- A big hello to everybody.
We're rocking a new BRS t-shirt today.
My name is Matthew I am your BRS beginner guru.
We're coming at you with episode 38
Part A, Part B, no part C
in the beginner how to guide
for saltwater aquariums and reef tanks,
top 10 beginner mistakes.
But as I said, last video,
I talked way too much in parts A and B
because I only got through the five beginner mistakes,
but all we're going to do today,
right here, right now is finish up in part C
with the remaining five beginner mistakes.
Common beginner mistake number six,
not preventing pests from entering your display tank.
First off, don't be like me
when I started in the hobby
and was so afraid of any pests
that I took draconian measures.
Pests are going to appear in your tank.
It's just going to happen from time to time,
but we can probably reduce the amount of pests
that are added.
But know this,
once you do find a pest in your display tank,
there are going to be ways that we can deal with it
and remove it if need be.
Most pests I have found
will enter with new coral frags.
And the best thing you can learn to do
is have a proper quarantine for corals
and properly dip them.
There are all sorts of different products out there
you can use for dipping your corals,
and you will be amazed
at how many pests will fall off your corals
during that process.
But even if you quarantine and dip all new coral frags
some pests will just get through.
Most pests can be kept in check
through some sort of mixture
of purchasing the right livestock that will eat it
and manual removal.
One of the most common pests that comes in on coral frags
is called Aiptasia.
It is an almost translucent pinkish looking anemone
that if not kept in check
will quickly spread throughout your tank.
It can sting your corals and cause them to retract.
There are many ways to get rid of Aiptasia though.
I've had Aiptasia in all of my tanks,
and as soon as I notice it,
you can either get something like a peppermint shrimp
or some other fish out there
that actually liked to eat the Aiptasia.
Or there are a whole bunch of products out there
that you can target the Aiptasia directly and kill it.
But of course, the absolute best way to prevent pests
from getting into your display tank
is anytime you get new corals,
what are you going to want to do
is first of all,
put them through some sort of coral dip,
remove them from the frag plugs,
put them on new frag plugs
and ideally put them in a quarantine tank for three weeks
so you can watch them closely
and remove any pests that appear.
Then take them out of there,
dip them one more time
before placing them in your display tank.
You might be wondering, but how do I do that?
Well, this isn't the video to go into details,
but stay tuned to the series
because we will cover that later.
Just know that there are pests in this hobby,
but an ounce of prevention really goes a long way.
But if and when pests appear in your display tank,
don't panic, don't panic.
They can be kept in checked
or removed through various measures.
Common beginner mistake number seven
is not knowing how to correctly interpret test results.
And I don't blame a beginner,
how are you supposed to know
what to test for, how often to test for it?
And what do those results even tell you about your tank?
In any new system
the top tier of important things to test for
is ammonia and nitrite
cause these are toxic for your fish.
If your ammonia creeps above 0.25
and starts approaching 0.5 or even more,
there's some issue with your tank
that needs to be dealt with quickly.
The same is going to be true
if you notice your nitrites creeping up as well.
But typically if you're testing frequently,
you will notice your ammonia creeping up first,
followed by your nitrites.
Just for reference,
in a fully cycled and established aquarium
you should never have ammonia or nitride in your tank.
They will always be near zero.
The second tier of testing importance is NO3 and PO4,
your nitrates and phosphates.
Testing frequently and understanding the results
will not only help you keep your nuisance algae in check,
but also help prevent the growth of cyanobacteria
and dinoflagellates.
But you're only going to be able to succeed here
if you test frequently,
at least once a week and maybe twice a week
when you're starting out a new tank,
because if those nutrient levels creep too high,
you have to intervene quickly
so you don't get a nuisance algae outbreak.
But if the opposite is true
and they dropped down to zero, you also need to intervene
so you don't get cyanobacteria or dinoflagellates.
After that you have your third tier of testing importance
in a new system,
and that is calcium and alkalinity.
New hobbyists,
and I am totally guilty of this,
often will panic
if their calcium alkalinity get a little bit out of whack
and they may take drastic measures
to get to some sort of ideal number in their brain
but honestly, most corals can survive anywhere from 375
to probably even something like 500.
So even though we recommend a range between 400 and 450,
if your calcium levels get a little bit high
or a little bit low, there's really nothing to panic about.
The same is true for alkalinity.
You might really want to have an ideal number of 9 dKH
but if you live in a dank apartment in the winter time,
that's full of carbon dioxide,
you might just not be able to achieve those levels.
And yes, that may slow down your coral growth
but as long as your corals look happy and healthy,
there's really nothing to panic about.
Just for an example, all of my tanks right now
are for some reason, testing above 450 calcium,
some of them even above 500,
I have no idea why
I'm not dosing some of these tanks, but you know what?
I look at the tanks,
I look at the corals
they're growing, they're happy,
they're healthy, their colors are good.
So I don't worry about it.
And finally, in your last tier
of important things to test for
are your minor and trace elements.
To be totally frank with you
I rarely if ever test for these things
because I perform frequent water changes.
So I know those minor and trace elements
are getting replenished.
The only exceptions to the rule
are if there are some sort of problems.
For example, when I had problems
back here in my anemone tank,
a lot of people told me that low iodine levels
could be the problem.
So I did end up testing this tank
and discovering that my iodine levels were low.
But as long as you keep up on your weekly
or every other week water changes,
I wouldn't even consider testing
for minor and trace elements
until a year or two years down the road.
Once you have a better understanding of this hobby
and the importance of all the other tests out there.
Common beginner mistake number eight
is trying to balance pH, calcium and alkalinity.
I'm going to try to find you guys some pictures,
maybe even a couple of videos,
and they're going to be terrible I'm sorry,
but this is of my first Red sea Reefer 170.
We had just gotten back from a year in Honolulu
and we really didn't have any money
because it's very expensive to live there.
So we rented this dank basement apartment on Mercer island,
which is just right outside of Seattle.
It was kind of nasty.
We had four of us living in a small two bedroom
and I saved up money every month
from working at The Hyatt in Bellevue.
And I finally put this tank together
and of course I wanted to be the perfect hobbyist,
which meant making sure my pH, my calcium
and my alkalinity levels were correct all the time.
But I struggled.
I could not for the life of me
get my pH anywhere near 8.0.
And my alkalinity was always sitting somewhere around seven
and I just couldn't figure it out.
And the only thing that made sense to me
was that we were breathing so much in this little apartment
that our carbon dioxide levels were so high,
that it was lowering the pH and the dKH.
I started doing things
like adding airline tubing into my skimmer.
I even ran it all the way outside.
I would open up the apartment a lot more than I should have
increasing our electric bill
just to get in some fresh oxygen
and get that carbon dioxide out.
I tried things like Kalkwasser, Kalkwasser reactors,
and all that ended up doing
was temporarily raising my pH and my dKH
but gunking up all of my pumps.
No matter what I did seriously,
the numbers wouldn't go up.
And at the end of the day,
what I realized years down the road
is it just didn't matter.
Yes, a low pH meant that my corals probably grew more slowly
than they should have,
but it was just a reality
of living in a dank cramped apartment
with four people in the winter time in Seattle.
I can't tell you how often
I would try to use the calculators
to dose the right amount of calcium
and the right amount of alkalinity
to keep my numbers perfect.
I wanted what? 425 calcium
and like 9.0 dKH.
And so I would keep adding and adding
and adding some sort of soda Ash mixture.
But all that ended up happening is it would precipitate out.
I could not get the buffering right
which meant I couldn't get the pH right.
And the biggest mistake here
was trying to chase these numbers.
If your tank looks healthy,
if your corals are happy, don't worry about those numbers.
If you're close to the preferred range,
your tanks probably going to be fine.
Let your tank dictate the exact numbers.
Now that I live here in beautiful Palm Springs,
we have the windows open all the time.
My tanks have no problem with a dKH nine or 10,
but in Seattle it just wasn't possible.
So don't chase after the perfect numbers,
let your tank dictate to you what those numbers should be
and use that as a baseline.
Common beginner mistake, number nine,
overfeeding your fish.
It is so easy to overfeed your fish
because number one, it is fun to feed your fish
and your fish will understand feeding time.
And you'll walk by your tank all the time
and there'll be like little puppies
and they'll come to the glass
and they'll be like, "Feed me, feed me, feed me"
and you'll be like, "Oh, you're so cute.
Let me just throw in some food."
And most beginners are probably going to be feeding pellets,
but the problem with pellets
is they are five to 10 times more nutrient dense by weight
when compared to frozen foods.
So if we just stop by
and put a little bit in all the time,
a lot of that food is going to go to waste.
It's going to cause way more fish poop.
It's going to end up in our filter socks.
And we're going to see our nitrate
and phosphate levels start going through the roof,
which as we all know
is going to lead to some sort of nuisance algae outbreak.
And not only can overfeeding lead to nuisance algae,
but you can also have fat fish,
just like I can eat junk food all the time
and during the pandemic, it is true
I've gotten rid of half my t-shirts
because I've gained 20 pounds I think like a lot of us have,
your fish can eat too much
and they can eat too much of the wrong food.
And it can cause them to become unhealthy,
which may decrease their length of life.
But you might ask,
"Matthew, how do you know if you're overfeeding your fish?"
The best way is to test for your nitrate
and your phosphates frequently.
If your nitrates and your phosphates are going up, up, up,
you're overfeeding.
At this point, once you notice you're overfeeding,
you really have two options.
Option number one is feed less.
Option number two is filter more,
or just do some sort of combination of both.
But you might also be saying, "Matthew, I can't feed less.
I have so many fish in this tank and they need the food."
Maybe you have an Anthias, maybe you have Chromis.
Maybe you have fish that just need to feed all day.
So you don't have the option of feeding less.
Well, if you can't feed less
then one, you could switch foods.
If you're relying heavily on pellet or flake foods,
switch to frozen foods, that will help a lot.
But if you still have the problem,
you're just going to have to filter more.
What does that mean?
That means more mechanical filtration for the most part.
that means changing out your filter socks more frequently,
and that also means doing something like a protein skimmer.
If you don't have one already,
if you don't have a tank that has a sump,
there are hanging on the back protein skimmers
or small protein skimmers
that can fit in a rear filtration chamber.
But you can go a step further
and do some sort of macro algae.
You can put macro algaes in a sump kind of refugium.
You can do some sort of algae scrubber
which could be externally plumbed,
or you can do some sort of (indistinct) reactor
that can fit really anywhere in your tank.
There are all sorts of ways to adding macroalgae
depending on the type of tank you have.
And if you have high nitrate and phosphate levels
that you can't get down
through any other kinds of mechanical filtration,
adding macroalgae can be the solution for you.
I solved the overfeeding problem in my Heram tank
primarily through a few ways.
First I stopped feeding pellet foods
and I switched to frozen foods.
Next I made the skim on my protein skimmer much more wet,
so it removed more from the water column
and lastly, I upped my filter sock changing schedule
from one time a week to two times a week.
And common beginner mistake number 10,
not understanding the limits of a cleanup crew.
Well, guess what?
We're actually going to skip this one
because as I was writing this,
I realized that episode 39, our next episode,
is all about cleanup crews.
As always everybody thanks for watching,
happy reefing, be well.
We'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)