Ideas for a super low maintenance tank?

[FishyLovers]

Help me design the lowest maintenance tank ever!

I've had a marine aquarium for years. I'm considering changing my aquarium, and I want to design the most low-maintenance tank possible. But I'm conflicted on what exactly would be best- should I try a [big] fish only tank? A nano-reef? What ideas do you have for making the lowest maintenance tanks ever?

__________

Currently my setup is a
-35 gallon tank
-2 gallon sump- Biomedia, Purigen, and Phosguard
-10 gallon ATO Resevoir
-2.5 gallon (7 %) weekly water change
-4 clownfish, 3 anemones, Xenias, and a Euphyllia

 

[ZANYMASTER]

[No message]

 

[Donewiththisplace]

I got a 29 biocube mixed reef and must say that this time I've learned from my mistakes.

About 6 years ago I had the same set up. Although the maintenance was basically the same, I slacked as many of us tend to do. I pushed back doing water changes from every 2 week's to every 3, because well the water looked ok still. Soon it became every 4 weeks...then 5. Eventually the tank was loaded with dinoflaggelate algae and beyond the point of recovery.

This time around I do 20% water changes every 10 days. Water tests I do weekly. I clean the glass as needed...every 3 or 4 days it seems.

I also abandoned the excel spreadsheet to document events and went over to the Aquarium Note app. It allows me to document everything as far as test results, livestock inventory, costs and schedule events such as maintenance. I know when i did things, what i need to do and what it cost me all in the palm of my hand.

This tank has minimal equipment too...no skimmer, no dosers, no uv, no reactors...just a MJ1200 for a return pump and a koralia 2 for circulation. I run filter floss in the rear chamber and change it as needed..usually 4-5 days and a bag of chemi-pure blue changes every 3 months.

Lighting is AI Hydra 26HD, controlled with the AI app on my phone. Changes are done in minutes if need be.

Every 3 months I take apart the return pump and koralia and clean the impellers and housing.

All in all...maybe 60 minutes a week doing maintenance. Tank is healthy, corals and fish are thriving. Water changes I feel are the key to success and as long as I do them most problems will be eliminated.

Guess what I'm trying to say with this rant is keep it simple, and stick to a basic maintenance routine. Don't get carried away with additives and equipment that will mess with the chemical balance of the tank.

 

[FishyLovers]

I got a 29 biocube mixed reef and must say that this time I've learned from my mistakes.


All in all...maybe 60 minutes a week doing maintenance. Tank is healthy, corals and fish are thriving. Water changes I feel are the key to success and as long as I do them most problems will be eliminated.

Guess what I'm trying to say with this rant is keep it simple, and stick to a basic maintenance routine. Don't get carried away with additives and equipment that will mess with the chemical balance of the tank.

So I currently have a much lighter maintenance schedule than you. I simply do a water change every week and test every 2. It's about 30-45 minutes per week, 10 if I skip the water change and just clean the glass.

But my real question is whether getting bigger sumps or skimmers would be able to cut down on the amount of water changes that I'd need to do.

 

[Donewiththisplace]

Well think of it this way...equipment needs cleaning, tuning and visually observing them to make sure their doing what their supposed to be doing. Will all that time add up to more than just doing a water change?

Water changes are a necessary evil.

Also, are 7% water changes enough to effectively remove toxins and replenish vital nutrients?

Maybe doing a 20% change could allow you to do 2 a month instead of 4. Yeah more water and slightly more work..but for me at least, setting up to do maintenace is the hardest part. Whether i change 2 gallons or 5 gallons or 10 gallons...the time difference is minimal. If your going through the whole process of doing a change, make it worthwhile.

 

[IBernE]

I have a 24 JBJ in my bedroom which I considered mine because I maintained it but officially it is my girlfriends tank (I got it for her and she decided the aquascape and what corals and fish she would have and she fed them too). I run an eshopps skimmer and some filter floss in the first chamber on a rack I made myself. When I was maintaining the tank I would do around a 50% water change weekly, strictly, change the filter floss and clean the skimmer with water tests every two weeks. Around 3-4 Months ago I told her that I could no longer take care of her tank seeing as I have a 40 Reef a 29G planted a 5G betta and 2 bearded dragons and she should take responsibility over it #animalhouse. And she said ok and I thought she would keep the same scheduled maintenance. Nope she did not. She does around a 50% water change, on her own, every month or so, she changes the filter floss weekly and she empties the skimmer cup when its full and almost overflowing lol and so far the tank is thriving. Ive been scratching my head over this. ALLLL the work ive put into it and the results have been so far the same. I know bad things can happen fast so, Ive been concerned and I have done some water test and nitrates are still undetectable by API. No Algaes no diatoms no issues. I guess for her its working so far. When I suggest to her its time to do maintenance she says "no I just let nature take its course", but thats just her way of saying I don't feel like it. I don't recommend this but still something to share.

 

[Donewiththisplace]

Funny u say that. I had a friend with a similar tank to mine...he never tested his water and used tap water for changes, when he did them every month or so.

Amazingly he had no water quality issues and the tank grew purple corraline like crazy, literally covering everything.

I agree it seems very unorthodox, this haphazard approach...but I guess it leaves something to be said about all the maintenance and equipment we dump into and onto our aquariums.

Never understood it.

 

[IBernE]

Time Will tell where her tank goes lol but I must add, I tought her to be a careful feeder. She has a pair of clowns a watchman goby and a taispot blenny. When it?s feeding time, manually, once a day, they all go up to their feeding ring and eat from it. Almost no food drops down and she feeds just enough to make sure everyone has had some. And whatever goes down are scraps for Mr. Blood red shrimp.

 

[Paul B]

I do less maintenance than all of you and my 100 gallon reef is very old.
I change some water maybe 5 times a year. I have no test kits, dosers, quarantine or hospital tank and no medications. I keep my tank natural and my fish are immune from disease and parasites.
Besides change a little water I clean the glass twice a week and about once a month clean the top of the skimmer. Some of my pumps are 25 years old and I never had to clean them. The newer Korilas I have to clean a couple of times a year which is a pain.
But weekly I have no maintenance schedule except feeding and hatching brine shrimp for the mandarins and pipefish.

 

[IBernE]

How do you replenish evaporated water? ATO? Tap/RODI?

 

[Paul B]

DIY ATO using RO/DI. It's all automatic.

 

[theMeat]

I do less maintenance than all of you and my 100 gallon reef is very old.
I change some water maybe 5 times a year. I have no test kits, dosers, quarantine or hospital tank and no medications. I keep my tank natural and my fish are immune from disease and parasites.
Besides change a little water I clean the glass twice a week and about once a month clean the top of the skimmer. Some of my pumps are 25 years old and I never had to clean them. The newer Korilas I have to clean a couple of times a year which is a pain.
But weekly I have no maintenance schedule except feeding and hatching brine shrimp for the mandarins and pipefish.

What?s your phosphate and nitrate levels?

 

[theMeat]

We?re at the verge of a no, or close to no water change hobby. If you have the means of removing the end product of the nitrogen cycle, nitrates and phosphates, which is why water changes are needed. If you have the means of reducing nitrates and phosphates, then replenishing elements becomes the issue.
The two or three ways that I see this possible are
-bio pellet reactor. A good choice where space is not abundant, but requires a big skimmer and regular parameter testing to make sure you don?t strip too much from water which could be devastating to the tank and it?s cycle.
-a very large refugium and/or algae scrubber. This gives you a visual of how hi nutrients are by monitoring the rate of growth and quality of it. It also gives pods habitat and can help stabilize ph by running fuge/ats lights at night when display tank lights are off.

 

[Paul B]

What?s your phosphate and nitrate levels?

My nitrates are over 100 and my phosphate is 2.0
Most of my corals except 3 or 4 are LPS or soft corals. I am more interested in having all my fish spawn and with my levels I would not be able to keep delicate SPS at this point.

 

[Arrg]

This would be your best bet... https://www.walmart.com/ip/Lightahe...5035&wl11=online&wl12=114891192&wl13=&veh=sem

 

[Paul B]

LOL, I love it. :biggrin:

 

[Donewiththisplace]

See I'm the exact opposite school of thought. I'd rather do WCs, even if it has to be weekly....than deal with finicky skimmers, reactors or scrubbers...all of which need some form of routine preventative maintenance or cleaning and the logistics of fitting them into our tanks and powering them.

With taking them apart there is always the risk of breaking them, losing a washer or gasket that will drastically effect it's operation and the actual time involved to do it.

Not to mention, whether your new to this hobby or a seasoned veteran...whats one of the first recommended actions to take when something is out of whack with your water quality? Take your water to get tested at your LFS and if something is off, the recommendation will be to do a WC.

I've went the skimmer route..and I remember having to adjust it literally everyday and checking it 2 or 3 times a day to see what it was doing. Honestly, there was no difference in water quality with it running versus it not running.

I'm sure both the aquarist that has all of the latest and best equipment on the market and the one that has the bare minimum needed to sustain a tank can both successfully keep thriving aquariums. At no point here am I trying to knock the person that runs a ton of equipment. But for sticking to the OP question...just trying to show how less equipment can mean less maintenance.

 

[vio]

We?re at the verge of a no, or close to no water change hobby. If you have the means of removing the end product of the nitrogen cycle, nitrates and phosphates, which is why water changes are needed. If you have the means of reducing nitrates and phosphates, then replenishing elements becomes the issue.
The two or three ways that I see this possible are
-bio pellet reactor. A good choice where space is not abundant, but requires a big skimmer and regular parameter testing to make sure you don?t strip too much from water which could be devastating to the tank and it?s cycle.
-a very large refugium and/or algae scrubber. This gives you a visual of how hi nutrients are by monitoring the rate of growth and quality of it. It also gives pods habitat and can help stabilize ph by running fuge/ats lights at night when display tank lights are off.

+1, Large refugium, lots of Live Rocks, Bio-Pellets, rinse the frozen food, but depend what you try to grow, use good salt ( Tropic Marine Pro.) nice SPS or fancy corals, need good light ( MH) and low nutrition , if try to grow mush. sponges is dif.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFRx515CUYA&feature=youtu.be

 

[solracju]

set up my tank April 2nd and haven?t done a water change since the 3 week of April. Tank and corals are doing fine. I?m doing a modified triton method no refugium. Quality equipment will take you a long way. Apex was the best purchase I made for the tank.

 

[rcdude1990]

I'm running a 25 gallon lagoon from IM
I'm at a once a week 5 gallon water change and running the tunze ato

Once a week 20 min water changes is all I do
That includes cleaning glass and cleaning skimmer cup

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