Some things add up to worse trouble than either thing singly....so it's well to learn to look at multiple causes of a problem. Constellations of problems that work together to become worse.
1. ---heat above 80 degrees can cause bleaching of coralline PARTICULARLY under MH light, particularly if the lights are running when the water is that hot. Learned that one from experience. Took the coralline months to recover.
2 ---alkalinity being 'off' when you've got a parasite in the tank. If there was any chance the parasite, 1 in number, would fail to attach to a fish and just die without reproducing, the alkalinity being low affects a fish's slime coat, the fish is less protected than usual, and bingo, you are the lucky winner of an ich problem.
3.--- Your test kits expire. Instead of thinking "it can't suddenly be that bad!" you believe its result and chase the reading with more and more additive. For weeks. Not only is your tank overloaded with buffer, you now have concretions in your pump and pipes, plus ghosty chemical problems that are going to take massive water changes to fix.
4. --- You don't secure your ato line. Somebody reaches in under stand after fishfood or a piece of equipment and bumps it. It adds too much. Way too much. You also didn't secure your electrical power bar up on the side of the stand, so it is now getting wet. You also didn't install gfi sockets for that power bar where it meets the wall...power doesn't stop.
It's sort of like a wicked game of billiards: ONE item isn't that disastrous, but it nudges another. I've done a few myself. Many of us have. When you are problem-solving, try to look at the whole picture, because, Murphy's Other Law...anything that can go wrong, will, and if it can nudge something else, it'll do that, too.
I'm sure our long-time members can add some doozies to the list.
1. ---heat above 80 degrees can cause bleaching of coralline PARTICULARLY under MH light, particularly if the lights are running when the water is that hot. Learned that one from experience. Took the coralline months to recover.
2 ---alkalinity being 'off' when you've got a parasite in the tank. If there was any chance the parasite, 1 in number, would fail to attach to a fish and just die without reproducing, the alkalinity being low affects a fish's slime coat, the fish is less protected than usual, and bingo, you are the lucky winner of an ich problem.
3.--- Your test kits expire. Instead of thinking "it can't suddenly be that bad!" you believe its result and chase the reading with more and more additive. For weeks. Not only is your tank overloaded with buffer, you now have concretions in your pump and pipes, plus ghosty chemical problems that are going to take massive water changes to fix.
4. --- You don't secure your ato line. Somebody reaches in under stand after fishfood or a piece of equipment and bumps it. It adds too much. Way too much. You also didn't secure your electrical power bar up on the side of the stand, so it is now getting wet. You also didn't install gfi sockets for that power bar where it meets the wall...power doesn't stop.
It's sort of like a wicked game of billiards: ONE item isn't that disastrous, but it nudges another. I've done a few myself. Many of us have. When you are problem-solving, try to look at the whole picture, because, Murphy's Other Law...anything that can go wrong, will, and if it can nudge something else, it'll do that, too.
I'm sure our long-time members can add some doozies to the list.
