Thank you so, so much to everyone who responded! I was—and still am—absolutely floored by the influx of helpful comments and generous offers. I appreciate you all!
I think the reefing bug began to nibble at me around mid-2021 (soon after my now-husband and I started dating), when I discovered how entertaining his electric blue hermit crab was. He had never named his fish or inverts before, but I told him I thought his hermit crab looked like a Harold, and every fish and easily distinguishable invert (sorry, nerites and ceriths!) has had a name ever since
The reefing bug progressed from a nibble to a full-on bite earlier this year, when our first citron clown goby suddenly died. [I started to type the story, but it turned into a longer detour than expected, so I moved it to the bottom of this post in case anyone is curious.] I started to visit reefing forums in my search for answers, and that was how I discovered all the things we should have been doing all along. Nothing had seemed particularly amiss with our tank (based on the limited knowledge I had at the time), but it was just a classic case of not knowing what we didn’t know. As an example, algae had just been, well, algae to us; we hadn’t known that some types of algae were considered undesirable nuisance algae, much less that we had an overabundance of it and that was an indication of poor water quality.
So to respond to some of the questions and comments above (with a great deal of embarrassment):
We use(d) tap water with a splash of tap water conditioner. In case you’re playing Reefing Newbie Bingo, this is what our tank maintenance had previously involved (in no particular order):
- Keeping an eye on the BioCube’s stock filter cartridge and replacing it every week or two
- Checking water parameters with API test strips and a refractometer
- Topping off the tank, typically just with fresh water (i.e., tap water treated with conditioner) but occasionally making new salt water when needed
- Pruning algae when it started taking up too much space or looking less than aesthetically pleasing
- Cleaning other equipment (like the circulator) as needed
To explain (but not excuse):
My husband was aware that some people used RODI water for their tanks, but he had been under the impression that RODI water (along with many other things, like frequent, regular water changes and more precise measuring of water parameters) was just for specialty tanks with coral. He did want a much larger tank with coral eventually, but his tanks had always been fish-and-inverts only.
I think his understanding of the hobby was shaped to some degree by his determination to purchase everything in-person from his LFS instead of online. In addition to supporting his LFS, he didn’t want to put livestock through the stress of shipping when he didn’t have to, and he liked being able to inspect/observe them first. This reasoning made sense to me, and neither of us realized that it could have a negative impact on our tank.
I’ve been struggling to phrase this in a way that doesn’t sound like an attempt to shift blame/responsibility, since that is not at all my intention. Basically, I think the hobby likely seems very different to someone who doesn’t buy supplies or order livestock online, because they aren’t exposed to the variety of equipment and products that these stores carry. The LFS that he used to frequent when he started his first tank over a decade ago unfortunately went out of business, so I can’t comment on what they had, but we enjoy browsing through aquarium stores, and I at least never came away from such a trip with the realization that RODI water and regular water changes weren’t just for tanks with coral. In fact, while hubby was at least aware that those were things some people in the hobby did, I was unaware of how important it was until I started reading posts on R2R. I’m envious that some people’s LFS offered RODI water for sale. I really wish any of ours had as well, because I think it would have gotten my husband to re-evaluate his belief that RODI water was just for tanks with coral—not to mention that buying a few gallons of RODI water to bring home for our tank would have been such an easy, low-risk step to take in the right direction.
In any case, because the inhabitants of our tank aren’t used to rapid changes in water volume, we decided to start small and do a teeny (<10%) one using the setup we have for drip acclimation. That worked fine for draining the 2ish gallons of water that we replaced, but I’ll look into equipment more suited for more substantial water changes once I get the ball rolling on obtaining a RODI system. (I started a draft of a separate post requesting recommendations for a RODI system for our situation, so that’ll be posted shortly.)
I’m also happy to say that we now have a few Hanna test kits (ULR Phosphate, HR Nitrate, Calcium), which is particularly important for us because our tank has an overabundance of nutrients. That was the reason I thought an ATS might help, but based on your comments, it sounds like an ATS would be overkill for the BioCube? I’ve also briefly looked into some 3D printed modifications for the BioCube’s second chamber to improve filtration, so I’ll post those links later in this thread to ask for your opinions.
Thanks again! Joining BRS and asking for advice here was definitely the best thing I could have done to improve our tank!
Lastly, the story of our first citron clown goby that I alluded to earlier:
[Anthropomorphism alert! And I know they’re bidirectional hermaphrodites and a lone clown goby would have been female, but I thought of him as male before learning that and it stuck.]
His name was Magikarp, and he was a bright little ball of antics and charm—basically a Golden Retriever in fish form. He had been behaving normally all day, doing what he generally liked to do when I was around: playing in the current; suction-cupping himself to the tank glass; poking around the tank hopefully in case any morsels of food may have magically appeared since the last time he checked; perching in often hilarious positions, including on the shells of our hard-working CUC; ruining cute photo ops by moving at precisely the wrong moment, etc.
I went to the kitchen to prepare salads for our other pets, and when I returned to the living room, I saw that he was atop his favorite bunch of Pom Pom Gracilaria. It was unusual for him to not react when I approached the tank, though, so I bent down curiously and realized to my shock that he was dead. It had happened so recently that our CUC hadn’t even touched him yet (and to this day he is still the only fish whose body we’ve managed to see, much less recover). There were no visible external lesions and he was in good body condition, perhaps even a bit plump. We decided not to submit him for necropsy and instead bury him in a little biodegradable Fish Pod.
