Feeling like I'm in a state of limbo

[AlbertG]

(translation #2, how am I doing?) :triumphant: excellent sir !

 

[choff]

I've had my fair share of ups and downs in this hobby but right now I might be at one of my lowest.

First, a crack in the seam of my display tank forced me to take everything down and house everything in a Rubbermaid stock tank. Without all my fail-safes in place, a kalkwasser incident caused me to lose a majority of my livestock . It's been a couple of months and things have settled down in the stock tank and I see some growth coming along. It's just tough to take inventory when you can only see top down .

All summer long, I've been battling dinoflagellates in my frag tank, with me on the losing side. It spread so rapidly that I lost a good chunk of my SPS and was depressing to see everything overcome with algae. Lights have currently been off for a week and my skimmer has been emptying about 5 gallons a day. Things a starting to look clearer and I'm hoping I can overcome this when do more maintenance on the tank this week.

I had plans of upgrading my frag this summer but I've been in the market for a bigger house, so all my tank dreams have come to a halt. I'm sure the cooler temps will force me to become more involved with my tanks, but for now, I'm not sure where I'm heading .

Yep, sounds par for the course. I could bore you with all my woes the past 3 years (or it might make you feel better), but from my viewpoint that's the hobby in a nutshell. To me, it comes down to love of the hobby (and affordability). I stick with it because I couldn't imagine my life without it so I push on. The key for me as well has been a high level of automation that has kept my tank stable during my low interest times which I've certainly had.

I will say I do understand where you are coming from on the new house. We were also looking to build a home, which had me very excited at the prospect of being able to build a house around my system, but made me very reluctant to invest much time in my current tank (we didn't end up moving btw). Add in the fact that you are running your DT out of Rubbermaid is also fairly depressing.

This is what I would if it was me and I am not at all suggesting what you should do. Only you know that. If I really thought I was going to move in the near future, I would simplify. I'd break down the DT and just run my frag tank. I'd find folks who I trusted and were willing to house some of my larger colonies. I would look forward to setting up a new larger tank in my house and not having a DT to move will make things a lot easier. Moving is stressful enough, let alone worrying about moving a reef tank. I'd rather break it down and start over with the ability to go at my own pace. Rushing to get my tank set up in a new house is going to piss my wife off because that's all I would be focused on and I would end up doing a less than ideal install because I would be in a rush. It would be ages before I got around to correcting those initial mistakes and in the end, I'd end up losing most of the stuff I tried to save. That's just how I see it.


Best of luck and keep us posted!


Ps, agree on peroxide for Dino's, but be very careful not to overdose. Go slow, it takes time.

 

[jamesdong009]

Thanks for all the kind words and encouragement guys! I've been in the hobby nearly 20 years and don't think that I would ever be tankless. Definitely not as long as Paul B, but I'm also not as old . I did go around to a few LFS to get some inspiration. This hobby is way too addicting .

Finally got a chance to clean up the frag tank yesterday and things are looking better. I did spread out some of my collection so now I just have to go track everyone down

**I will definitely take everyone's offer for a drink

 

[jamesdong009]

Keeping my fingers crossed but I think I'm dino free in all my tanks. Extensive lights out, aggressive skimming, and adding extra bacteria seemed to do the trick. Now I just need the motivation to get things looking "nice" again.