Still battling RTN/STN

theyangman

Distinguished Member
Joined
May 22, 2013
Location
London, Ontario
I've been somewhat inactive lately, as I am still fighting with my tank to right the ship so to speak.

To this point, I have lost much hope in my tank ever coming back around. I have lost essentially 80-90% of all my corals in my aquarium, all to either RTN or STN.

I have been rigorously testing my parameters, and everything is seemingly in line.

Alk: 8.0
Cal: 450
Mag: 1360
SG: 1.026
Nitrates: 5 ppm
Phosphate: 0.03 ppm

*sigh* The frustration is mounting and desire to continue this hobby is being strained daily as another coral turns white, or begins to turn white. I noticed this morning that my palmers blue mille (Which had great color, great extension) had begun to turn white.

I have very few corals left (less than a dozen at this point) and a small fortune in dead white pieces mounted on plugs.

All the fish seem unaffected to this point however and all the fish are doing perfectly fine! I guess whatever is affecting the corals, has done nothing to bother the fish at all. They eat like pigs.

The loss of corals has been pretty devastating as I am helplessly watching them fade away one at a time it seems now.
 

jroovers

Super Active Member
Joined
Aug 29, 2012
Location
London
Sorry to hear about your losses Tony.  I am happy to frag you a Palmer's Blue Mille and other pieces when you are ready for them, just shoot me a PM (but I'd wait for a bit).

I wouldn't get too down on yourself, many of us have been through what you are going through (maybe not to the extent of losing everything), but most of us have faced adversity at some point.

I think you should just stay where you are for the time being.  If your parameters are stable, then just leave everything and let your tank mature.  Your tank is still so young - to think that you are going to have success right off the bat with difficult to keep SPS and no prior experience is pretty ambitious.  Maybe leave a couple of montis in there, a hardier mille or two, and wait until they start taking off, then slowly start adding pieces from there.

Rome wasn't built in a day.  My 120 has been up for over 3 years now, and I had a 55 gallon for two years before that, and I would say I'm just now getting things to where I wanted/envisioned, but I'm still learning something new about my system every day and trying to make incremental adjustments.  It is definitely more of a marathon than a sprint.  If you can think longer term, I think you will get more out of your tank, have more success, and have more enjoyment for what you have done.
 

Darryl_V

Super Active Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2011
Location
Woodstock, Ontario
Great advice Jordan.

There is a learning curve to a saltwater reef tank (especially SPS) and its a roller coaster.  We have all been frustrated with thoughts of giving up but that is also part of gaining the experience to move forward.

Some guys do get lucky and set up a successful SPS tank with little experience.  But if you dont have the experience, part of that is going to be luck and luck always runs out (ie.nice tank for a while, problems down the road).  I have seen that before more than once.
 

theyangman

Distinguished Member
Joined
May 22, 2013
Location
London, Ontario
I have no desire to buy corals at this point, and I appreciate your offer Jordan but anything of the sort would be a waste in my tank considering the current status of things.

I have gone beyond the threshold of merely just selling everything as I am vested to the point of even larger financial losses than corals by selling off my tank, and I truly do love the hobby of aquaria as I have been in it for quite some time now, just on the fresher side of things...

My thoughts really do however lead to going back to freshwater and getting myself a nice Asian Arowana with some bass or catfish thrown in the mix. It just seems like a better fit at times. Much of the equipment could be re-used after a good cleaning.

It does feel however that by doing so would be admitting defeat, and that is kind of a stick up my ass that I just can't swallow. I hate losing, but I just am really lost in what I want to do at this point.

I now have begun to realize that I jumped in way too deep, way too fast. My desire to have a tank along the lines of some of the members on here like Glen, Darryl, and Dave and a few others, in such a short time frame was simply asking for too much, too quickly regardless of the money spent. Lesson learned in the most

Either way, I will continue to monitor things but I do feel as if with each coral I lose, my passion for saltwater dies with it, and the frustration only continues to mount. Perhaps a FOWLR predator tank or something of the sort might be in my future, but I'm unsure. All I do know is, is that SPS is a fickle lady that isn't too be taken lightly, and I have the evidence in dead corals to attest to this.

What I am really after is I wish there was something to jump start my passion back into this hobby. Any words of advice to those who have been down this road somewhat before?
 

Duke

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Joined
Sep 20, 2011
I still say do what most people do.. Start working with softies and lps.. You will have success.. You won't want to sell everything, your tank will look good and time will pass.. Then in a year you can sell a lot of that stuff off and make some money and slowly migrate to sps corals. Nothing comes quick in this hobby. Enjoy your tank fish and coral, u just nees to stock it appropriately (lps, softies) for now
 

Salty Cracker

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Mar 10, 2012
Location
Rocky Mountains BC
I started this silly hobby in ~1997 after 15-20 years of freshwater fish experience.  No support, and HORRIBLE advice from LFS idiots (which is why I'm so damn bitter to this very day).  Below is my first salt tank.  Metal halide pendant, external overflow, rubbermaid sump (phosphate city), pendant metal halide, and every bottle of every bit of crap the guy (guess who) could sell me "oh yeah, you need to supplement iodine, oh no you don't need a drilled tank, just buy this overy expensive and problematic external pump drive overflow"  "here try this coral, here try this coral, here try this coral".  As you can see, everything I put in it died, including the fish!

What I'm saying is that except for patience, you have all the things you need to really make a go of it.  How do you think I felt looking at that tank below and knowing I was ~$2K into equipment and livestock?  Yeah, so I know how you feel.  In fact, I really didn't "GET IT" until I started posting on RC and stopped listening to the LFS dude.  I turned the tank around in about 4 months after that.  You've already got everything I had to get to fix it up.  It just needs to mature.  Leave it be or as suggested add some softies for a few months, and then try, ONE AT A TIME, adding sps.
 

Neopimp

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Jun 9, 2014
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Sarnia
Lol .... Start buying up all the cool zoas you can find:) there are a lot of variety out there.  Frogspawn.... Hammer.... Candy canes.. Mushrooms... Leathers.... There is a TON of really cool soft and Los corals out there.  A lot I which are more Colorfull than sps.

Oh and don't touch a thing:) let the system balance itself out.

If your water is good then just stop. 

:)
 

Poseidon

Distinguished Member
Joined
May 15, 2012
Location
SW Ontario
Neopimp link said:
Lol .... Start buying up all the cool zoas you can find:) there are a lot of variety out there.  Frogspawn.... Hammer.... Candy canes.. Mushrooms... Leathers.... There is a TON of really cool soft and Los corals out there.  A lot I which are more Colorfull than sps.

Oh and don't touch a thing:) let the system balance itself out.

If your water is good then just stop. 

:)

Also a lot of high end lps, gold , rainbow hammers, gold torch, a HOST of chalices, and don't even get me started on zoas... Incredible assortment available
 

Poseidon

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Joined
May 15, 2012
Location
SW Ontario
a fowler tank is always an option... there are some BEAUTIFUL fish out there.. and you can easily sell some of the equipment (dosing pumps, led's etc etc to buy some awesome fish.... angels, triggers, eels, rays, hell sharks even, sps tanks arent the ONLY way to go... the more i learn about sps the more i want to do a mixed reef,

ive also read several stories about big sps guys switch to lps and softie tanks, dont give up, simply alter course
 

Duke

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Sep 20, 2011
Salty Cracker link said:
[quote author=theyangman link=topic=6756.msg67086#msg67086 date=1383762432]
That is one fugly tank....

Yup.  Don't talk to me about frustration buddy boy. 
[/quote]

I like how it doubled as a walking cane holder also.

Damn that was a sexy tank. Did u wife constantly nag for u to get rid of that thing?
 

Salty Cracker

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Rocky Mountains BC
Duke link said:
[quote author=Salty Cracker link=topic=6756.msg67105#msg67105 date=1383770915]
[quote author=theyangman link=topic=6756.msg67086#msg67086 date=1383762432]
That is one fugly tank....

Yup.  Don't talk to me about frustration buddy boy. 
[/quote]

I like how it doubled as a walking cane holder also.

Damn that was a sexy tank. Did u wife constantly nag for u to get rid of that thing?
[/quote]

Heh, that was the fluval filter I was sold to "help clean up the tank".  Tank was in a wall in the basement, wifey never came down there, so she didn't care at all how nasty it got.  I did though :(
 

Reef Hero

Super Active Member
Joined
May 27, 2012
Location
Lucan
Hey tony! Sorry to hear about your system. I don't think you should give up the hobby if you do enjoy it.....look at everything you have learned in this short amount of time. Yes, you are not having success but ask yourself this.....what have I learned in the short time I've been in the hobby? I would say probably more than most reefers.....even the now successful ones.  If I could only show you what my tank has looked like over the few years I've been in this hobby.....I'm sure you would swear it is not even the same tank. I used to have green hair algae and aiptasia everywhere!! I never shut down the tank or quit.....I battled through numerous issues and am still battling problems.... In this hobby the problems and knowledge is endless.....
Just recently I had a major salinity issue that I believe was the cause of some tissue necrosis.....my salinity was approx 1.030+ because of a miscalibrated refractometer and slowly through water changes my salinity rose to that level..... Kinda funny when you think about it.....here I am worrying about po4, potassium, amino acids, and I have totally forgot about the very first measurement a reefer will take....salinity!!
Congrats to all the "walk off" successful reefers out there who never had to combat extreme pests, algae, tissue necrosis, etc but to those who have battled through it all and still are, I have been there, and I applaud you! So, I guess you have to ask yourself this....do you just want a fancy tank with all the corals you desire or are you willing to do the hard work it takes to become an extremely knowledgeable and successful reefer?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

Salty Cracker

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Location
Rocky Mountains BC
theyangman link said:
I can't get over how brown it is. Even my tank still isn't that bad.... It just has a lot of purple rocks in it....

So there you go.  Glad I could make you feel better.  You're welcome.  ^_^
 

reeffreak

Super Active Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2013
Location
Sarnia, Ontario
I've been in the hobby for a long time , 8-9 years. I just recently lost every sps I owned a few months back, a fortune down the toilet. I knew what I was doing, had great success for just a little over a year with my sps and like darrylv said I ran into issues and lost it all.
A bad ass sps tank doesn't happen in a day or 6 months. I feel exactly where your coming from tony I'm on the verge now I've slowly lost  interest in the tank. I worked so damn hard and put so much time into it and I feel like it was wasted, I look at my tank now and want to cry.

sometimes walking away and catching your breathe is needed. Don't let this discourage from the hobby, even if you just kept fish and some easier type of corals. I still don't know what I'm doing, some days I want to walk away from it and other days I want to try and comeback to where I was. Know that your not the only one with this struggle, I hope it turns around for you tho, all the best.
 

Jewel

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Joined
Oct 11, 2011
Location
Wingham Ontario
I've been in this hobby for 10 years and SPS scare the hell out of me, Why? because if they don't excel then it means failure. I really like LPS So colourful and so many choices. Since meeting and talking to Tyler aka Teebone, I learned that some SPS will thrive in a tank regardless of it having perfect conditions. Thanks Tyler. So I have a couple and they are doing good, good growth and I'm happy. But I am being very patient as to how much and what I put into my tank.
 

teebone110

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Joined
Jan 5, 2011
Location
London, Ontario
Website
www.thefragtank.ca
Jewel link said:
I've been in this hobby for 10 years and SPS scare the hell out of me, Why? because if they don't excel then it means failure. I really like LPS So colourful and so many choices. Since meeting and talking to Tyler aka Teebone, I learned that some SPS will thrive in a tank regardless of it having perfect conditions. Thanks Tyler. So I have a couple and they are doing good, good growth and I'm happy. But I am being very patient as to how much and what I put into my tank.

Hahaha, thanks Jim, you are funny!

I do have some pretty resistant mutatations of SPS and if they can thrive in my tank, that says something :eek:


Tony, don't give up. You are close, but just rushed into things too quickly.

Just enjoy your fish and work on keeping your params stable for a year or so and see what happens.
They didn't build rome overnight and you have a really good setup, just let things mature, maintain stability and you will get there.
 

Jewel

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Joined
Oct 11, 2011
Location
Wingham Ontario
You ever heard of Acans,Yumas,Recordia,Duncans,Frogspawn,Favia,Candy Cane,Torch,Hammers,Brains,Sinulara, These are all easily kept and Colourful SPS aren't everything, Sticks as my wife says. There is so much more to Reef keeping, Zoas, Mushrooms, Leathers Yellow or Krypto Grn Toadstools, Multi colour Brains, Hammers. Now you're talking. There are Multiple colours of Candy Cane. Your 220 and a tank full of softies,LPS Zoas and some montis and Hardy SPS  That;s a Reef tank.  Don't get discouraged just change gears a bit.
 
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