KellyCorals
Active Member
So this is my 4th saltwater tank so I’m not saying I’m in the newbie category, but I’m smart enough to KNOW I don’t KNOW everything. Here’s my backstory:
7 years ago -
My first tank ever I bought USED and up and running already. The 65 gallon tank was several years old and established with about 100 pounds of the most coralline live rock you ever saw in your life - and not that Purple painted rock - the real deal. Also had a 4”+ deep sand bed. Ran a 48” Orbit Marine LED in it which at the time I thought was a good light (LOL). No skimmer. Hang on back filter. Never had a single algae problem in the tank EXCEPT for a Cyano outbreak soon after moving it to my house ...which one dose of ChemiClean and WAAHH LAA. Fixed for life. It grew LPS and low light corals like a dream. Never dosed anything...just changed the water...occasionally. Everybody loved that tank and sang my praises....so I say to myself...”Hey your pretty awesome at this...You should go buy another tank!”
So I did.
Second tank was a 120 gallon frag tank that was sold to me as a running local coral business from a friend that was moving away. Tank was a dream...at the time I didn’t realize how good I had it. Tank had been up and running for 5+ years. It had a 8 bulb T5 HO fixture with an awesome mix of whites and UV spec bulbs that hung over top of it (we called it the tanning bed) and 2 black box LEDS that did blues and whites also. Water was about 1 1/2 feet deep with a bare bottom and a frag rack that ran most of it with about 50 LBS grade “A” live rock on one end. Tank was every bit of 8 feet long. It had an old school wave maker that made an actual wave that went back and forth across the whole 8 feet and gently broke up on the live rock. Looked just like the ocean. Massive sump and skimmer - besides that absolutely nothing fancy. Tank could grow anything...SPS, LPS, plates...you name it....and overnight at that. Never had a single problem with that tank. Never lost a single fish or coral. Water changes...not even that often. Dosed nothing. I was on a saltwater high. A Teacher heard about it and even had my kids class go on a field trip to see it at the house...about 20 kids for a hands on lesson on reefs, urchins, symbiotic clownfish relationships with nems...the works. Taught and hosted by me. At this point I’m thinking...”What’s all the hype about saltwater tanks being hard to keep? I could grow the rarest corals in my sleep. This is so easy.”
Than the recession hit. Money’s tight. Quick sell everything that’s not a necessity. BOOM. Sell both tanks the same week for less than I wanted but it kept the money wheel turning and food on the table.
Flash forward 6 years.
Coronavirus hit.
Boredom sets in.
Money is not as great as it ever was but it’s stable.
Find a desperate soul on Craig’s list that’s just getting out of the hobby and wants to off his whole set up for $200. Pretty much a come get it it’s yours...the wife wants to put a couch for her and her friends right where that fish tank is sitting. Get it gone.
Que the 3rd tank
55 gallon standard petco tank been running 3 years. Live rock looks ok but I see some hair algae on some of it. No problem get a slightly larger CUC and it will be gone. Hang on back skimmer and filter. No frills. Figure it’s a good time killer and cheap way to break back into the industry. Get the tank home, set it back up...everything all good until 2 months in hair algae takes over the entire tank...not a single rock or wall visible. Try and work on it for about a month. No luck...if I could sell hair algae to the local organic farmers market I would have been a rich man.
EGO popped like a balloon.
Fed up with the battle, decided to drain the tank and trash everything. Start over...forgot I wanted a drilled tank anyways...”Hey babe I found a different tank on Craig’s that I want...What’s that? sure you can buy something too...”
The Current tank
90 Gallon drilled
Found this tank dry. Came with sump and skimmer and and LED that was so old I’m pretty sure is was the first one made...it burnt my hand after only being plugged in for a minute and transformer was almost as big as the light itself. Trashed the light - not even resale worthy.
Filled the tank with 100g salt mix and 60 LBS live rock from the LFS and 2” sand bed per LFS recommendation. Que the cycle...blah blah blah diatoms...ok now they are gone. Ok everything spiked and then calmed down...blah blah...start adding corals. Ok seeing good response out of the corals...start playing with dosing this and that because...well bored and 3 months later. Wait. Is that hair algae?!? No. Not again. No no no no....Flux RX the entire tank...die algae die. Is it dying? 2 weeks later...ok good yes it’s dying...I can blow it right off the rocks and it doesn’t grow back. Phewww good. Close call. Wait...why are my corals closed? I’m losing some of them.
Then only a couple days later.
Ultimate disaster.
I come home from work and all corals are closed. That’s weird. Put my hand in the tank...I could have taken a bath in the water. Quickly check temp. 93 degrees. Temp probe that controls the temp fell out of the tank and was trying to heat my house to 80 degrees and my tank to the temp of the sun in the process.
Mass die off of more than half of my corals and half of the live stock. Consider myself extremely lucky...expected everything to die. Massive water change happens. 3/4 of tank water..worried about ammonia spike.
EGO is non-existent at this point and humbleness doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling.
3 days later...DINO algae takes the tank by storm. Been fighting it ever since. What Corals I have left that are covered by the Dino’s won’t open until I blow them off and sometimes not even then.
Current day -
Read a million treads about it...tank is still young and I’m sure this too shall pass. Being patient. REALIZED I HAD BEEN RIDING OFF OTHER PEOPLES SUCCESS ON MY FIRST TWO TANKS. They had already got those tanks established long before I took possession.
Things that I have done that has had no to little effect on the Dino’s:
Added a 36w Aquatop UV with a matching flow rate to my sump pump.
Added a bunch more PODS and have been dosing live Phytoplankton to feed them.
More snails of all types - I already had 3 Florida flighting conchs in the tank - don’t ask why - I live in Florida and close to a river with 10000000 of them. It legal to take them to eat so why not for the hobby. So sandbed is gently stirred all the time.
I run no white lights now - that makes them bloom like crazy - only high power blues.
Reduced intensity and time schedules also. Dosed additional bacteria for 2 weeks straight as recommend.
Increased feedings of both corals and fish. Phosphates still show zero on test kit even so which is crazy because I’m scared to feed anymore than I already do.
What did work (temporarily)
3 day black out. Tank looked good for 3 days afterwards and hayyyy ooo....it’s back.
Tanks runs at 82 with the lights on so increasing the temp won’t fix it.
I refuse to dose hydrogen prox. No more chemical treatments. Going all natural.
Wondering about how long of a fight I’m in for potentially. And if anyone has anything good to say as far as advice or whatever I’m all ears. If you made it to the end of this long winded read then you deserve another reef to reef badge under your screen name that says “exceptional listener”.
oh yeah...ugly tank pics for a visual:
7 years ago -
My first tank ever I bought USED and up and running already. The 65 gallon tank was several years old and established with about 100 pounds of the most coralline live rock you ever saw in your life - and not that Purple painted rock - the real deal. Also had a 4”+ deep sand bed. Ran a 48” Orbit Marine LED in it which at the time I thought was a good light (LOL). No skimmer. Hang on back filter. Never had a single algae problem in the tank EXCEPT for a Cyano outbreak soon after moving it to my house ...which one dose of ChemiClean and WAAHH LAA. Fixed for life. It grew LPS and low light corals like a dream. Never dosed anything...just changed the water...occasionally. Everybody loved that tank and sang my praises....so I say to myself...”Hey your pretty awesome at this...You should go buy another tank!”
So I did.
Second tank was a 120 gallon frag tank that was sold to me as a running local coral business from a friend that was moving away. Tank was a dream...at the time I didn’t realize how good I had it. Tank had been up and running for 5+ years. It had a 8 bulb T5 HO fixture with an awesome mix of whites and UV spec bulbs that hung over top of it (we called it the tanning bed) and 2 black box LEDS that did blues and whites also. Water was about 1 1/2 feet deep with a bare bottom and a frag rack that ran most of it with about 50 LBS grade “A” live rock on one end. Tank was every bit of 8 feet long. It had an old school wave maker that made an actual wave that went back and forth across the whole 8 feet and gently broke up on the live rock. Looked just like the ocean. Massive sump and skimmer - besides that absolutely nothing fancy. Tank could grow anything...SPS, LPS, plates...you name it....and overnight at that. Never had a single problem with that tank. Never lost a single fish or coral. Water changes...not even that often. Dosed nothing. I was on a saltwater high. A Teacher heard about it and even had my kids class go on a field trip to see it at the house...about 20 kids for a hands on lesson on reefs, urchins, symbiotic clownfish relationships with nems...the works. Taught and hosted by me. At this point I’m thinking...”What’s all the hype about saltwater tanks being hard to keep? I could grow the rarest corals in my sleep. This is so easy.”
Than the recession hit. Money’s tight. Quick sell everything that’s not a necessity. BOOM. Sell both tanks the same week for less than I wanted but it kept the money wheel turning and food on the table.
Flash forward 6 years.
Coronavirus hit.
Boredom sets in.
Money is not as great as it ever was but it’s stable.
Find a desperate soul on Craig’s list that’s just getting out of the hobby and wants to off his whole set up for $200. Pretty much a come get it it’s yours...the wife wants to put a couch for her and her friends right where that fish tank is sitting. Get it gone.
Que the 3rd tank
55 gallon standard petco tank been running 3 years. Live rock looks ok but I see some hair algae on some of it. No problem get a slightly larger CUC and it will be gone. Hang on back skimmer and filter. No frills. Figure it’s a good time killer and cheap way to break back into the industry. Get the tank home, set it back up...everything all good until 2 months in hair algae takes over the entire tank...not a single rock or wall visible. Try and work on it for about a month. No luck...if I could sell hair algae to the local organic farmers market I would have been a rich man.
EGO popped like a balloon.
Fed up with the battle, decided to drain the tank and trash everything. Start over...forgot I wanted a drilled tank anyways...”Hey babe I found a different tank on Craig’s that I want...What’s that? sure you can buy something too...”
The Current tank
90 Gallon drilled
Found this tank dry. Came with sump and skimmer and and LED that was so old I’m pretty sure is was the first one made...it burnt my hand after only being plugged in for a minute and transformer was almost as big as the light itself. Trashed the light - not even resale worthy.
Filled the tank with 100g salt mix and 60 LBS live rock from the LFS and 2” sand bed per LFS recommendation. Que the cycle...blah blah blah diatoms...ok now they are gone. Ok everything spiked and then calmed down...blah blah...start adding corals. Ok seeing good response out of the corals...start playing with dosing this and that because...well bored and 3 months later. Wait. Is that hair algae?!? No. Not again. No no no no....Flux RX the entire tank...die algae die. Is it dying? 2 weeks later...ok good yes it’s dying...I can blow it right off the rocks and it doesn’t grow back. Phewww good. Close call. Wait...why are my corals closed? I’m losing some of them.
Then only a couple days later.
Ultimate disaster.
I come home from work and all corals are closed. That’s weird. Put my hand in the tank...I could have taken a bath in the water. Quickly check temp. 93 degrees. Temp probe that controls the temp fell out of the tank and was trying to heat my house to 80 degrees and my tank to the temp of the sun in the process.
Mass die off of more than half of my corals and half of the live stock. Consider myself extremely lucky...expected everything to die. Massive water change happens. 3/4 of tank water..worried about ammonia spike.
EGO is non-existent at this point and humbleness doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling.
3 days later...DINO algae takes the tank by storm. Been fighting it ever since. What Corals I have left that are covered by the Dino’s won’t open until I blow them off and sometimes not even then.
Current day -
Read a million treads about it...tank is still young and I’m sure this too shall pass. Being patient. REALIZED I HAD BEEN RIDING OFF OTHER PEOPLES SUCCESS ON MY FIRST TWO TANKS. They had already got those tanks established long before I took possession.
Things that I have done that has had no to little effect on the Dino’s:
Added a 36w Aquatop UV with a matching flow rate to my sump pump.
Added a bunch more PODS and have been dosing live Phytoplankton to feed them.
More snails of all types - I already had 3 Florida flighting conchs in the tank - don’t ask why - I live in Florida and close to a river with 10000000 of them. It legal to take them to eat so why not for the hobby. So sandbed is gently stirred all the time.
I run no white lights now - that makes them bloom like crazy - only high power blues.
Reduced intensity and time schedules also. Dosed additional bacteria for 2 weeks straight as recommend.
Increased feedings of both corals and fish. Phosphates still show zero on test kit even so which is crazy because I’m scared to feed anymore than I already do.
What did work (temporarily)
3 day black out. Tank looked good for 3 days afterwards and hayyyy ooo....it’s back.
Tanks runs at 82 with the lights on so increasing the temp won’t fix it.
I refuse to dose hydrogen prox. No more chemical treatments. Going all natural.
Wondering about how long of a fight I’m in for potentially. And if anyone has anything good to say as far as advice or whatever I’m all ears. If you made it to the end of this long winded read then you deserve another reef to reef badge under your screen name that says “exceptional listener”.
oh yeah...ugly tank pics for a visual:
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