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Reef Builders is proud to welcome Scott Fellman as our newest contributor. While Ryan and Jake will continue to be our meatheads of products and industry news, Scott will more often be taking a step back to bring attention to the finer points of marine aquarium keeping.
I had a friend call me the other day regarding some issues that she was having with her fabulously-equipped, obscenely expensive 300 gallon mixed reef system. She’s got the usual littany of tech toys- high end German protein skimmer, kalkmixer, calcium reactor, turbo-charged external powerheads, and a European electronic controller that would make NASA jealous. Seemed like all was good and that she should be at the top of her game with her 10k plus investment. Yet, for some reason, her system just didn’t look right. Corals seemed off-color, fish were listless, and the system just didn’t look “right”. We went through the usual questions: “Any new fishes added recently?” , “Dose any additives?”, ”When was the last time you did a water change?”….As it turned out, she felt that her super high-tech system made her exempt from basic husbandry practices…Not only had it been literally months since she did a water change, it had been an equal number of months since she checked the probes on her controller! One of the controller’s probes cracked, and the redox probe was not even submersed in the water! For all of her techno-props, my friend overlooked some basic tenants of reef-keeping: 1) You can’t blindly rely on gadgets to control your system without glancing at them occasionally to ascertain if they are working or not, and 2) You need to adhere to some very basic husbandry practices- such as water changes, to dilute metabolic waste products. Basic stuff, yes- but vital if we are to enjoy long-term success with captive animals. I’m frequently blown away how seemingly advanced hobbyists tend to overlook the most basic aspects of aquariology- observation of their systems and attention to regular husbandry. Spend less time shopping for that “limited edition” coral and more time looking at your aquarium! Return to the basic “core” experience of keeping an aquarium, and get involved with your system on a more intimate level. Get your hands wet!
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Ha ha! So easy to get caught up into the equipment and automation that we don’t check to make sure the water is where it should be. I had a similar experience with a mis-calibrated handheld pH probe. I was getting very high readings and was in a panic! I does vinegar to try and get the levels to drop…but the fish and all the corals looked fine. When I told my friend the pH levels, he said “Your fish should be dead.”
That got me thinking and then broke out an inexpensive liquid pH test kit just to see and found out my pH was fine and the probe was the culprit. After picking up some pH calibration fluid, I found it was 2.0 off from the factory. Good thing I did not kill anything!
Patience, observation and always have a backup to check to see if your equipment is doing as advertised.
Great first post Scott!
Brian
Congrats!
Hear hear Scott! Great first post and welcome to Reef Builders.
Couldn’t agree more, excellent post!
Welcome to the team Scott, looks like your first post is already quite popular.
Welcome Scott..:)
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[...] If you haven’t had a chance to read my post over there, check it out. My friend and mentor Scott Fellman also started contributing over there so look out for both our [...]