Quote:
Originally posted by NexDog
Damn, that hurts. Sorry to hear about that.
I can't remember the rest of the thread but I can't recall too many major issues. Lets face it, we are keeping animals in an artificial environment. Fish die, corals die, equipment dies. You seem to have gotten really depressed over the loss of the fish and this is understandable on some scale but to the point of throwing in the towel?
Reefkeeping, and especially Large Tanks requires a huge amount of things many have in short supply. I'm talking time, money, and stamina (in terms of motivation). All of these I have in short supply for sure. I'm good at building things but my problem in anything has always been in sustaining it. In the last 18 months I probably spent $2k on coral and it's pretty much all dead now. Last year I couldn't fix my temp issues without opening the access doors and keeping the air con on in my office 24/7. This resulted in lots of mildew in my office and wallpaper peeling etc. And I designed the system to be enclosed! Never been able to fix the microbubbles. RODI system never pumped out 50GPD and when the weather started cooling down last winter it trickled out at maybe 10GPD. So barely enough to top-off and not enough for water changes. Then my lights started breaking, more expense, nitrates rising, bought a denitrator, didn't work, more expense. The Vortechs simply fell apart. Are we seeing a trend here?
So issues combined with expense started to make me resent the tank. The last thing I did was around last November which was installing an industrial extractor fan and ducting to canopy and made a duct box over the ballasts. Of course this cost more money. So I didn't order a new RODI unit or cartridges. I just didn't do any water changes. And in the end it didn't put out enough to cover top-off so I used tap water. I cleaned the tank every two months, fed the fish, did the bare minimum and now with PO4 and NO3 off the chart only a hammer and mushrooms are surviving.
Point I'm making is that there will always be issues and you haven't really started on the main display yet. I'm now getting back it into it as I feel I spent all this money so a couple of grand here and there is really necessary in order to maintain this thing I have created. Now if my tank was to crack or seal to break I have to ask myself what would I do. After all the issues and if the tank manufacturer didn't want to look after me I think it would be the end because even a free tank means something ridiculous in shipping to Japan. In my case I think I'd take a hiatus from the hobby until I could start again but then again maybe not?
I guess you have some big decisions to make and it comes down to how much you want that tank.
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Long time no see NexDog, I am sorry to hear about your problems as well
I was not expecting this to be "easy" but its seems to be giving me alot more problems when your avg reefer... And it seems every time I turn around it something new and worse then the time before... I have not thrown in the towel yet, but right now its in my head to just cut my loses... I guess I will see how it works out and go from there... I loved the tank and don't want to see it go, but if it will let me keep the little bit of hair I do have left and not seem like I am just pouring money down the drain or onto my carpet to be later sucked up and tossed then I may have to go that route...