Ideas for the "low maintenance" reef.

mistermikev

mistermikev

New member
Rebuilding my tank in a minute and realize there is always maint. with a coral tank... but am thinking of trying to do something that isn't going to require so much work in the way of calcium/monitoring, water-changes(I know - naughty me... do your water changes), glass scraping, adding fresh water, and all those other things that encompass effort.
Just thought I'd appeal to you for ideas on how to keep my maintenance low...
I'll start:
#1: put tank on an opposite day/night schedule - creates less heat/provides light at night
#2: keep corals and light off the glass
#3: bag of turbos,and other snails
 
Its all gonna depend on the Bio load that will consume CA,MG,& Alk.

If you have a very low demand for these then going without any supps is possible.

My first ever reef was a 10g,& i dosed nothing,& that little thing looked great in its prime.
 
I had quite a few zoas in my last setup... but I had a bad experience with a "mrs piggy" colony... and now I'm afraid of zoas...

but as far as low bio... I hear ya... I'm thinking:
start with some rock (3months)
start adding snails
jawfish
torch coral
starbursts
a brain
trumpet coral
xenia
3 fireshrimp
two firefish
 
I haven't found a way out of dosing calcium and alk, not have I found away not to do any top offs.

Top offs are easier for me cuz I have an auto top off unit. I just fill the resiviour. You can automate it with plumbing so your RODI feeds into the resivior, but I have not.

As far as reducing water cahnges and algaes, I use a 25g refugium on my 30g tank. The tank has no nitrates ever.

On my 65g tank I only have a 20g refugium so I added a RPS 1000 protein skimmer rated for twice my tank size, does a good job.

Neither of those tanks grows much algae on the glass at all. I clean my 65g's glass once a week, I don't think I've cleaned teh 30g this month. I do do many water changes on the 65g, but have not done one on the 30g in well over a month.

Both tanks keep SPS, LPS, and softies.

I also keep my bioloads low so there is not a lot of waste being produced.

My lighting schedule it from 5pm to 1 am so that helps some with heat but I do it cuz those are the hours I am home.

HTH
 
This is a great thread topic.

Lets see...

RO/DI unit = stop lugging water
float switch = stop pouring water
auto top off = stop having to turn water valve
kalk reactor = stop having to dose every day
Calcium reactor = stop having to dose even longer
magnesium doser = raise calc and alk levels

sump = stop seeing equip and water level change in display
refug with macro = lower nitrates and phos
remote deep sand bed = zero nitrates and phos
skimmer = questionable need, but what the heck we all have one
change expired bulbs = happier corals and less algae
All of the above = no algae and less glass cleaning

bulkhead in sump with hose to a drain for water changes and saltwater holding tank with auto top off, power head and pump = ease of water changes.

What else is there when you get down to basics? At this point you find out what the true appeal of this hobby is to you. If it is all the tinkering and gadgets then you can still get some fancy new stuff even though it may not be needed. Or you find yourself drawn to other projects and hobbies to keep you busy. If the appeal lies in the fish and corals and creatures then you now finally have time to sit back and enjoy your tank with minimal maintenance.
 
If you want to dose less (and don't want to purchase reactors), I'd avoid stony corals -- the torch and trumpet you mentioned will mean regular additions of Ca, alk, Mg and testing of these as well. You'll still need to keep an eye on all your parameters and dose things when necessary even without stonies, but the tank's overall uptake will be significantly less (which means less work for you).

I definitely recommend an ATO, with a large reservoir. If you're going to avoid anything maintenance-related, don't let it be top-offs; this is too important a task to slack on, but there's no reason not to let a gadget do most of the work for you!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12369481#post12369481 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ManotheSea
This is a great thread topic.

...
.... time to sit back and enjoy your tank with minimal maintenance.
Click to expand...

this is all good advice... thanks
 
"If you want to dose less...
you mentioned will mean regular additions of Ca, alk, Mg and testing of these as well. You'll ....most of the work for you!"

more good advice... yeah, I know... I gotta do water changes...
Perhaps between these thoughtful responses and others I've received in the AZ reef club... I'm going to strongly consider the auto top off.
THANKS ALL
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12373662#post12373662 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by myerst2
How about hiring someone to take care of it!!!!!!! Zero work for you. Regards, Tim
Click to expand...
are you offering? I can pay you as much as 1$ an hour.

my previous landlord paid someone to do the whole tank for him...

I'm a bit more hands on than that.
I like gardening in my tank... feeding my guys just enough to keep em looking good but not too much that food gets wasted... tending to each corals specific light and current needs... adding only animals that will be likely to "get along" with others...

My last tank was pretty high maintenance... acros and montis need tons of caand evap from metal halide was crazy which created a need for more fans (more elec... more freshwater adds... monitoring ca once a week... )

Ultimately, I've found that starburst polyps, torch coral, mushrooms, brains... are easier to do well with. Mushrooms are pretty much bullet-proof... sm with starbursts... and torch's have done well for me as long as you don't drop/fail-to-secure and damage them.

xenia seems to grow like a weed at times but if it starts dying out... it can be bad news to everything else... and if it does well it takes over everything... placing it on a high maintenance list for me, as much as I love that freindly pompom wave.

anemonies are beutiful and easy to do well with but they cannot be told where to go... so you may be ok or you may have a stubborn one that kills other corals. I like anemonies... but I'm on the fence about them.

I've owned a blue hippo that I nursed from an ick infected "almost dead" charity case to a vibrantly blue -almost fat beauty... but they eat and poop way to much and you have to keep adding vegetation to your tank... that can in and of itself become problematic if left unchecked.

I've had a pistol shrimp... and I love the work they do... but the one I had did well for about 11 or 12 months and then disappeared completely... which probably caused a nice nitro spike at one point or another (I'm not sure when I noticed he wasn't building anymore).

enough of my ramblings... anyone else have some ideas about what makes for good "lower-maintenance" livestock and/or setup?

thanks again all
 
My thought on the topic is to start with a Macro Algae / sea grass tank. That eliminates the refugium and sump system since your tank is a refugium.

You still have micro algae to deal with so you'll need some snails, and maybe a bicolor blenny to keep that micro cropped down. You just decreased your maintenance work some.

It's been six months and you've got all of this pod life all dressed up with no place to go. Time to add a soft coral to keep the cycle of life going. I recommend softies here because they don't eat up the calcium the way hard corals do. Congradulations, you now have a reef system and still aren't adding any food. Just don't add too much coral or your pods won't reproduce fast enough to keep up with demand.

Now you can experiment with adding a herbivore that can help keep your macro algae trimmed back some without overgrazing. Balance here is the key to low maintenance.

I think low maintenance is very possible, just start with primary food producers and natural filtration systems. Then add predation in careful controlled steps. You can end up with a low bioload tank that will probably be fine with once a week maintenance of the water column.
 
I think some good automation tools are:

Top off
Calcium reactor
Auto water change
Auto feeder

There wouldn't all that much left to do. You could add dolomite or Zeo mag to the calcium reactor for MG addition.
 
Last edited:
"Low maintenance" and "reef" don't belong in the same sentence ;)

You want autopilot? Might wanna invest in a good controller. While it's not exactly autopilot, it can make your reefing life much easier. My RKII can:

-automate my topoff
-monitor my tank and lets me view params on the internet
-automate my Ca Rx pH
-control the lights
-control the waves (wavemaker)
-log params throughout the day
-call or txt me on my cellphone if a parameter goes out of range
-etc.
 
I set up a near zero maintenance all in one tank that worked great for about 4 months and pretty simple and cheap.

A tank with rock sand and water movement, mine also had a false back and return through the middle of it to get the surface skimming effect and keep the top clean of scum.
Stock with soft corals, and dont feed them directly
Only a few fish and nothing free swimming, like gobies or hawks, and if you want something more interesting pipe fish. Because they dont move they dont create much waste.
Turbo snails seem to do a pretty good job keeping my glass and rocks supper clean
And the kicker and a dual reservoir ATO one dosed with CA and the other carbonate. Actually easier than it may sound. Keeps the CA and more importantly the KH up because even with no SPS coralline will suck them up fast with bright light.

It worked great for 4 months until I got flat worms and had to kill them all with exit. Did it right before I left for winter break, left the tank UNATTENDED for 4 full weeks, with no fish, and came back to one crazy algae bloom(I didnt really have much of a CUC). Not one piece of coal died though, and some even grew, including my acro and two new pieces of sps I bought with the flat worm exit. I expect the algae was from the nutrient spike from the flatworms because I only did one 50% water change. And the somewhat ironic part is my buddy paid a friend $100 and wrote 6 pages of instructions as well as showing what to do to take care of his tank, and he almost lost everything. Then I built my new tank and trashed the old one but the algae was cleaning up pretty fast while I was paying attention to it.

So it is quite possible, growth may not be the best but while I didnt have fish I wouldn't touch my tank for weeks at a time, now I just need to set up my new one the same way, only better.
 
great advice in this one...
I like the automation but the $, I am also hands on, i would like to get my hands on some equiptment.
 
Heh.

It seems most equate 'low maintenance' with 'expensive equipment' (calc reactors, for instance).

The ultimate low maintenance tank is a LOT (minimum 2 pounds per tank gallon) of live rock. Then drain it into a sump, and pump it back (for circulation). A semi-berlin method (berlin without the skimmer). Then DO NOT OVERSTOCK IT. You will, in essence, get a perpetual motion machine. Of course you always need to top off evaporation. As far as water changes, there are plenty of people who rarely do them (maybe 3-4 a year), and I once went a year without a water change (I knew a person with an anemone tank would had not done one in FOUR years).

The tip is this;

Go with a LOT of LIVE rock, stick with low maintenance corals, DO NOT OVERSTOCK corals or fish, and you can 'get away' with a LOT.

The vast majority of people here overstock. Then they buy equipment to make up the difference. That is a GREAT way to go.

But it is not the only way to do a reef tank. Just go to the nano section and look around.


nalbar
 
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