My 135 mixed reef is coming up on its 10 year anniversary. I fought with it for the first two years with one bloom after another of various algae: hair, lobo, diatoms, bubble, you name it, I've been through it, and was doing biweekly (or more often) 5-20 gallon water changes to try to combat. I ran phos, carbon, etc. and changed it religiously. I pulled bucket after bucket of hair algae out of it for months. Eventually I got frustrated, went back to the drawing board, got a better skimmer and setup a fuge with chaeto and just let things run their course. I now change water maybe twice per year (20 gal each). I have a pretty good "feel" for when things are happy, and only test parameters when the "canaries" in the coal mine start to look off. At one point I went 2 years without logging a test (I'm sure I did test a couple times but just forgot to log it). I use kalk in the top off, and dose Alk, Ca, and Mg, and maybe a cap of trace elements every month or two. I have some bubble algae and some cyano spots here and there, but I figure that's just part of the biology of my system. Nothing runs out of control (except the ricordea!) and I have robust mix of softies, LPS, and low light SPS (T5 lighting). Corals have just about filled the entire tank at this point, so I have no room to add more. Bioload is fairly light since my flame angel and purple tang harass all newcomers to death. Those two have been in for 6+ years, and my three Pajama Cardinals have been in from day 1. I am always trying to improve my methods and care practices, but at the same time I hate maintenance, so the tank has kind of evolved as a balance between what I do and what it will support. In this case, it seems to work fine for both of us.
