Hello everyone, my name is Erwin and I am from Miami, FL. I’ve been a reefer on and off for the past 11 years. It’s been awhile since I have posted on here. I recently got back into the hobby with a small 15 gallon Fluval Flex I had as a freshwater tank. I got bored with the goldfish and other community fish I had and decided it was time to get back to my original passion of growing corals and maintaining a healthy environment for my inhabitants to grow and prosper. So I setup the tank with some knowledge and experience I had. Being the “great” reef keeper I am, I mean that sarcastically lol, I set the tank up with all the basics. I got a digital thermometer that I put my 100 percent trust into…. Big mistake…. I went through a few frags and fish not realizing that one simple mistake would cost me a chunk of change. I first blamed the light thinking it was bleaching the corals out and then I blamed the pair of clownfish I had thinking they were being aggressive since they paired up. I even lost a blood shrimp thinking it was the clowns…. Which is a bit naive for me to think and not recognizing there is a problem since my fish and corals weren’t happy. I thought about the events that were happening with the oceans and temperature with the coral bleaching. Then I thought the water was a bit warm to touch. I was a bit unconvinced for some strange reason, but anyways I went to a local pet shop and bought 2 cheap thermometers to test the temp in the tank. Low and behold, both thermometers read 86 degrees. I set my eheim jager heater too high and adjusted it incorrectly based off of the faulty digital thermometer I had…. Oh the joy…. I lost some livestock due to a $10 piece of junk. I got humbled again real quick to put my trust into a digital thermometer instead of using the old time trusted mercury cheap thermometers. But it looks like I figured things out for now and the bleached corals and anemones can make a recovery now hopefully. I am planning to start a build thread to document some of the my progress and mishaps in hope others can learn from my mistakes. Thanks for reading my rant and hope you stick around to see my build thread.
