What Has Surprised You About the Hobby

[GatorGreg]

I have been reefing most of my life. I think the one thing that has surprised me is the nutrient issue. Going back as little as ten years and before, nutrients (NO3 - PO4) climbing were always a battle. Now it seems that many reefers battle (including me) to keep these nutrients in the system. I guess it's a testimony to how effective bacterias and equipment have become over the years.

It’s the use of dry rock. Every dry rock system I’ve ever set up was nutrient deficient. 0 nitrate 0 phosphate dosing my mind out to still end up with Dino’s.
Not sure of the ScIeNcE behind it so I won’t go there. But from the way I understand it. The rock is just sucking it out the water until it’s saturated.

ocean rock this time and it’s no longer a problem. I’m using dialed in feedings, water changes, skimmer and a small bag of chemipure elite. It keeps my nitrates around 10 and phosphates bounce between .08 and .12. I’m having to clean my glass quite a bit. Nothing is taking over the rocks though.

 

[fish farmer]

How things change and how they stay the same. Certain methods/equipment get popular, then fade, then come back.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

How things change and how they stay the same. Certain methods/equipment get popular, then fade, then come back.

Any specific examples?

 

[1112-425XL]

Petco just surprised the hell out of me. After 16 mos. of buying Instant Ocean sea salt 48 lb container repeat delivery. The price went from $37.99 to $75.00 for the exact same product and service. Good bye Petco.

 

[fish farmer]

Any specific examples?

Late 80's books like Advanced Reef Keeping read like building a rocket ship to Mars, lots of gear, bio balls filtration, skimmers, denitrators, ORP meters, etc. When I entered the hobby in 2000, the focus seemed to be more on natural filtration, live rock and live sand, basic gear. Now gear has evolved and become more obtainable and better and tech heavy reefs are back.

Ocean live rock had a similar trend, then with wild collected rock shut down it went to dry startups, now there seems to be a trend for ocean live rock again.

 

[NkSde]

How mean nemo is.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

How mean nemo is.

Yeah, clowns can be mean sometimes haha

 

[Randomstylez]

The lack of a single complied source of specific information.

Im surprised no one has centralized the common things everyone asks about. Things like What pests are these, what dino's are these, how to treat for this. Alot of these are super repeat questions with similar answers.

Secondly:
The lack of information about biodiversity.

This thread talks alot about how live rock changed and how much it is needed nowdays compared to dry rock, but really its just biodiversity and maturity of the rock. Why after decades hasn't this been a priority question with a study to answer it? For my tank I started with "live" rock and it had pods, ampipods, bristileworms, and other things I don't even know about. But because of those things my tank accelerated and limited issues with dinos/cyano that many new tanks deal with.

Finally
Why is there no seller with a "Biodiversity pack"

If I were to start a new tank now I would want to buy a few of each of the aforementioned helpful pests. I believe some of these to be essential towards the success of a new tank. Otherwise you will struggle to battle cyano, dinos, and algae as your tank matures.

 

[fish farmer]

The lack of a single complied source of specific information.

Im surprised no one has centralized the common things everyone asks about. Things like What pests are these, what dino's are these, how to treat for this. Alot of these are super repeat questions with similar answers.

Secondly:
The lack of information about biodiversity.

This thread talks alot about how live rock changed and how much it is needed nowdays compared to dry rock, but really its just biodiversity and maturity of the rock. Why after decades hasn't this been a priority question with a study to answer it? For my tank I started with "live" rock and it had pods, ampipods, bristileworms, and other things I don't even know about. But because of those things my tank accelerated and limited issues with dinos/cyano that many new tanks deal with.

Finally
Why is there no seller with a "Biodiversity pack"

If I were to start a new tank now I would want to buy a few of each of the aforementioned helpful pests. I believe some of these to be essential towards the success of a new tank. Otherwise you will struggle to battle cyano, dinos, and algae as your tank matures.

To try and answer the first part of your question. There are some sticky threads in these forums that do address certain common things, you may have to use the search function. The incredible abundance of knowledge on this forum and others would fill volumes. I remember back when I started the hobby in 2000, there were good online forum articles about live rock, sand, water parameters written by the experts, some are still here and occasionally pop up. Articles only get written if people will actually read them, seeing how basic questions get asked all the time tells me that the search engine rarely gets used...I could be wrong.

To do actual meaningful scientific studies on hobby questions takes time and money to do it right.

Regarding biodiversity/detritivore vendors, there seems to be less than during the Deep Sand Bed Era, but Indo-Pacific Sea farms still sells detritivore kits, others like Algae Barn sell pods. Look for Florida vendors that sell rock, sand, snails or algae. TBS sells small boxes of live rock/sand.

Sources of Biodiversity

Its no secret that biodiversity is beneficial in our tanks and introducing little critters and different microfauna better helps establish the reef tank ecosystem more harmoniously. It’s all about checks and balances and the principles apply in various aspects of reef keeping. We all know about...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

How gullible hobbyist are and their willingness to accept information on faith.