What Has Been to You the Most Challenging Aspect of Maintaining a Reef Tank

Planted Reef · May 5, 2023

Vermetid snails. They're all over my live rock and I don't know how to get rid of them. I did find a HUGE one in my filter sock when I increased my return flow. Must have been living in the plumbing ad was knocked loose with increased flow. Was hoping getting rid of that big momma would help but that doesn't seem to be the case. Any suggestions?

Cichlid Dad · May 5, 2023

Not knowing what I don't know! To often I think to highly of my knowledge only to be humbled

billyocean · May 5, 2023

Planted Reef said:
Vermetid snails. They're all over my live rock and I don't know how to get rid of them. I did find a HUGE one in my filter sock when I increased my return flow. Must have been living in the plumbing ad was knocked loose with increased flow. Was hoping getting rid of that big momma would help but that doesn't seem to be the case. Any suggestions?

My population declined to a few stragglers after using the diy coral snow a couple times a week. No direct knowledge but didn't change anything else and others have noticed as well. Noticed after a couple of months..kind of a "hey..there's no vermitids" moment. I can find a few if I really search.

Lebowski_ · May 6, 2023

ManWithAClam said:
getting rid of dinoflagellates, going on 1 year now

OrionN says to turn your temp up to 82

Lebowski_ · May 6, 2023

For me it’s money. Especially in the world of instagram and even this forum where I am seeing stunning setups full of healthy creatures, high end lights, controllers, etc. We’ve all got our own budgets, and this hobby has a way of weasling it’s way into the red.

Lbrdsoxfan · May 6, 2023

I x384754939 dinos. Total scourge when N&P bottoms out.

I'm still learning the secrets of gfo, the hard way.

Planted Reef · May 6, 2023

billyocean said:
My population declined to a few stragglers after using the diy coral snow a couple times a week. No direct knowledge but didn't change anything else and others have noticed as well. Noticed after a couple of months..kind of a "hey..there's no vermitids" moment. I can find a few if I really search.

Thanks for sharing. I have actually been using coral snow as well. Started off quite often but as usual slowed down my efforts when I didn't see results. I'm going to step that up again. Did you see the tubes disappear or just less webs when feeding/cleaning?

Stephen Glover · May 6, 2023

Took me a long time to get my nutrients and other parameters rock stable. Feels great when you eventually get there.

Bozburn · May 6, 2023

Patience for me. I have none and when there is something going wrong I have freaked out in the past and tried to do something quickly and it made it worse. Now I take a breath or two and slowly fix the issue.

vanguard · May 6, 2023

Planted Reef said:
Vermetid snails. They're all over my live rock and I don't know how to get rid of them. I did find a HUGE one in my filter sock when I increased my return flow. Must have been living in the plumbing ad was knocked loose with increased flow. Was hoping getting rid of that big momma would help but that doesn't seem to be the case. Any suggestions?

The standard response is to add bumblebee snails, who will prey on them. I haven't done it myself though.

billyocean · May 6, 2023

Planted Reef said:
Thanks for sharing. I have actually been using coral snow as well. Started off quite often but as usual slowed down my efforts when I didn't see results. I'm going to step that up again. Did you see the tubes disappear or just less webs when feeding/cleaning?

The tubes gone too..they were all over the place. It may be because the coral snow binds particulates and it syarves them out or clogs their tubes..I have no idea. It just appears to be a correlation

ManWithAClam · May 6, 2023

billyocean said:
Have you tried turkey basting at lights out and leave a piece of filter floss on a nori clip overnight? Clean the floss every morning with tap and set aside then repeat thereafter. I caught mine early and upped my nitrates from 6 to 18 and phos from .02 to .1, added uv, lightly dosed MB7. not sure what the catalyst was but it was gone in about 4/5 days. I did confirm ostreopsis with microscope. The filter floss/algae clip got LOADED with them every night and I think that it was a big factor in concentrating them in one spot for removal. Personally, I was prepared for a long fight..could have been the combo of catching quickly as well. It was fairly prevalent in a matter of first sight (are those dinos?) to..whoa...yeah..dinos.

not sure if that'd work with large cell amphidinium, but i could try it, it also wasn't caused by low nutrients, they kinda just showed up one day.

paragrouper · May 6, 2023

ptrick21186 said:
Money

Yeah, this.

Dbichler · May 6, 2023

Time don’t have enough of it to even do regular maintenance. Thankfully my tank is fairly low maintenance now but still get lazy on scraping the glass.

Planted Reef · May 6, 2023

vanguard said:
The standard response is to add bumblebee snails, who will prey on them. I haven't done it myself though.

Thanks! Yeah, I've read about that as well. Seems to be mixed results as with most things in this hobby. It's on my short list of things to try though.

pelicansreef · May 6, 2023

I think the hardest part of this hobby is the actual learning curve. The saying that "you don't know what you don't know" is very true but even more so in this hobby.

My wife and I have been in this hobby off and on for over 30 years. we currently have His and Her reefs. His 400G and Her 100G. When we first started, we used 6500K MH and VHO 03 actinic bulbs. When blueline electronic ballast were introduced, we were sure the hobby had hit its peak and nothing better would come along ---- LOL

We now have Kessel LED's over her reef and Neptune Skylights over his. To say the least things have changed. However, I still don't know what I don't know. Every day I learn something new, and I realize that it was something I just didn't know or at least something I didn't understand well enough. I learn new ways to accomplish things I have done for years and sometimes I wonder why the heck didn't I know that years ago.

What makes this hobby so wonderful is that it is a never-ending learning experience. Yes, it is an expensive hobby but not anymore that most other hobbies. If you think this hobby is expensive, try Sailing or vintage car restorations. Hobbies are as expensive as you make them. You can have a small 10-gallon nano reef for a reasonable cost, or you can buy a 400-gallon custom aquarium for a few bucks more.

19Mateo83 · May 6, 2023

My biggest challenge in reefing is not going broke

An aquarium is a hole between sheets of glass that the aquarist fills with money.

wjm6449 · May 6, 2023

pelicansreef said:
I think the hardest part of this hobby is the actual learning curve. The saying that "you don't know what you don't know" is very true but even more so in this hobby.

My wife and I have been in this hobby off and on for over 30 years. we currently have His and Her reefs. His 400G and Her 100G. When we first started, we used 6500K MH and VHO 03 actinic bulbs. When blueline electronic ballast were introduced, we were sure the hobby had hit its peak and nothing better would come along ---- LOL

We now have Kessel LED's over her reef and Neptune Skylights over his. To say the least things have changed. However, I still don't know what I don't know. Every day I learn something new, and I realize that it was something I just didn't know or at least something I didn't understand well enough. I learn new ways to accomplish things I have done for years and sometimes I wonder why the heck didn't I know that years ago.

What makes this hobby so wonderful is that it is a never-ending learning experience. Yes, it is an expensive hobby but not anymore that most other hobbies. If you think this hobby is expensive, try Sailing or vintage car restorations. Hobbies are as expensive as you make them. You can have a small 10-gallon nano reef for a reasonable cost, or you can buy a 400-gallon custom aquarium for a few bucks more.

I mean… let’s face it. It is expensive but same time if you look at a dog, buy a dog (designer) 2-4/5k… then food, vet bills, yearly shots, meds, end of the dogs life you’re looking at 10k vested. It’s not far off our own hobby

Fishfreak2009 · May 6, 2023

I think it is a combination of things.

1. Money obviously, because who here couldn't drop thousands on stuff for their setups if they had the money to do so?

2. Acquiring healthy fish and properly quarantining fish. This is a hard one for so many people, to properly quarantine and to even get relatively healthy fish to start. So many times I walk into one of my LFS and see sick fish in 50% or more of the tanks and see people buying them. Or ordering online from a few of the supposedly great retailers known for healthy and rare fish only to get skinny, diseased, and/or torn up fish compared to what was advertised... after being burned yet again, I'm sticking to a policy of only buying what I can see in person from here on out, not even WYSIWYG online. I physically need to see the actual specimen eating in front of me and confirm body condition and lack of visible signs of disease before bringing it home. What makes this even harder is that a lot of the fish I'm interested in are fish most stores don't like keeping in stock due to higher price/rarity/difficulty of captive care, so if they order it in they expect you to take it, even if it is sick.

3. Expecting to fix things quickly:
Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank. Quick fixes and miracle cures are the quickest way to crash a tank. Over and over throughout the years I panicked trying to fix something and have made things worse, or tried to take the easy way out (here's looking at Vibrant crashing my 380 gallon tank back in 2016 or so) and caused more issues. Research what your issue is, how to fix it properly, and do that. Don't take shortcuts.