybody loves a happy ending! Patience is a virtue, but it's important in this hobby. I was amazed at the hermits ability to find food as well. I was baiting a trap trying to catch a fish to get it out and about 15 hermits showed up within 3-4 minutes. It was insane!

[Cloudburst2000]

Originally Posted by Spyderturbo007

Well, I guess the answer to my question would be that it became fun yesterday. I recently picked up some hammer coral and a small polyp. My CUC has been running around in there keeping everything nice and clean for me. Every once in awhile, I throw in some extra brine shrimp when I'm feeding my Fire Fish that's in QT. I've never turned on the pumps or paid any attention to what happens after adding the couple pieces of food.

Well, yesterday after work I decided I was going to try and feed my hammer coral. I shut the pumps off, grabbed some shrimp from the freezer, thawed it out and gave each head once small piece. It immediately grabbed it and moved it to it's mouth. By this time my wife was really interested in what was going on and pulled up a chair.

There was a hermit crab milling the hammer coral trying to figure out how to steal the food, so I figured I would give him a small piece for his effort. I dropped it on the sand and was absolutely shocked when things started appearing from all over the tank. Within a few minutes there were snails coming from the other side of the tank. Hermit crabs appearing out of nowhere. It was insane.

I have no idea how they knew the food was there when they were on the other side of the tank. There were things coming out of the woodwork. One of the snails got into a battle royal with the hermit crab for about 5 minutes fighting for the food.

Two of the other snails couldn't figure out how to get past the hammer coral and looked like they kept getting stung trying to find a way around. Some little transparent thing that I've never seen before appeared out of the sand and started darting around the tank. It ended up right in the area where the food was and started digging in the sand. All of a sudden, it popped out, starting flying around and boom, right into the hammer coral. The coral grabbed a hold of it and had another meal.

I have to say it was a lot of fun watching all this happen. I was genuinely surprised at the ability of these little buggers to find the food from the other side of the tank.

I can only imagine what it will be like in 6+ months with fish and more coral.

Yeah, I love watching the little guys in my tank especially during feeding time. They do come out of nowhere. My brittle star can smell the smallest piece of food and it can move fast too. Just yesterday, I saw that one of my larger hermits had molted (his shell and molt were in the front right corner) and then I saw something buried under the sand through the glass. It was the hermit waiting for his new skin to harden up some. I thought it as interesting that he had buried himself in the sand like that. Luckily, it was right next to the glass so I could watch.

[KafudaFish]

Figure out what made you get into the hobby in the first place and focus your efforts on that and design your system to accomplish those goals.

Too often people focus on what they don't have and are thinking of what to buy next etc. instead of appreciating what they have in their tank.

Also if this hobby was a race it would be a marathon instead of a sprint due to the nature of it i.e. animals that can live longer than dogs and cats (if you have ever owned a dog it was not trained in a few days).

These living systems change over time. The other thing to remember is bad things will happen. Sorry to burst your bubble but at some point something will either go wrong due to the biology of the sytem or there will be mechanical issues.

The secret is to figure out how to overcome those issues.

For those that have never had an issue, then those people are either grand master reef keepers or they have not been in the hobby long enough.

FYI even TOTM owners have issues and I think it would be safe to say that they have a better understanding of their systems than most.

[Gandolfe]

Maybe if you sell your tank and get enough money to go to disney land it will be fun! LOL otherwise a constant headache,money pit,blood pressure raiser,etc... Until the one day you look in your tank and see a bunch of babies, that an anemone split, or what the heck is that? but it's cool...then it's fun

[Paul B]

But seriously, is this really supposed to be fun or am I just incompetent?

To me it is fun, when it becomes a source of stress, worry or financial burden, I throw it in the garbage.
You are not incompetent, just overzealous. It gets much easier and I think you spent way too much to start. My tank is very old, I hardly have to do any maintenance, don't change much water, don't own test kits and don't spend very much. Eventually you will figure out what is needed and what is just hype.
It may take a little patience.

[baldbean]

I thought the same thing too, but then things started getting better as I researched and applied what I learned. I had hair algae galore and then an algae bloom in the water column. I thought it would never end. I am still fighting patches of GHA today, but everything looks A LOT better. Just be patient and give it time. I have learned that in this hobby results do not happen over night, look for subtle changes and research. I have some pictures here of my tank if you would like to see it, things were way bad at first...

Check out the link its nothing fancy, but you can at least see the first few months progression.

[zoafarm]

Reefing can be a challenge at times and very rewarding/addictive at others. Plus Expensive. Listening to some of your problems, I think you are very excited about the hobby. However, if you're like I was, everything looks awesome and you gotta have it now. This is not a good approach and can be very frustrating. From what I can see your tank is just over a month old and needs more time. Zoas are probably ok (minus the nudis), Hammer is maybe pushing it (but maybe okay), but small polyp (SPS???, may not be good idea yet).

[tonytboss]

haha

[djmatteo]

To battle Nitrate/Phosphate and GHA consider an algae scrubber. They have prebuilt ones that are quite small and can filter a good amount of water, I think they are 60 bucks and seriously about the size of a playing card if I estimate correctly.

The Nudibranch problem Idk what to tell you... if it was me in a small tank I would just cook all my rock and start over... i know thats not always an option!

[Spyderturbo007]

Originally Posted by djmatteo

To battle Nitrate/Phosphate and GHA consider an algae scrubber. They have prebuilt ones that are quite small and can filter a good amount of water, I think they are 60 bucks and seriously about the size of a playing card if I estimate correctly.

The Nudibranch problem Idk what to tell you... if it was me in a small tank I would just cook all my rock and start over... i know thats not always an option!

Actually, everything is going well now. Nitrates are 0, phosphates are either 0.00 or 0.03ppm depending on what my Hanna Checker decides to read.

I've also gotten rid of the Nudibranchs along with the Mantis Shrimp I didn't know was in there. My Hammer Coral is doing well and so are the Polyps my wife picked out last week.

My Purple Fire Fish is ready to come out of QT and I'm ready to pick my next fish. Now I'm just trying to figure out how to make maintenance easier and more efficient.

I also need to put some time in to learning this Neptune Apex I bought. It's been sitting in the box for the last 2 days.

[Allentown]

Ahh well first things first. Its always fun. If you like to tinkle and problems solve (read and if you HAVE THE MONEY ANE TIME), EVERY NEW problem presents an opportunity to improve yourself, learn and sharpen your skills. Every new algea bloom is an opportunity to solve a problem. Every new tank fad is a chance to try something new (that only has about a %10 chance of working). Every controversy is a chance to pick a side that works for YOU (DSB vs no DSB etc).

Failures? Yes. Learning and expereience? Yes!

Look i have ony been in this about 10 years and my i lost several fish in my first 65G tank. I put power compacts on it and was NEVER able to get my corals to live. My 40G reef is stable and ive kept fish in it for over 3 years with no deaths and am finally able ot keep corals alive with what i thought was a "crazy expensive" Nova Extreme Pro T5HO fixture....and still, i get Red cyano on the sand bed. Why? Probably because im still running a cannister and either clean it too much or not enough (and the lights really are crazy bright for that size tank).

As far as your start up experiences..you live and learn. I wouldnt even DREAM of buying new fish for my just set up 135G tank for at least 2 months after set up, and the Cannister will be taken down and stored after its cycled. and has a the refugium up and running.

Always realize you may....na you WILL fail...but that just offers a chance to tinker, try something new, and see what really works and what doesnt.

I am still new at this and i still make mistakes but i will say that what the truely good fish/reef keepers say. The key to success is DONT quit, have patience, measure success over years not weeks or months (and a fair amount of money (unfortunately) is also key). Doesnt hurt to be a DIY fan either ((which sadly....I struggle with both of those last two).