Hello,
Since this is my first post on reefcentral, I'd like to thank you for reading. I have been involved with saltwater tanks on and off for the last 10 years and currently maintain 2 separate systems which have both been established for around 2 years.
When I got back into the hobby around 2 years ago, I invested in an RO filter because I was tired of buying water in 5 gallon buckets. I went about the hobby similar to the way anyone else would. I changed 10-20% of the water in the tanks every week, cleaned the filter media, vacuumed the sand, etc.... basically doing tasks that were part of the hobby. But then something happened...
I bought a fish from a LFS and it happened to have some sort of disease which didnt rear its ugly head for about 2 weeks after getting the fish. I should note that this infection only took its toll on only 1 of my tanks. I initially thought it was ich, but now I think it could have been marine velvet. I guess I'll never really know.
In any case, I decided to treat the inhabitants with hypo salinity and had varying degrees of success. I lost some 75% of my fish in the end, but I dont blame the hypo process on it, I actually blamed my terrible water quality I was getting out of my RO filter. I took the water to a LFS and had them test it. The guy had one of those meters that you can tell the purity of RO water and said it was abnormally high. I had brought a sample of the RO reject water too per request of the LFS and actually figured out that I had been putting reject water in my tanks for over a year for top ups and the establishment of my nano tank (the second tank) while throwing away the good water.... dumb. Terrible news right?
Once I started to replace water in both tanks with pure RO, I noticed that I had significantly less detritus buildup on the sand of the tank. So I started thinking of how I could take care of it without actually vacuuming the sand. Since I lost so many fish in my main tank, I bought a shrimp/goby pair. The shrimp made short work of the sand in my entire tank basically cycling it every day to the point that I no longer saw any detritus at all.
I bought a few other creatures that would help keep the tank and sand clean. About 20 hermit crabs, 4 turbo snails, 4 nasarrius snails (all in my main 55G tank)
Well turn the clock to 10 months later.... and I have yet to do a water change. My levels pH 8.1, NH3/NH4 0ppm, NO2 0ppm, and NO3 0ppm have never varied or changed in the last 10 months, and the tanks consistently look cleaner than they have ever been.
I got so confident in this state my tanks were in, I decided to try a few corals. Up until that point, I only had live rock, multiple rbtas, and fish. While not all corals work in my setup, I'm not convinced it is because of my lack of water changes so much as I believe it has to do with my inexperience with coral keeping in general (lighting, placement, flow, etc)(I lost candy cane frags, a frogspawn (due to pollyp bailout) and birds nest frags) With that being said, I've been able to keep some green pallys and a hairy mushroom (that are both growing rapidly). Some are even changing color (pictured)
I'm sure you can keep other types of corals, but I have not yet had the money to buy anything else.
I posted a forum entry on another site that said I had a maintenance free tank, and I generally got the idea that not many people wanted to hear about it. People get in their ways and spend lots of money on products they think they need and they don't really want to change. They like spending time maintaining their tanks because its part of their weekly routine or whatever. Thats fine by me. The last thing I want to do is sound like I'm bragging about having these tanks. I'm simply pointing out that if you'd like to maintain an aquarium that takes minimal effort after an initial break in period, it can be done.
As of right now and for the last 10 months, the only thing I do to maintain either tank is:
1. Replace evaporated water with RO water (not the reject water anymore..)
2. Feed the fish every 2 days
There is no other trick to it.
Since I've gotten the impression that nobody actually believes I can do this, I'm considering buying a drop cam to monitor my tank at my home. I'll keep a live feed on the tank 24 hours a day for 6 months and post it online. Seeing is believing I guess.
small nano tank (originally set up with reject water by mistake)
https://youtu.be/q6btWcU0Jso
main 55G (originally set up with pure RO water)
https://youtu.be/SfjXBigoZhA
I'd be happy to help anyone trying to do this. I'm not trying to keep it a secret. From what I've searched online I could find nothing like this setup out there.
Thoughts?
Since this is my first post on reefcentral, I'd like to thank you for reading. I have been involved with saltwater tanks on and off for the last 10 years and currently maintain 2 separate systems which have both been established for around 2 years.
When I got back into the hobby around 2 years ago, I invested in an RO filter because I was tired of buying water in 5 gallon buckets. I went about the hobby similar to the way anyone else would. I changed 10-20% of the water in the tanks every week, cleaned the filter media, vacuumed the sand, etc.... basically doing tasks that were part of the hobby. But then something happened...
I bought a fish from a LFS and it happened to have some sort of disease which didnt rear its ugly head for about 2 weeks after getting the fish. I should note that this infection only took its toll on only 1 of my tanks. I initially thought it was ich, but now I think it could have been marine velvet. I guess I'll never really know.
In any case, I decided to treat the inhabitants with hypo salinity and had varying degrees of success. I lost some 75% of my fish in the end, but I dont blame the hypo process on it, I actually blamed my terrible water quality I was getting out of my RO filter. I took the water to a LFS and had them test it. The guy had one of those meters that you can tell the purity of RO water and said it was abnormally high. I had brought a sample of the RO reject water too per request of the LFS and actually figured out that I had been putting reject water in my tanks for over a year for top ups and the establishment of my nano tank (the second tank) while throwing away the good water.... dumb. Terrible news right?
Once I started to replace water in both tanks with pure RO, I noticed that I had significantly less detritus buildup on the sand of the tank. So I started thinking of how I could take care of it without actually vacuuming the sand. Since I lost so many fish in my main tank, I bought a shrimp/goby pair. The shrimp made short work of the sand in my entire tank basically cycling it every day to the point that I no longer saw any detritus at all.
I bought a few other creatures that would help keep the tank and sand clean. About 20 hermit crabs, 4 turbo snails, 4 nasarrius snails (all in my main 55G tank)
Well turn the clock to 10 months later.... and I have yet to do a water change. My levels pH 8.1, NH3/NH4 0ppm, NO2 0ppm, and NO3 0ppm have never varied or changed in the last 10 months, and the tanks consistently look cleaner than they have ever been.
I got so confident in this state my tanks were in, I decided to try a few corals. Up until that point, I only had live rock, multiple rbtas, and fish. While not all corals work in my setup, I'm not convinced it is because of my lack of water changes so much as I believe it has to do with my inexperience with coral keeping in general (lighting, placement, flow, etc)(I lost candy cane frags, a frogspawn (due to pollyp bailout) and birds nest frags) With that being said, I've been able to keep some green pallys and a hairy mushroom (that are both growing rapidly). Some are even changing color (pictured)
I'm sure you can keep other types of corals, but I have not yet had the money to buy anything else.
I posted a forum entry on another site that said I had a maintenance free tank, and I generally got the idea that not many people wanted to hear about it. People get in their ways and spend lots of money on products they think they need and they don't really want to change. They like spending time maintaining their tanks because its part of their weekly routine or whatever. Thats fine by me. The last thing I want to do is sound like I'm bragging about having these tanks. I'm simply pointing out that if you'd like to maintain an aquarium that takes minimal effort after an initial break in period, it can be done.
As of right now and for the last 10 months, the only thing I do to maintain either tank is:
1. Replace evaporated water with RO water (not the reject water anymore..)
2. Feed the fish every 2 days
There is no other trick to it.
Since I've gotten the impression that nobody actually believes I can do this, I'm considering buying a drop cam to monitor my tank at my home. I'll keep a live feed on the tank 24 hours a day for 6 months and post it online. Seeing is believing I guess.
small nano tank (originally set up with reject water by mistake)
https://youtu.be/q6btWcU0Jso
main 55G (originally set up with pure RO water)
https://youtu.be/SfjXBigoZhA
I'd be happy to help anyone trying to do this. I'm not trying to keep it a secret. From what I've searched online I could find nothing like this setup out there.
Thoughts?
