Top 7 Reef Tank Successes & Mistakes of 2022!

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[@cherellzandell]

Major success, convincing my husband to let me set up my first reef tank! That's in process currently, going to start fishless cycle possibly today! Needless to say, I'm pretty excited 😊

[@dereks3207]

goal for 2023, put up some sort of black background to cover that wallpaper :D

[@kengilmore4384]

Gtaet video. My tanks are steadily improving all my zoas are thriving but still battling hair algae

[@christophercrawford8237]

4:43 I almost spit out my lunch 😂😂😂

[@Theunbelievabletruth489]

I hate your wallpaper !

[@theeastcoastreefer]

my biggest failure was trusting in Reef Factory equipment, their server went down twice and flooded my office as well as killing off a load of livestock with a salinity drop biggest success was moving from an aquaone minireef 120 to a reefer 250

[@ironic_water]

This guy is literally Patches from Dark Souls/Elden Ring. Love it.

[@kimpetersen4730]

My best “make your life easy’er” equipment is my tunze 9004 skimmer and my RO unit🤓🤗🤩

[@RandomStyles]

Not exactly a full year yet reefing but my biggest success was my nano tanks stability so far with a full mixed reef around 45 different corals in the same fluval tank you have. My biggest failure was adding kalk slurry to my tank and chemically burning a stylophora coral

[@shpoonboon]

Hey Alex. I have the RedSea Reef Mat as well and I love it!! I’m trying to dial in the roll advance length on my 275 gallon RedSea tank. I’m currently rolling about 4 inches / advance and wondered what you’re rolling?

[@slirpslirp]

my biggest mistake was introducing in my tank montiporas with nudibranchs

[@dusk1947]

Well 2022 for me started with introducing Brooklynella to my tank with a new clown addition. Which ended in both clowns dead to disease, & two tangs dead to my inexperience treating the disease. Followed by a small bout of self-pity. Then all positive from there.

[@danabsalom]

I set my first marine tank up last December. Failures have been not using good quality test kits, not calibrating my refractometer, losing an expensive elegance coral and struggling with ammonia for the first few months. Successes have been setting up my own RODI unit after realising the LFS water was a big issue at 70TDD as well as seeing some good coral growth not things have stabilised!

[@michaelhans2509]

Man I just loved this video. Had multiple laugh out loud moments. Great job and here is to more reefing videos in 2023🎉

[@davidhughes7180]

Ball swinging got me!

[@michaelhans2509]

@@davidhughes7180 yep. Me too

[@kewda]

My biggest success is getting into the hobby about 3 months ago. Have two clowns. Today I went to get some clean up crew including a cleaner shrimp, peppermint Shrimp and some hermit crab. Will wait a bit for some algae to appear before grabbing some snails/conch. My biggest failure is not knowing that my refractor had to be calibrated. So while I thought I was dialed in perfectly, my cleaner shrimp I picked up today died in 1 hour due to salinity being way off. Took some water to the LFS and they tested for me and I was shocked. They then explained to me how to calibrate my refractor. Did a 5 gallon water change when I got home and am back to actual good Params this time after the recalibration. Whew. Managed to save the pep shrimp in the process, at least for now. Let’s see where he is tomorrow!

[@vincentlong6254]

Your acros are looking fantastic now mate, IMO a nice black background would definitely make them pop more with the added bonus of great photos and vids too,

[@artistic_spaz3724]

I fail often, unfortunately, but i am also persistent and stubborn. I'm determined to have an awesome tank, and that's why i am here listening and learning from you!!

[@annebartells777]

One of my greatest mistakes was to ignore a majano anemone. Next thing I knew, I had them everywhere. I had to take out about half my rockwork and manually remove them. It took me about five hours to complete my project. Some rocks I had to replace. Never, never ignore these things. They reproduce faster than a pair of rabbits and if you put full strength kalkwasser on it, they just use it to take a bath. They are very hard to kill

[@itsbeertimenow]

Greatest Success - Coraline algae is thriving Greatest Failure - Trying to remove a barnacle from a torch and murdering the hell out of it.

[@pelagicswimmer]

My biggest continual fail is to stick to any kind of budget :)

[@sunnygoold9449]

Congrats mate - yeah the Kalk is huge Well done on Hamish and Andy :D

[@davidclarke389]

First year started reefing. Biggest fail was buying a dotty back as it looked cool not knowing how angry they are

[@cezar050681]

A big fail for this year was to lose all my fishes, including a 4 years old yellow tang to ich😔.

[@opethmike]

I'm pretty sure that Reef Dork is my dad

[@darrylbaker2530]

My biggest mistake is not getting a reef tank .... yet

[@fireyfoxer]

finally pulled the trigger for XR30's and I am so excited, have you ever done reviews on them? Let me know dork LOVE your content keep it up!! cheers

[@ReefDork]

Never had one I'm afraid...

[@bencobb3433]

Great video Alex, my biggest failure has to be setting up my ex fish house seemed like a great idea at the time but environmental conditions such as temperature high and low lead to Huge running costs, which has lead to now having to close it all down,but on a the bright side am now planing a 4ft by 4ft by 30h that's going In the house 😁

[@wilfwill]

Hi reef dork I have a question if you get chance to answer it my parameters are good in my tank and I got my lfs to double check but my corals are just still not growing my tank was at 27 degree temp which I've changed do you think it could be my lights I'm using reef photons lights but I'm struggling with things to check or change lol any help would be appreciated

[@ReefDork]

It's really hard to advice on the comments section - really I need photos and to ask you various questions. Get yourself on a forum like Ultimate Reef or Reef2Reef and ask there 🙂

[@kevintwine8443]

My success is I've started a reef tank, Mistake is starting a reef tank 💸💸💸💸💸💸💸💸💸🤣

[@Richs_reef]

2:28 Paul at AAC always says ‘test your f**king salinity’ for this very reason, so basic its easily overlooked!

[@ReefDork]

Yeah, proper schoolboy error that I was a little embarrassed to admit!

[@KARLOB84]

great vid Alex, whats the bracket holding the reefbrites and kessils mate?

[@ReefDork]

Reefbrite quad mount

[@abyankabir1910]

Hi there, I will be setting up a 600 litre mixed reef tank. So, I was hoping you could give me some tips on how I can help mature my tank faster therefore making it more stable. I’ll be quarantining all the fish that will go in and for the inverts I’ll just rinse them in saltwater after acclimating them and then add them to the tank. For corals I’ll dip them and then remove the peg of the frag plug and add it to the tank. After cycling the tank I will also add copepods as the first clean up crew and also as a source of food for the fish. What else can I do to help mature the tank faster? Please let me know! I may get some mature bio media from other tanks and then add that as well, but I am not too sure about that as most people here don’t quarantine there fish and almost always have some type of disease in their tank. I will be using dry rock and sand as that is the only option. Also I won’t have a refugium in the beginning. But I plan on getting the bio media and keep it in a bucket with a few mollies. If they do not get sick after 14-15 days then it should be safe for marine fish. I saw this on humble.fish I believe and they said it works because mollies are freshwater fish and they don’t have any immunity against saltwater diseases, so, if there are any diseases in the bio media then they will definitely get it. Please do let me know what else I can do to increase the bio diversity and maturity of the tank! I’m really sorry the comment the really long 😅 but please do help me out, thank you again in advance! :)

[@ReefDork]

Sounds like you're doing all the right things! Faster is rarely better with a reef tank so just take your time and you'll be fine.

[@abyankabir1910]

@@ReefDork thank you so much!

[@RobBoryckiGolf]

Nice Alex

[@jonathanreich9694]

Good job on the success of the pick reef!!!😂😂😂😂

[@jonathanreich9694]

Queen of reef did a video on her pico. I told her you threw yours in the trash!!!🤣🤣🤣😳

[@revZ098]

My biggest failure was not realising that a rock with a string tied to it to hold a toadstool in place was the reason my corals were dying. After doing countless testing and icp and water changes. Figured out in the end but not after loosing alot of high end corals

[@nim6us]

I don’t get it, how was the rock with a string killing your corals?

[@revZ098]

@@nim6us im assuming it wasnt a reef safe string becuase it looked as if it har broken down and released some chemicals in my tank. Either that or my paly grande rock. But even with running carbon it didnt make a difference

[@TomsReefs]

Major Successes! 1. Successfully quarantining m, treating and then releasing an ich free Powder Blue. 2. Finally keeping and growing Acros! 3. Setting up a small coral farm 🤣

[@Val_Halla777]

After many years in the hobby…I finally made a critical mistake that wiped out a few of my Acros. Similar to your high salinity issue…but mine was caused by mistakenly filling my ATO from my saltwater bin. Ouch hey?! I may have caught this before coral damage if I had a salinity probe..but have yet to buy one for my Apex. Cheers 🍻

[@josephposada1830]

Cheers Mate! I am finally enjoying my tank. A combination of New Beneficial Bacteria found in Microbe Lift Special blend and Chemiclean. I continue monitoring the basics and all is well. I have added 2 different varieties of Duncan's , A favia frag, and a Bird's-nest. All are well and fluffy

[@DanMirkz]

Failures - Attempting to go the no water change route. Whilst things looked amazing for 2-3 months, I quickly saw decline after having to treat for Ich. - Attempting to treat certain issues over the course of months before finally buying a microscope and ID'ing that I actually had Dinos, not the cyano and then diatoms that I was treating initially.. - Allowing the tank to get quite severe dinos. Successes - Most of my fish are still alive, only losing a coral goby and a sandsifter goby that had been added into the tank this year. - Installing a UV sterilizer and doing it in a way that keeps it hidden in the the sump cabinet and seeing some slight success so far... Definitely more of a 'Grief Tank' this year !

[@deanfielding4411]

Increasing the air flow and also pulling the airflow for my protein skimmer from outside. It both increased my PH and reduced the low swings and was super easy and cost me nothing, just routing a pipe outside.

[@ilikeweirdfish7106]

Set up my first tank and the softies and LPS are growing like crazy...... but a cyano breakout happened due me not noticing a powerhead dining plus a few weeks of bad maintenance which cost me a few sps frags unfortunately.

[@jhaslock]

120 Gallon soft coral tank - Successes in 2023: 1. Horrible aiptasia infestation through out the tank under control. Used Berghia and then stayed on top of manual removal as a see them. Big success! 2. Nitrate is now under control. I am maintaining 10-15 compared to the 50-60 range I was use to. Starting dosing NoPox and testing nitrate daily for 3 months until I had it under control. Big success and I now understand the levers in maintaining my pollutants. I need more coral in the tank to uptake the nitrates to match my feeding. 3. Starting using an Apex and becoming more in tune to my tanks daily parameters and needs. Big success. 4. Started dosing heavy on Kalkwasser and Alkalinity and now my tanks PH is 8.2 at it's high point and 8.05 at the lower end. Big success. As a result of all these successes my tank inhabitants are much happier and thriving. Fish are less stressed and corals are growing. Mistakes - Can't say any one thing is jumping out but I'm sure I have made some along the way this year, but most I would consider little. I think the biggest mistake I want to avoid in 2023 is not replacing my aging tank, at this point it is 17 years old and needs to be replaced. Good video and I knew that stupid nano tank was going to be on your list, you might as well tried a thimble instead.

[@AMGEE]

Salinity! Nuked my tank in march because of this. Almost lost every coral. Resetted the tank (by adjusting all parameters) and also introduced Kalkwasser again. (Used it many years ago). Now i would say that was my biggest improvement in the lifetime of the tank (13 years old. 2000 liters) and in the overall time i am into this hobby (for 26 years). Keep up your good work, greets from germany.

[@SEJC]

For my salinity checker I have a bottle of 35ppt solution cheaper than the hanna sachets and I use a large tic tac sweet plastic container for the solution. It only needs a small amount as the checker only just fits in so displacement pushes the liquid up and only a small amount needed. My checkers swings in one week but 1 ppt quiet often.

[@TomoBishBosh]

Awesome video, love to see these! What's the difference between roller mat and skimmer? Although i am still waiting to set up my tank, some of my main successes this year have been organising and planning everything i need and slowly ticking things off and familiarising myself with possible problems. My biggest failure is probably thinking that i all the bad things that happen in the tank will not happen to me, also probably buying things i dont need yet

[@squidarcherb9707]

Roller mats are like filter socks, they pull out larger particles. Skimmers take out much smaller compounds in the water.

[@deanfielding4411]

@@squidarcherb9707 Good answer

[@DKLordByron]

my biggest success is to have started a simple 125L saltwater aquarium. it is now 2 months old and my hammer coral is still alive and still looking happy. The 2 clovnfish is also happy - i think 🤔 The biggest mistake was that I didn't measure the water I got from the previous owner before pouring it in, because nitrate was at least 100ppm. so I quickly learned how to mix salt water. Even though I've had a freshwater aquarium for many years, there's a lot of new things to learn, so I've been watching more KZbin than TV. Thanks for sharing your experiences and explaining about saltwater aquariums. it's just a shame that there are so few who keeps simple aquariums without all the equipment under the aquarium. Marry christmas from Denmark 🎅

[@briankavanagh7191]

Bought a Red sea reef mat 500 after watching your video, took out my baffles and filter socks, the sump looks so much cleaner and has easier access to clean, keep up the excellent live show.

[@UnderTheTideSOS]

ive had much of the same experience with the salinity swings. ive lost some coral to it also. with your help understanding I will be making the change to Kalk soon, just waiting to pull the trigger on a new Doser .. I greatly appreciate your informative videos and the way you present them. great content, ive learn a tremendous amount from you this past few months ive started following. just as of Feb, 2022 ive been in the hobby. set up a 40g AIO cube tank. that tank I feel is finally taking its turn (my KZbin photo) my 40g cube is all Euphyllia torch coral Reef tank, this has come from plenty of failure with other coral types. through acquiring better power heads for flow and stabilizing my parameters in a much better manner through some time of the tank being set up, the torch coral seemed to be one besides Acan Lords coral (acanthastrea) that did pretty well. so over the last 3month or so ive been acquiring torches only and with MACNA being close this year, I was able to score some great deals on some Bali Farmed colonies of torch and after some trial with quarantine dew to direct from the ocean propagation with came with a good amount of pests along with dips, etc. the tank trials were also there with placement and flow rates so it was some time before I got things to this moment now were I do think the tank is going to settle into its Owen and thrive much better going forward now and one of my biggest failures was rushing into coral that I wasn't taking enough time to research other than a quick google search and going of a quick judgement along with maybe not taking algae control as serious to start as needed .. but almost a year in and things have changed! thanks aging for the informative content🤙

[@hurrensreef4228]

Agreed on the ReefMat game changer in clarity, ease and no more socks 👍 now looking to bulk up my XR15s with a T5 hybrid set up. Any suggestions? Why did you change?

[@ReefDork]

I ditched T5s because I wanted more blue LEDs for fluorescence and because I didn't like the way the T5 made my tank look (the light it gave off and the physical size of the light).