Confessions of a Budget Reefer: My algae-filled nightmare (and how to avoid it)

This article isn’t a how-to. It’s a cautionary tale.

Welcome to Simple Reefs. Let’s be honest for a moment: nobody is born into reef-keeping knowing exactly what to do to create and maintain a beautiful tank. This is doubly true when reefing on a budget. When I started my marine aquarium journey, I made a lot of mistakes. Today, we are going to talk about them. Welcome to the Confessions of a Budget Reefer: My Algae-Filled Nightmare (And How to Avoid It).

Reefing on a budget requires a lot of planning!

The most important thing of all when it comes to reef keeping on a budget is planning.

Spending extra time plotting and planning exactly how you are going to build your budget marine aquarium is going to save you time, money, and a hell of a lot of hassle. You may be wondering why that is the case? Well, allow me to elaborate using my own mistakes as an example.

First of all, let’s look at what experience I had when it came to fish keeping, as a whole. That way we can establish a base line for where most people begin their reefing journey.

I had very limited experience when starting my first marine aquarium

When I started my first marine aquarium, I had very limited personal experience but definitely some experience.

My dad was an avid tropical fish hobbyist while I was young. My house had one large 6 foot tropical aquarium and one smaller 4 foot tropical aquarium.

There weren’t any particularly exotic fish but I was exposed to the process of keeping fish from a young age. I still vividly remember those arduous large bi-weekly water changes and the constant treatments.

• I also remember the mistakes my dad made:
• Purchasing fish that would grow far too large for the tank
• Trading in fish that were overly aggressive
• Not quarantining fish causing big problems
• Not thinking about compatibility

As I got older, I was give my own tank. I turned it into a fresh water tank full of cold water fish like Goldfish and the like. Later, I would move on to keeping ornamental shrimp.

Suffice to say, my experience was limited and moving to marine aquarium ownership was going to be a big learning curve but it really didn’t need to be.

It began with a Cleaner Shrimp

I had a simple motivation when it came to getting into the marine aquarium hobby. I wanted to build a marine aquarium so that I could own cleaner shrimp. It was that simple!

There was one creature on my mind when I first decided to start a marine aquarium. One solitary aquatic animal that inspired me to get into the hobby and that was the humble, unassuming, skunk cleaner shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis).

That was it. No elaborate fish or stunningly beautiful coral. In my mind, my immediate goal was an aquarium full of white sand, rocks, and a pair of cleaner shrimp.

Pretty sad, I suppose, but that was my motivation to get into the hobby. Oh, and hermit crabs, I loved hermit crabs. Everything else was lagniappe and that’s going to play into the mistakes I made.

I simply wasn’t prepared and hadn’t planned properly for building a full reef!

I converted a freshwater aquarium into a marine aquarium

So how did it all begin? Well, I started with a freshwater tank that I converted into a marine aquarium using hang-on-back equipment.

Despite my love of cleaner shrimp from quite an early age, I had never taken the plunge. That all changed when my dad passed away and left me a 260+ litre curved freshwater aquarium that was simply taking up space.

I’m not going to lie, it was a nice aquarium. It flowed with a lovely wave pattern and was aesthetically very pleasing. It needed work, though!

Rather than drive it to the skip or donate it, I decided this was my chance to finally achieve my dream of… well, owning cleaner shrimp.

I bought some live sand, a hang-on-back filter, a hang-on-back protein skimmer, a wave maker, and 20kg of dry rocks. I started filling buckets with tap water and, you can probably see where I am going with this.

The mistakes started early and, despite my patience and attempts to rectify the issues, they came often.

When did I decide to buy coral?

My vision changed from a simple cleaner shrimp dominant tank to a tank full of fish and coral within months.

Six months into my marine aquarium adventure, I had already abandoned my original vision. I had a couple of clownfish (A. ocellaris), a gorgeous coral beauty angelfish (Centropyge bispinosa), a pair of banggai cardinals (Pterapogon kauderni) and, a pair of tuxedo urchins (Mespilia)

Yep! I was a filthy traitor to my vision of a colorful invert paradise. It wasn’t long before I was eyeing up soft coral, too.

Wow, green star polyps for only £10? Sign me up.

Remember that planning I talked about a little earlier? Well, I hadn’t done any of that and I had already made a few key mistakes that we will talk about shortly.

There was a more present concern to deal with. If I want to own coral, my setup is completely wrong!

I made so many mistakes when I started my marine aquarium journey

I made a whole series of mistakes by not planning my marine aquarium ahead. My rock layout was wrong and my lighting was wrong. There’s one more big mistake that I made but we will get to that in just a second.

Let’s talk about the largest physical problem first. I had set my rock-scape up slap bang in the centre of the tank. Remember, I hadn’t planned for coral, I had planned for shrimp and maybe a fish or two.

My rock setup was fine for fish; they had room at the front and back for swimming, hiding, fighting etc. But there was no way they were going to work for coral with mu current aquarium.

The reason? Any LED lighting I fit into the hood would have a tough time not casting shadows or, even, reaching the bottom of my tank. Here’s another problem: the LED light I had started with was pants.

It was cheap and cheerful and, though algae sure loved it, most coral would merely snicker at how pathetic its PAR output was. Maybe opening to say hi but never growing or spreading. Rats!

What was the biggest mistake I made setting up my budget marine aquarium?

The biggest mistake that I made was starting my budget marine aquarium with tap water. This is a serious no-no.

My genius combination of brand new dry rocks and tap water had seriously backfired on me. Sure, I had dechlorinated the water to make it safe but all of those silicates and unwanted nasties that came from it had teamed up with the bacteria free, barren, rocks to create the most incredibly impressive hair algae breeding ground that you have ever seen.

It looked absolutely majestic swaying in the flow. It was kind of reminiscent of seeing trees whip backwards in a hurricane.

Any guests we had over were hugely amused by the way one of our Tuxedo Urchins had decided to fashion itself a slimy green wig. Looking every bit the spiny Elvis impersonator that I am sure all Urchins secretly aspire to be.

That’s all well and good but the algae had the somewhat negative trait of making me never want to look at my aquarium or even think about spending another two hours scraping it off the rocks.

The problems kept on mounting!

They absolutely did! The problems kept getting worse and worse. I experienced so many of the marine aquarium pit-falls thanks to my completely lack of planning.

I suffered through a few horrific cyanobacteria outbreaks that made my aquarium look like a slimy red hell-scape. I had bubble algae that stood undefeated for nearly an entire year like the algae equivalent of Floyd Mayweather. Dinos that almost made me quit the hobby and aiptasia big enough to swallow me whole if I dared to put a hand in.

That’s without mentioning the nitrate problems that made a lot of my coral seriously nervous. Let’s make it clear, as well; this is a tank that I was rigorously maintaining.

This wasn’t neglect or poor husbandry. There was one explanation and one explanation alone: poor planning. Not creating a concrete plan will lead to a whole bunch of problems that can make the hobby an absolute nightmare.

On top of that, it can make the costs spiral tremendously. You will be paying for one algae treatment that creates another problem and paying to fix that before the cycle repeats.

Is planning the most important part of keeping a budget marine aquarium?

Absolutely! Planning is by far the most important part of keeping a budget marine aquarium.

You need to sit down with a notepad or your phone and set out your goals:

• Do you want to own coral?
• Would you prefer fish-only?
• How likely are you to change your mind?

When you can answer these questions, you will know that you are ready.

The lesson: Plan first, buy later

You can avoid making the same mistakes I did when setting up your budget marine aquarium by making a concrete plan of what you want your tank to look like in the future.

These simple steps can help you to create a proper plan and a proper shopping list. Decide whether you want coral and what type of coral you want. Also think about whether you want fish and how many fish you want.

Don’t make the same mistake I did. If you have any inkling in the back of your mind that you might want coral in the future, plan for it now. It will save you from the spiny Elvis nightmare that I suffered through.

To get started on planning your budget marine aquarium properly, take a look at our article on What Type of Marine Aquarium Do You Want?.