How Hard has it Been to Maintain Your Tank

[Gumbies R Us]

I feel like for some, maintaining a tank might not be the hardest thing in the world, while others might say it has been very challenging. I am wondering how hard has it been for you to maintain your tank(s)?

 

[Lavey29]

Probably depends on your experience level and hobby knowledge. It'd been moderately challenging my first year but my second year has been much easier but I till check a variety of things daily and perform various tasks daily, weekly and monthly. It is a challenging but rewarding hobby.

 

[Indymann99]

Making maintenance easy is key. If your skimmer is too tall and you cant easily get the cup off you will clean it less. If filter socks are hard to access they wont get changed out every week. ATO capacity that lasts a week is very nice. Aquascape so you can access to clean. Make WC as easy as possible and you will do it. Planning your tank for maintenance will make your experience much better.

 

[EricR]

I'm going with "pretty easy" to maintain -- just 40 gallons with no sump.
*couple of challenges that required some extra maintenance for a bit but nothing overwhelming (yet)

How's that for vague answer?

 

[iamacat]

I feel like for some, maintaining a tank might not be the hardest thing in the world, while others might say it has been very challenging. I am wondering how hard has it been for you to maintain your tank(s)?

This is fairly loaded but I think it might help others. I’ve been reefing since 2010, not that I knew or fully know what I am doing, but when I started my 75g IM I decided to go all out to give me the best chance at keeping it at a high level. Little did I know how important that would be.

^here we were about 6 months in and everything was perfect. AWC and dosing.

unfortunately shortly after this picture my life spiraled. No definitive cause to a severe neurological inflammatory crisis that resulted in the loss of function in my arms, 10/10 pain through them, lock jaw, hip pain, nausea, and a weight loss of 60# in less than 3 months. This balanced out into psychosis due to the rapid weight loss and stress. So here is what happened to the tank with little to no intervention over 15 months as I was debilitated.

The fact anything was alive is incredible to me and I owe everything to my fleece roller, avast skimmer swabbie and locker, All for Reef, and the feedings my GF continued. As my recovery improved I was able to get my hands working again to start managing things. Here are some stages of that from May 2022 to April 2023 after a move in Sept 2022.

I did not for see the health issue, but I was prepared with the way my system was started and equipped. Even though the tank was in a very depressing and frustrating state after the ordeal I was still able to work through the issues and now the system is back to where it started.

so to answer, Very hard for a while. Not to hard with understanding and preparation. I use bacteria to manage my tank. Only thing outside of bacteria that got me back was the use of chemiclean to finally overtake the cyano. Everything went south slowly and the changes in the comeback were also slow

cleaning equipment every couple months or as needed is big. Consistent small water changes. Balanced nutrient import and export. Clean the glass. Those are the only real maintenance I do.

Replacing the fleece roll, AFR, and emptying the skim locker are the easiest things to do and I don’t consider them maintenance as they are monthly and take under 5min

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

Two tanks, about 200g of water combined, I put in about 1-1.5 hours a week.

 

[Greybeard]

Hm. My tank got it's first fill of saltwater July, 2017. That's just shy of 7 years, now. Over that 7 years I attempted to use the 'Triton' system, and failed to get the results I wanted. Did a reboot, with a bare bottom tank, and the Zeovit system, December 2019. Worked ok, but expensive, and labor intensive. I retired the zeovit system in 2021.

So, a second reboot, late 2021. Added sand back into the system, added macro algae to the sump, a compartment full of live rock rubble prior to the return compartment, got rid of the socks, and at the beginning, started 10% weekly water changes. I pulled the skimmer, discontinued the calc/alk dosing... just macro algae, really.

I've gradually slowed the water changes to near nothing. When my sand bed starts looking a little gunky, I siphon out 20 gallons or so, and refill. I think I've done that twice this year.

Today... my maintenance is limited to refilling my Triton reagents as needed, scraping the sides with a magnet once a week or so (my grandson has been doing it for me lately). I am running a Kalkwasser reactor, have to clean it every few months, add a couple spoonfulls of kalk mix every other week or so.

Changing out my RO/DI filters is probably the most laborious task I perform these days. I replace my pre-filter and DI carts every quarter, and the RO membrane every 18 months or so. Yeah, probably more than most, but we're using RO for two ice makers, chilled water in the fridge, and drinking water at the sink, all fed from a well that is not the purest source.

 

[JoeReefer81]

My tanks been up and running since December 2022. So far its been fairly easy to maintain, researching everything that goes into the hobby has taken over my free time which I don't mind at all.

 

[vlangel]

This is fairly loaded but I think it might help others. I’ve been reefing since 2010, not that I knew or fully know what I am doing, but when I started my 75g IM I decided to go all out to give me the best chance at keeping it at a high level. Little did I know how important that would be.
View attachment 3132382^here we were about 6 months in and everything was perfect. AWC and dosing.

unfortunately shortly after this picture my life spiraled. No definitive cause to a severe neurological inflammatory crisis that resulted in the loss of function in my arms, 10/10 pain through them, lock jaw, hip pain, nausea, and a weight loss of 60# in less than 3 months. This balanced out into psychosis due to the rapid weight loss and stress. So here is what happened to the tank with little to no intervention over 15 months as I was debilitated.
View attachment 3132388
The fact anything was alive is incredible to me and I owe everything to my fleece roller, avast skimmer swabbie and locker, All for Reef, and the feedings my GF continued. As my recovery improved I was able to get my hands working again to start managing things. Here are some stages of that from May 2022 to April 2023 after a move in Sept 2022.
View attachment 3132393View attachment 3132394View attachment 3132396View attachment 3132400

I did not for see the health issue, but I was prepared with the way my system was started and equipped. Even though the tank was in a very depressing and frustrating state after the ordeal I was still able to work through the issues and now the system is back to where it started.

so to answer, Very hard for a while. Not to hard with understanding and preparation. I use bacteria to manage my tank. Only thing outside of bacteria that got me back was the use of chemiclean to finally overtake the cyano. Everything went south slowly and the changes in the comeback were also slow

cleaning equipment every couple months or as needed is big. Consistent small water changes. Balanced nutrient import and export. Clean the glass. Those are the only real maintenance I do.

Replacing the fleece roll, AFR, and emptying the skim locker are the easiest things to do and I don’t consider them maintenance as they are monthly and take under 5min

Wow, that is quite a testimony iamacat! I applaud you on your foresight to set up a tank that was well thought out maintenance wise and then again for not allowing the downturn in the tank to discourage you to the point of not reclaiming it. It looks amazing and I am so happy for you that you get to enjoy the fruits of good planning and perseverence.

 

[ReefDreamz]

I would say moderately hard. Definitely not easy. Every piece of equipment has a learning curve. You can't just plop a skimmer, filter roller, UV, etc. on a system and have it to work optimally right away. It takes time, research, and tweaking to get the settings and installation right. Once it is set up optimally there's still maintenance. Water changes, mixing saltwater, cleaning the skimmer cup, replacing CO2 absorbing media, cleaning the refugium or algae scrubber, water testing, cleaning and refilling reactors, replacing filter rolls or cleaning socks, dosing trace elements and dialing in alk and Ca supplementation. Not to mention scraping the glass and feeding the fish and coral. Then there's the larger but less frequent maintenance tasks such as cleaning pumps and replacing UV bulbs. On top of all that there's dealing with pests. Algae, aiptasia, flatworms, hydroids, etc. all take time and research to combat.

 

[iamacat]

Wow, that is quite a testimony iamacat! I applaud you on your foresight to set up a tank that was well thought out maintenance wise and then again for not allowing the downturn in the tank to discourage you to the point of not reclaiming it. It looks amazing and I am so happy for you that you get to enjoy the fruits of good planning and perseverence.

Oh i wouldn’t say I didn’t get discouraged. My GF kept things from going completely off the rails by taking on some responsibilities. She wouldn’t let me sell everything off to the LFS when I was in peak psychosis. I wasn’t sure if things would ever return to normal and the depression associated with the tank caused me to avoid looking at it for a few months.

I guess my point was that I made the system so that maintenance was simple and infrequent. So much so my GF with no experience could be talked through some of the jobs like mixing up AFR, changing a fleece roll, pulling chaeto out of the tunze MAR, and feeding. Only thing she couldn’t do was clean the gear due to the wiring confusion or prune the Xenia. Those two things were the main reason for the loss of some coral.

thanks for the comment. If I healed myself I sure could get the tank back

 

[Wasabiroot]

As said above, the easier you make it for yourself, the more likely you are to do the maintenance. I also found that just doing it can sometimes remind myself it takes less time than I think. For example, when I was treating my freshwater 240g for velvet, I was dreading the daily 1/3rd water changes during the treatment. After 10 days of >70g water changes I got a bit of rhythm and almost started enjoying it.

also, if you frequently address stuff, it takes less time overall. A sump clogged with algae takes way longer to clean than one you check daily or every few days.

 

[vlangel]

My tank was set up at the end of 2016. It was originally a seahorse tank but when the ponies lived out their natural lives I moved to less labor intensive animals and coral. The seahorses needed pristine water conditions in terms of pathogenic bacterial counts and water changes are 1 way to achieve that. So I added a basement sump where water changes required no lifting and pouring of buckets.
An 8 gallon water change can be done in about 5 minutes.

It is a very simple system now with the basement sump, a HOB overflow, heaters, powerheads and an aquascape that biologically does a lot of the heavy lifting for me in terms of filtration. I have a fair amount of live rock and deep sand beds in both the display and sump. My tank also has macroalgae for adornment and nutrient uptake. I feed heavy and the macroalgae export a lot of resulting nutrients. I use to do a 10% water change weekly but in the last few months my nitrates have dropped significantly so only do a 10% WC every 3 weeks and dose to replenish trace minerals and such. My fish and coral are common species that are not fussy in terms of food and feeding.

I do change filter floss and carbon weekly as well as blow off trapped detritus. Lastly I clean the glass weekly. Its the easiest tank to care for that I have had.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

My tank was set up at the end of 2016. It was originally a seahorse tank but when the ponies lived out their natural lives I moved to less labor intensive animals and coral. The seahorses needed pristine water conditions in terms of pathogenic bacterial counts and water changes are 1 way to achieve that. So I added a basement sump where water changes required no lifting and pouring of buckets.
An 8 gallon water change can be done in about 5 minutes.

It is a very simple system now with the basement sump, a HOB overflow, heaters, powerheads and an aquascape that biologically does a lot of the heavy lifting for me in terms of filtration. I have a fair amount of live rock and deep sand beds in both the display and sump. My tank also has macroalgae for adornment and nutrient uptake. I feed heavy and the macroalgae export a lot of resulting nutrients. I use to do a 10% water change weekly but in the last few months my nitrates have dropped significantly so only do a 10% WC every 3 weeks and dose to replenish trace minerals and such. My fish and coral are common species that are not fussy in terms of food and feeding.

I do change filter floss and carbon weekly as well as blow off trapped detritus. Lastly I clean the glass weekly. Its the easiest tank to care for that I have had.View attachment 3132474

Great looking tank though!!!