Watch me kill SPS...

[Skep18]

IME 50% on whites is much too high on that fixture. I ran mine 17" above the water. I had SPS die very specifically under the white diodes, especially when I first ran it about 7" off the water.

If you're worried about biodiversity, I'd add some of that really good cultured rock out of the keys. I think @alton knows the name of it.

Yea, visually the whites look very bright... Although the PAR measured out right. But there must be something to the conversation behind LED's being not so great sometimes.

I appreciate the idea of the ocean rock. I am an avid QT proponent and somewhat of a hypochondriac when it comes to this stuff. I try to ensure I don't add any pests or hitchhikers to my system if at all possible. This does seem to come with the disadvantage of being harder to obtain biodiversity though. That said, I have a Diver's Den acro with a big chunk of coralline covered rock with it. I am letting that simmer in QT for a couple months to let potential fish pests finish their life cycle. Once that finishes, I am hoping that may seed my DT with "ocean biodiversity".

 

[Skep18]

I have a 175g total volume and I go through P.E mysis like no other. It usually last me 1.5 weeks per pack My fishes eats everything up before the minute is over, they’re fatties. I tried using LRS frenzy Thinking it would be more of a variety of food. It is, but my po4 spiked to .07 and I’m starting to see some cyano on my rocks. I’m back to mysis now and doing some WC.


I would suggest one thing. I know it’ll be an eye sore. But turn off your whites,green,reds on your LED. It will slow algae growth.

When you say "pack" do you mean a 8oz, 16oz or 40oz pack? I order the stuff by the 40oz packs and split it up and vacuum seal it in portions in my freezer. I feed that stuff what I thought was pretty heavy.

As far as algae goes, I think I might not even have much algae. What I thought was just innocent algae seems to be these dinos and some cyano. I'm not sure I need to turn down the algae-fueling colors if the algae isn't present much as of yet. But I maybe mistaken. Lemme know your thoughts.

 

[bobssecrtsn]

I buy the 4 oz! I didn’t k ow there was a 40 oz. I will be buying that. The only pita is it’s a flat pack. Where as the cubes is so much easier to feed and know how much your feeding..

the idea is to have the nutrients in the water column and not having algae sucking up the N+P your adding

 

[Jax15]

Let us know if you find dinos. Cyano and algae suck, but the unfortunate reality is that conditions where corals thrive are mostly the same in which algae survive. Most natural ocean reefs also have a lot of algae around. It’s incredibly difficult to create a healthy system for coral to thrive in, and have no algae whatsoever. I personally accept a touch if cyano here and there to make sure I’m not starving corals.
I’m not convinced it’s Dino’s You’re dealing with. It’s normal enough for dead corals to pick up algae after they have TN. I may be wrong- Dino’s could be exactly what it is. So curious to know what you find.

Also, careful with that PAR. it’s getting up there now.. way more likely to kill corals quick with high par than low. Your frags have been dying in 2 weeks, makes me feel sure low PAR isn’t the underlying issue. Prob wise to light acclimate now.

 

[dadnjesse]

I buy the 4 oz! I didn’t k ow there was a 40 oz. I will be buying that. The only pita is it’s a flat pack. Where as the cubes is so much easier to feed and know how much your feeding..

the idea is to have the nutrients in the water column and not having algae sucking up the N+P your adding

I get the 40 oz pack and cut it up into squares.

 

[Clownfish2]

I've gone back and forth debating whether to make this thread... I think I know the responses I'm going to get. There seems to be many ways to success and much of the feedback and/or research I've seen in the past seems to have just as many testimonies which show direct conflict to the claims. (I.e. LED's don't grow SPS, dead rock won't grow SPS, etc.) That said, with the money I've spent on frags that end up in the sump rock rubble is enough to have made a second tank setup... Which is to say whatever it is I am doing isn't work AT ALL so here I am again looking to see if anyone has something insightful to perhaps help my situation.

As some background, my 210gal tank has been up for almost 2 years. Since day 1, I have heeded the advice of some on this forum and @BRS videos and have quarantined nearly everything wet that goes into my tank. The only exception being some SPS frags which, according to R2R info, cannot harbor encysted parasites on healthy coral fleshy tissue. By QT I mean all fish have been treated with PraziPro and copper in a QT tank for at least 30 if not 45 days. All corals are dipped in Bayer. All corals are either moved on a fresh plug or have their existing plug exposed surfaces completely covered in super glue. My tank was started with Marco Rock bought directly from Marco. As such, I have never seen symptoms of any parasite or disease in my tank. (Exhibit 1 which will draw contraversy)

As far as equipment goes, my lighting is Reef Breeders Photo V2+ LED's with 2/ea T5 Blue+ bulbs to supplement. Settings are ~4hr of full light where PAR levels are ~400 at the highest rock and ~120 at the sand bed. I run a RO skimmer. I generally run BRS ROX carbon at amounts slightly less than instructions recommend. I have 2/ea Maxspect Gyre XF280's and 2/ea Neptune WAV pumps for in tank flow. Not sure what else to mention but I feel my equipment is pretty standard or at least not crazy far away from what maybe considered "common".

For maintenance, I usually do water changes once a month with ~40gal. I used to use Red Sea Blue Bucket but switched to Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt. I have a BRS 6 stage RODI unit. My parameters are generally as follows:

salinity - 35ppt*
temp - 77.6 - 78.4*F
Alk - 8.0 dKH
Calcium - 440ppm
Magnesium - 1300ppm
Nitrates - 5ppm**
Phosphates - 0.02ppm*

*Salinity recently trended down to 33ppt. Been bringing it back up slowly. Currently at 34ppt.
**For a long time, after I gave up on coral, my nutrients dropped to ~0 despite heavy feeding. Dunno why. Had to dose to get them back up. After dosing to get them up, they have stayed steady. Somewhat suggests nothing is consuming them anyways?

I have run an ICP test maybe a year ago when I tried to grow SPS last time. Test results didn't reveal anything revolutionary.

Here is what I experience with my SPS corals. Frags come in looking great. After my receiving practices, I put them on a frag rack near the sand bed. I've tried leaving them there any I've tried raising them slowly. It doesn't seem to change the end result. Generally, about a week into their receipt, the bases start to look what I describe as "crunchy" or "crusty". Oddly I have been unable to find posts that use descriptors such as this. Generally, it looks as if the skin of the base is slowly receeding to expose the pointy skeleton bits at the base. From there, tissue at the tips starts to look beaten and worn. Corallites start to look "burned" exposing skeleton. Over the coming weeks, this ultimately leads to what I assume is STN and rarely over night RTN.

In my most recent endeavor, I reached out to Adam @Battlecorals who was nice enough to let me buy a "tester SPS box" which included a monti, a stylo, a milli and an acro. Its been 15 days since receipt and they are seemingly heading down the same path as I've experienced in the past. Here are some photos to illustrate:

Day 1

Day 15

As you can see, I think its safe to say none of them look as good as they did when they came in. According to what I see on here, the majority of people experience that new frags generally do not look worse before they start looking better. The general consensus is they should look good the whole time. As I have never successfully kept an SPS alive, I am unclear as to what success looks like to be honest. I have no idea if any of this is normal or not.

In full disclosure, as mentioned some above, I have experienced some less than stable parameters as of my most recent attempt at SPS. I don't know if any of them are extreme enough to cause the dramatic changes in the frags as I am seeing.

Also as note, in the past I have kept zoas alive and growing. At some point, something I did seems to have negatively effected the zoas. I lost most of them but have three different zoa "colonies" left. Two of them are stagnant, going in and out of being fully open for days or being bothered and being mixed of closed and open. One colony continues to grow and multiply though.

In an effort to try and document my experiences, I have written the following email to Adam at Battle Corals as a "hail mary" to get some help. However, I think its unreasonable for me to expect a vendor to evaluate my situation as I'm sure they get these all the time. I'm also sure its hard to really get a picture of a tank from just an email, video or pictures. The system is dynamic and complex and I'm not even sure anything short of letting a "professional" take over my tank maintenance would even stand a chance. Nonetheless, the following is my most recent email to Adam to share some of my information:

Adam,

Just an update, unfortunately I think things are headed the direction I expected. Admittedly, some of it is likely my fault. My lack of trying to add stony coral for many months has let me lapse on my water testing. As such, some of my parameters had swung out of "ideal" ranges. I have begun to slowly correct them but I'm not sure which, if any, could contribute to this. Also, there's one big mistake I think I made. In thinking maybe they weren't getting sufficient lighting on a magnetic frag rack at the bottom corner of my tank, this past Thursday (Day 10) I moved the frag rack to maybe the top 1/3 of my tank, still in the corner. It's hard to tell if its coincidence in timing or contributing, but this seems to have made the most dramatic difference on the couple frags that were still doing OK. I moved it in the PM so they only spent one photo period in high light.

As far as the coral go, I've taken daily photos of each frag to be able to look back at the progress. I'd describe them as follows:

- Montipora went down hill pretty quickly. I'm not very familiar with monti's. Their growing edges look kinda white to me anyways so I wasn't sure when that one started showing skeleton. I'd say on Friday (Day 5) I could positively say polyps weren't showing as much and edges were getting "crusty". By this past Wednesday (Day 9) there was some flesh still but there was more skeleton than flesh. As of today, I see some yellow polyps in the "corallites" (or whatever they are on monti's) but I suspect its just the receded tissue showing them. I'll leave it on the rack but I suspect its gone.

Day 10, prior to frag rack move:

Today, after being move to high light:

- The stylo showed good polyps until maybe Day 8. They came and went a couple days before that but I figured that was maybe normal. The flesh between the polyps did look different at Day 2 or 3, losing some of its "white color" but I figured showing polyps was still good. Following the move higher in the tank, the polyps continued to come and go as they did lower in the tank but maybe were less pronounced overall. As of today, I'm seeing even more white between the polyps. Thinking maybe its on its way out as well but not very definitive as of yet. (Notable, the coralline on the plug I left exposed is definitely growing.)

Day 10, prior to frag rack move:

Today, after being move to high light for 2 days, only one photo period:

- The millipora I though was doing pretty well through Day 9 or so. Polyps appeared out. Maybe not as pronounced as they were when they just came in but still out. On around Day 7, I believe the base was even starting to encrust over the glue on the plug. Overall, it has been pretty good. However, following the raising to higher light, I noticed today the top middle tip is looking "crusty" almost as if the light burned back the skin there. I think this one is not necessarily gone, but hate to see this recent change.

Day 10, prior to frag rack move:

Today, after being move to high light for 2 days, only one photo period:

- The acropora has probably done the best of them all. Like the milli, I think around Day 7 I started to see the base encrust over the glue. There was a bleached portion that was there when it came in (a very small spot) that maybe got a little bigger, but no skin loss there. As my previous email stated, the encrusted base did get a little crusty in the initial days but with the encrusting, I figured that was maybe just an adjusting period or, as you said, reacting to glue. I'd say the frag itself, not the base, looked about 90% as good as it did when it came in as of Day 9 prior to the move. However, as of the moving of the frag rack, it has started to pale out a bit. Polyps seemed quite happy in the higher flow area in the higher part of the tank though. Overall, I have hopes for this one but we'll have to wait and see.

Day 10, prior to frag rack move:

Today, after being move to high light for 2 days, only one photo period:

As an aside, I have gotten some frags from a couple of locals as of Monday this week. I also got a maricultured piece from Live Aquaria in an attempt to "seed" that tank with ocean rock and test the "SPS need ocean-seeded live rock to survive, dead/dry rock tanks always stuggle" theory I hear all to often on R2R. They are in my QT system. The SPS are a red plating monti, a spongode and a green slimer. The maricultured piece is a big secale with loads of plating/encrusting coralline on the rock. They are much newer to my possession so comparing them isn't entire accurate but they look almost identical as to when they came in. Maricultured piece is maybe lightening on the tips a very small amount, so small I hesitate to note it, but that's it. The 5 SPS in my QT look great.

In case its of interest, the following are the tank changes alluded to above:

- Salinity crept down to 33ppt. I've began raising it on Day 7 by adding salt water a little but every day instead of letting my ATO top off with RODI. As of today, its probably 34ppt.
- My calcium was low at 390ppm as of Day 1. Suspect its related to my low salinity. I've been dosing on my DOS to raise it to steadily. As of today, it read 450ppm.
- Alkalinity was lower at 7dKH. Like calcium, I think it had some to do with my salinity. I have not dosed it up. Increasing salinity has brought it up to 8.1dKH as of today.
- I've always struggled with readings of zero nitrates and phosphates. I've added sodium nitrate to my ATO as of Day 3. Its come up to 5ppm over the period.
- I added trisodium phosphate initially to my ATO but noticed it fueled algae growth pretty rapidly. It came up to 0.02ppm from dosing then went back to zero the next day. Interestingly, having not dosed for a week now, its reading 0.07ppm as of last night. It could be a bad Hanna packet but I thought it was positive to show some phosphates "naturally".

Finally, should it help share, here is a link to a short video I took of my tank. This maybe help communicate my setup details.

YouTube Video:
I'm partially writing this to get it all out and to organize my thoughts and document my experience. Should you find the time/interest in looking it over, I would be grateful. Of course, if you have ideas, I'm nearing desperate and very disheartened by all this. I firmly believe my "LARS" contributed to all this. I am looking into adding some more flow to my tank

If you're still reading at this point, thank you. I am doing this in hopes someone maybe able to help. Any and all feedback will be appreciated. As outlined above, I am going to try and change a couple things then throw away another $200 on a battle box I guess...

Thanks again for your time.

In your coral QT, do you use water from your display and or rocks from your display?

I learned quickly with my coral QT, frags don’t like freshly mixed water and Birospira like fish can handle.

 

[bobssecrtsn]

I have a 175g total volume and I go through P.E mysis like no other. It usually last me 1.5 weeks per pack My fishes eats everything up before the minute is over, they’re fatties. I tried using LRS frenzy Thinking it would be more of a variety of food. It is, but my po4 spiked to .07 and I’m starting to see some cyano on my rocks. I’m back to mysis now and doing some WC.


I would suggest one thing. I know it’ll be an eye sore. But turn off your whites,green,reds on your LED. It will slow algae growth.

I just realized that I am dumb. I’m not having a cyano problem. I added a algae scrubber 1.5 weeks ago and there’s the stand + base that’s made of new pvc. Guess what new plastic leaches...

 

[Dbabin61485]

Sorry to hear about your frustrations Skep18!
I am kind of a noob (2+ years reefing), but I have had similar issues in the past with acro and monti. I kept Phos and Nit very low or undetectable using carbon continuously and phosgard 1 week/month. When I upgraded to my 75 from a 40 in December 2019 I stopped using carbon and phosgard choosing to rely on my sump w/fuge and skimmer and I have had much better success! My porites and stylophora are doing great and actually growing now and my acro and monti have come back from the brink and look very happy now.
I have also has luck keeping my alk up at 9-10, cal 500.
Other thing I had problems with was adjusting them to the lighting. I only use my LFS for livestock, but I had to have some conversations about his lighting and placements so I could get better at acclimating my livestock. I found his lights were generally higher power than mine so starting on the sand bed was making mine unhappy immediately. I now start most off halfway up my tank (obviously changes depending on coral type).
Best of luck!

 

[Skep18]

I buy the 4 oz! I didn’t k ow there was a 40 oz. I will be buying that. The only pita is it’s a flat pack. Where as the cubes is so much easier to feed and know how much your feeding..

the idea is to have the nutrients in the water column and not having algae sucking up the N+P your adding

Yea, 40oz is a pretty heft pack but it lasts a good bit of time. We keep a small portion chopped in a small mason jar and thaw it in a little medicine cup to try and maintain portion size.

 

[Skep18]

Let us know if you find dinos. Cyano and algae suck, but the unfortunate reality is that conditions where corals thrive are mostly the same in which algae survive. Most natural ocean reefs also have a lot of algae around. It’s incredibly difficult to create a healthy system for coral to thrive in, and have no algae whatsoever. I personally accept a touch if cyano here and there to make sure I’m not starving corals.
I’m not convinced it’s Dino’s You’re dealing with. It’s normal enough for dead corals to pick up algae after they have TN. I may be wrong- Dino’s could be exactly what it is. So curious to know what you find.

Also, careful with that PAR. it’s getting up there now.. way more likely to kill corals quick with high par than low. Your frags have been dying in 2 weeks, makes me feel sure low PAR isn’t the underlying issue. Prob wise to light acclimate now.

Yea, I have a microscope on the way. We will see what it is!

As far as PAR, I find myself again surprised by some people cautioning against the levels I'm seeing. The BRS/WWC recommendation is 250-350 PAR for SPS I believe. I see a lot of youtube channels running significantly more, 400 to 600 PAR. I have a 30in tank so when I say peaks are ~425 PAR, that's a very small portion of my aquascape. Most is in the 300's. The frags are at 225-250. I wouldn't think 250 PAR would kill frags but alas, I guess I'm learning it maybe does?

 

[Skep18]

I get the 40 oz pack and cut it up into squares.

Yea, it takes a little more effort but I figure its worth the bulk cost savings. Glad to hear others are using it and happy with it!

 

[Skep18]

I just realized that I am dumb. I’m not having a cyano problem. I added a algae scrubber 1.5 weeks ago and there’s the stand + base that’s made of new pvc. Guess what new plastic leaches...

Wait, are you saying the PVC is leeching something that's growing algae in your tank?

 

[Skep18]

In your coral QT, do you use water from your display and or rocks from your display?

I learned quickly with my coral QT, frags don’t like freshly mixed water and Birospira like fish can handle.

I usually do but this time I started the cycle with fresh mixed water. I can't recall for sure but I did do a WC and I think this time I used fresh mixed there too, not DT water like I usually do. I have put a frag and a couple small piece of rubble in the QT though. Not sure if its enough to quickly seed it but I'm sure it added something to it. But oddly enough, my QT is looking pretty good as of right now (subject to change, lol). They frags in there are doing MUCH better than my DT.

 

[Skep18]

Sorry to hear about your frustrations Skep18!
I am kind of a noob (2+ years reefing), but I have had similar issues in the past with acro and monti. I kept Phos and Nit very low or undetectable using carbon continuously and phosgard 1 week/month. When I upgraded to my 75 from a 40 in December 2019 I stopped using carbon and phosgard choosing to rely on my sump w/fuge and skimmer and I have had much better success! My porites and stylophora are doing great and actually growing now and my acro and monti have come back from the brink and look very happy now.
I have also has luck keeping my alk up at 9-10, cal 500.
Other thing I had problems with was adjusting them to the lighting. I only use my LFS for livestock, but I had to have some conversations about his lighting and placements so I could get better at acclimating my livestock. I found his lights were generally higher power than mine so starting on the sand bed was making mine unhappy immediately. I now start most off halfway up my tank (obviously changes depending on coral type).
Best of luck!

Thanks for the feedback on your experiences! I'm glad to hear you've found success! I have tried chaeto before long ago but it died off. I mention this as I had hoped at the time it might have added some biodiversity to my tank even if it did ultimately die.

Gotta love lighting conversations, lol. First off, I'll say I have no clue. When I think I have a clue, I see seemingly just as many testimonies warning against too much light as I do with people suggesting its maybe too little light. That's why I've decided to just try and stay "middle of the road" with the BRS/WWC recommendations. Also, I am trying to reduce my dependency on LED's by adding the T5's. But I'm guessing it certainly helps to try and match the PAR from where they came assuming other parameters are similar as well (i.e. flow, water chemistry, etc.) This last batch, I bought from Battle Corals. He uses the same LED fixtures and same salt I use. I was hoping that would be helpful. And it maybe helpful in further suggesting my lighting I don't think is the issue. For things to consistently be so wrong, I think its something else. I've not really noticed these frags dying any faster/slower than the frags in my past in general.

As far as placement, I try to react to the corals as I try and move them higher in the tank. However, when all they do is get worse, I feel my closed loop feedback is skewed obviously. Correlating their appearance changes to changes in lighting alone, at this point, I think isn't accurate for me. Hopefully in the future I can confirm this if I ever get a frag to survive, lol.

 

[Skep18]

To update, I have a microscope coming in the mail. I did go with the cheaper "kids toy" Amscope on Amazon. I was gonna go with the "student" version but unlike the kids toy, it didn't come with slides or anything. Based on what I see elsewhere on these forums, cheap microscopes should be enough to get a dino photo for ID help.

AmScope 120X-1200X 52-pcs Kids Beginner Microscope STEM Kit with Metal Body Microscope, Plastic Slides, LED Light and Carrying Box (M30-ABS-KT2-W),White

More YouTube videos I am watching are promoting the ReefDude's video regarding the "Elegant Corals" method of getting rid of dinos. It sounds like the Elegant Corals guy is a guy that works on saltwater tanks for a living. In the video, they pulled up a graphic showing treatment details. I've attached it below as pulled form the Elegant Corals site. Debating whether I should start following that or just hold steady for now as I don't want to jump all over the place, doing too much too fast. I also struggle to consider it as it is saying to dose carbon again. Like stated by others here, I can understand the concept behind dosing bacteria and carbon but I am already struggling with nutrient issues. Dosing carbon, I think would just make that worse. And just taking some of their advice and not all of it I feel isn't always a good idea either. Usually systems like this are to be taken as a whole.

Feel free to share your ideas!

 

[Aquaman102]

I feel your pain. Our tanks could be twins with the issues we've seen.

Here's my thread:

Corals are Dying - Help Please. Documentation, parameters and YouTube video included

Hi All – YouTube Video: I’m hoping you can help me figure out why some of my corals are dying in my tank. When I say dying, I mean mainly SPS and some LPS. I've only have tried a few “sticks”. It always seems to be that the SPS starts to have tissue recede from the top down. The top will...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[melanotaenia]

Yea, I have a microscope on the way. We will see what it is!

As far as PAR, I find myself again surprised by some people cautioning against the levels I'm seeing. The BRS/WWC recommendation is 250-350 PAR for SPS I believe. I see a lot of youtube channels running significantly more, 400 to 600 PAR. I have a 30in tank so when I say peaks are ~425 PAR, that's a very small portion of my aquascape. Most is in the 300's. The frags are at 225-250. I wouldn't think 250 PAR would kill frags but alas, I guess I'm learning it maybe does?

I have seen 900+ PAR; if you can acclimate the corals to it, some will do just fine at these higher levels.

The issue is shocking them to high PAR if they came from different conditions; knowing their previous conditions or husbandry can help to acclimate them to your aquarium.

 

[Skep18]

I have seen 900+ PAR; if you can acclimate the corals to it, some will do just fine at these higher levels.

The issue is shocking them to high PAR if they came from different conditions; knowing their previous conditions or husbandry can help to acclimate them to your aquarium.

And I definitely follow that thought process. So are you and @Jax15 or others saying to start them out in PAR lower than 225? I just want to be very clear so I understand. I thought starting them out @ 225 PAR was OK. Further, I feel like when I keep moving frags around, even in starting them at maybe 100 PAR and moving up slowly, they do worse than putting them in a medium SPS PAR and not touching them as much as possible until they show signs of growth. But by all means, correct me if I am thinking incorrectly as generally accepted by the community.

On the heels of this conversation, are people saying they think lighting is part of my issue? Currently I'm guessing nutrients being so low is my primary issue. I am hoping (maybe ignorantly hoping) once that gets corrected and stable, things will start to show better results.

 

[cancun]

Hi there! I just saw your thread and am following along. You are very insightful and seem to have a clear understanding of reefing 101! Everyone has some great ideas on here. I have a 200 gallon mixed reef. Way more LPS than SPS.....but I do have a several SPS corals. I added them a year ago. So far so good. I have no low nutrient issues....lol...I have about 20 fish, and feed Mysis a couple of times a day. PO4 is around .08 or so, and NO3 is about 15ppm. I run a algae scrubber and Chemipure and. Alk is 9.5 and calcium is 410ppm. I dose 2 part daily manually. Don't laugh, but I don't trust automatic dosers....lol. I have a ato but that is it.

Keep plugging away.....with all of these great suggestions, you will be golden in no time! Here a few pics of my only SPS. Sorry for the poor pic quality.

 

[Skep18]

I feel your pain. Our tanks could be twins with the issues we've seen.

Here's my thread:

Corals are Dying - Help Please. Documentation, parameters and YouTube video included

Hi All – YouTube Video: I’m hoping you can help me figure out why some of my corals are dying in my tank. When I say dying, I mean mainly SPS and some LPS. I've only have tried a few “sticks”. It always seems to be that the SPS starts to have tissue recede from the top down. The top will...

www.reef2reef.com

Its so very frustrating... I hope you gets yours sorted out as well. I just wish I could find a magic wand to fix it all. I've tried looking at others testimony. I've tried getting advice from coral vendors. I have watched every YouTube video known to man on reefing, lol. Seems either I am too dense to absorb any of it or I am hearing all the information incorrectly... All you can do is keep at it though I guess... Best of luck to you! I'll check out your thread and follow along in case I can learn something from it!