Minimal Maintenance Reef

[d3hree]

I wonder if you could pm a member on here who you know maintains tanks. Mr wilson maybe?..I think he does. You could ask him how often he visits the tanks in his care and how he designs the tanks so that one visit a week or month by himself is adequate.
Essentially all you will be doing is maintaining a reef for a non-paying client with one visit per month.
I like the idea of in tank DSBs but they are not a simply "set and forget" approach and that would need considering. But they are a good form of filtration that will always be there even if the worst happens like the return pump fails or something.
I think that I would also advise that you have duplicate equipment such as return pump and heaters. Having a brand new return pump sat in a box ready to swap out for a broken one would be invaluable with infrequent maintenance visits.
I think that there are good reasons for buying LEDs and good reasons not to buy them but I wouldnt consider bulb swapping to be one if you are to visit monthly.

 

[grabthereef]

true.. backup equipment is a def must have. i am also thinking about buying things that are overkill and running them ~60-70%. Is there any way to do this with a return pump? What is the top notch self cleaning skimmer?

 

[sarmo]

i use a ball valve on the outlet side to scale back my return pump

 

[WDLV]

There's some really great ideas here depending on whether you want to go high tech or low tech. I work on medical imaging systems for a living and that has had some influence on how I reef. Another thing that has impacted how I run a system is that I like being able to leave for a week or two and not have to be biting my nails worrying about my system... in fact I'm away from home for the next week and have others caring for my system.
I prefer to work around the philosophy that 'the more complex the system the more likely it is to fail.' So, the less equipment there is the better. If you set up a system that you don't want to have to touch but once every two to four weeks I'd say to stick with high flow in the main display, and high flow through the sump. ATO is well served by a float valve rather than a float switch l(less complex) but I dont even use those any more. The LiterMeter is the safer bet. I'd design the system so the detritus collects in the bottom of the sump. That way it can be removed with a simple syphon during water changes.
I like metal halide lighting and use the $13 plusrite bulbs.
I also believe in redundancy. If you can use two pumps for the return... do. If you can't, buy something reliable. Also spend money on your skimmer.
If you need to use a valve, ball valves arebest for on/off applications but gate valves are best for controlling flow rates with precision.
I'd recommend mechanical over digital for timers and spending the money there is again a good idea. If you can get one of the ones sold to electricians that is hard wired into your system it might be worth it. I had one of the lastic ones fail while I was in Australia. So the people responsible for watching over the tank didn't know that there was a difference between the VHO and MH. No MH for a week is not such a great thing on a reef system.