How hard was reefing for you at the start?

[Gumbies R Us]

We all were there at some point, on our way to pick out our first tank in person or online. You pull the trigger on a tank and now have a brand new tank at home. However, for some, you didn't realize how hard reef keeping would be while others might have found it not too difficult to get into. I am wondering how hard was reefing for you when you first started? Did you have someone helping you out, some sort of background or were you going in blind. Curious to see everyone's reef-keeping beginnings!

 

[JumboShrimp]

Hard. Even with a FOWLR tank there will be a pretty steep learning curve, and a fair share of mistakes.

 

[Usarmy227]

So far I have been reefing since the end of august. It hasn’t been as bad as people say for me so far but, I think that is because I do a lot of research on Reef2reef. However, now that I’ve made the switch to a bigger tank in January I find it hard to figure out what I need to do and get.

 

[seths]

Hell... It's still hard

I guess I started at 9 or 10 years old w/ parents having someone come service a basic tank and none of us really understanding.

Then got to the phase of wanting more and nicer. Then through my 20s - 30s, I love to tinker and change things too much. A lot of impatience.

I ended up with the most success having 2 tanks - one I could constantly screw with and one to leave alone and fight for consistency.

 

[Reefer Matt]

I can’t remember much about my first tank 20 years ago. I was only in reefing for a year due to the economy, and lack of a solid career. But when I got back in, it wasn’t too bad. I watched a lot of videos and worked off of my hazy memory of that first tank. However, when I wanted to start keeping sps coral a year later, I lost a lot of frags because I put them in too early (dry rock tank). I would say that reefing hasn’t been difficult for me as long as I do what I’m supposed to, instead of procrastinating.

 

[BryanM]

I'm going to oddly say easy. Mostly due to reading here and starting with live rock and sand.

After my tank migration I'm in to much harder nonsense with bottomed out nutrients and dinos. Not at all a fan.... UV this week, hopefully will get me back to being more successful.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Starting out, I found it relatively easy to manage things and I think that's because I only had a basic understanding of what I was doing. There’s truth in the saying, “ignorance is bliss.”

Of course, I didn’t dive into the deep end right away. I began with live rock, hardy species like damsels, clowns and a few bubble tip anemones. At that stage, I kept things simple.

However, as I delved deeper into topics like deep sand beds and their role in biological filtration, the complexity of the hobby became evident. Initially, it was overwhelming. I struggled to grasp the concepts. But once I started to understand, it opened up an entirely new world, and I was hooked.

Ironically, the more I learned, the more challenging subsequent tanks became. Applying my knowledge and experience wasn’t always straightforward, especially when widely accepted norms contradicted proven methods. It took time to understand these differences, and what I concluded made me more skeptical, leading me to critically evaluate information and see it through the lens of potential marketing influences.

 

[jrill]

Pretty hard. Many livestock losses. Limited information. Books hard to find. DiY much of the equipment. I started reefing in the mid 80s.

 

[56longroof]

I kept saltwater in the early to mid 90's so I was familiar with some of the common issues. Going into it this time I read alot of books and did a ton of online research before putting any water in the tank. Once i had a solid plan then I moved forward. I have found it pretty easy this go around. I have list a couple fish and 3 LPS coral recently both attributed to unexpected aggressive behavior from fish and inverts. I think the key to a solid start is live rock and live sand directly from the ocean. I was putting corals in my tank after 2 months. Those are still doing great and growing like weeds.