High Tide Aquatics

Smaller tank = easier?

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sfsuphysics

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Just reminiscing about the fragwork shop corals that I've killed... and wondered if a smaller tank wouldn't be a better platform to keep SPS, especially if you're not willing to put a lot of time and effort into a tank. As those of you with big tanks know, if you want to do water changes of any appreciable amount you have to do a lot of water to change. Now some people have quite the ingenious setup with float switches and multiple jugs so that they have mix-up water ready to go without much fuss, I however am not one of those people. For me with my 100g + sump it can be quite the chore to mix up 25gallons for a change. Something smaller like a little 30-40g cube would be no problem to do 5 gallons every weekend or something along those lines.

Now I know the mantra is more volume = more stable.. but lack of time can make your stable solution stay relatively stable just going towards the "not so nice" end of the spectrum .. slowly, and as a result make it a PITA to bring back to normal, because as the other saying goes dilution is the solution to get rid of pollution (or something like that).. awfully hard to dilute 100+g of water without some sort of setup to assist you so doing a change is as simple as siphoning out water with one hose while pumping it back in with another.

I just look at tanks like Steve Weast's tank (RIP) and as much as I'd drool over having something like that, I don't know how one could have time for that tank. In fact after it crashed he even mentioned he'd like to go vacation a bit. Having lots of space for lots of corals and lots of fish is nice, but the amount of work increases so much more it seems.

Anyways, just thinking out loud... and with my fingers.
 
Mike - you've seen when my 58g was doing well (well actually when it was covered in Anthelia) - it was not any easier.

I'll tell you what got harder - keeping and mantaining multiple tanks. To be honest I've been actually been thinking of turning the smaller tank into a freshwater tank (maybe planted).

Btw, I have a friend who always asks why I have to make things so complicated. Complicated is fun :D
 
Maybe a more streamlined water changing procedure would help out, but I'd do that before downgrading just to make things easier.

My 40g tank is easy to take care of, it's true. It's BB, lots of flow, so I just heat up a 5gallon jug of NSW, and dump it in.

It takes maybe 10 minutes a week to maintain, and it does well.

But the rewards are less. Spend some time / money even to put together a nice water change routine, and it'll make life easier. That'd be what I'd do.
 
Eh maybe.. I do agree with Eileen on the multiple tanks, I have been really close to posting a few pictures of my softy tank then saying "make an offer on saturday" and selling off everything. Although I'd like to keep a few things.

I still would like the idea of a sunlit area to grow stuff in, but my current setup even with a super small 10g tank hooked to my system is enough to significantly raise the temperature a few degrees Celsius on hot days, now a fan on it usually is enough to keep it down, but I can't how much temp anything bigger would be.
 
[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=2453.msg25152#msg25152 date=1190952087]
Just reminiscing about the fragwork shop corals that I've killed... and wondered if a smaller tank wouldn't be a better platform to keep SPS, especially if you're not willing to put a lot of time and effort into a tank.

[/quote]

If the bolded is true, I don't think an SPS tank is the right thing for you.
 
*ack*

Not so much something that does all the work for you, but makes it a bit more streamline.

I mean people have kids, people go on vacations, some of these same people have good tanks.
 
And we work our butts off. :D

The automation is great, but it doesn't replace the work. I don't think there is much difference in automating a large system vs a small system.
 
This hobby is money/ energy/ labor intensive. It can be even moreso for SPS keepers. If that level of commitment is too high, automation will only postpone the inevitable by a short period of time.
 
Mike if you had seen the softie/lps tank which will be worked on this weekend you will know it is not any easier whether you automate or not.

I spent more time on my SPS tank and let the smaller tank go. Now that the SPS tank is finally stabilizing (such a subjective word), I can spend more time on the smaller tank - except the skimmer just died <sigh>

In my opinion automation actually makes you more lazy and you have a tendency to let things go a bit more.

Disaster strikes...
 
Automation does help on smaller tanks. My little pico would require a lot more work and be less stable otherwise, but I don't think you want such a small tank as mine. :)
 
Well the point is as size increases the work that is required increases that much more. It's not even so much of the constant need for attention, it's the amount of work that has to be done at each attention situation.

I'm just saying it's much easier to do a 5 gallon change than 25 gallon change.
 
I think it is relative to what your definition of an "SPS" tank is as well. My tank loses .75 meq a day, it is very heavily stocked. I have customers tanks that have a light bioload, with a few SPS along with other corals I only need to see once a week, and these are people who won't even top their tanks off. A full blown reef crest tank is a lotta work no matter how you slice it.
 
Yep.

For me it's not any easier, if not harder. Temp and salinity swings on the smaller tank is maddening vs. the larger tank. I can leave the larger tank without top-off for a week without top-off and it swings only two points.

I leave the smaller tank without top-off for the same two days and it shoots up four to five points if not more.

This is the reason why I broke down my nano at work and turned it into a freshwater tank instead.

I use Brute trash cans to change water and change out both tanks at the same time. It really only takes thirty minutes assuming the saltwater is mixed and ready to go (it just got easier because I am using tap plus prime). I use a calcium reactor plus kalk reactor to maintain for the display tank and just dose as needed for the smaller tank. The amount of work never changed only trying to find ways to make it a little less labor intensive.
 
Hmmm never thought of it as that, I always assumed smaller tanks would evaporate at the same rate (i.e. a percentage that is dictated by temp, humidity, etc) so top offs wouldn't be much of an issue.

Guess it's just a trade off, cheaper, easier to heat/cool/do water changes/light/etc a smaller tank, but you also sacrifice at the expense of getting larger swings in various parameters.

My 120g softie tank I don't do squiat on it except clean the skimmer and when it gets overly gunky scrape the glass.. I used to use my stonie water I pulled out to change soft tank but I had this feeling that wasn't being very helpful, since I usually was siphoning all the crap and crud as well.

I think I simply need a float switch hooked to a solinoid to turn off my RO production at the faucet (since my low water pressure does occasionally cause the membrane to flush constantly).
 
Mike you just need to hire someone to service your tanks : ) That is easy.

I my little 10 gallon tank with kenya, mushroom and clown fish on my kitchen counter, I do a water change what every 6-8 months? Hardly no effect....just clean out the skimmer and top off when it needs it.

On the 120 I do cleaning weekly on the acrylic, dose lime water, siphon out what I can in the sand and change about 5 gallons of water, but I do thinks its whats in the tank and not the size that make it easier or not. If its too hard to keep the SPS tank up, maybe you should let it go and stick to the softie tank?
 
5g of straight ro/di into a 58g w/15g of water in the sump - makes a salinity change of four to five points (poured in all at the same time) ~70g actual water volume

5g of said water into my 120g with 25g of water in sump maybe makes a one point change ~ 120g actual water volume

Really nice nano tanks are so much harder to maintain in my opinion. Larger tanks give you a little more room for error.

I made a mistake of pulling water out of my stony tank when it had the bad hair algae problem (when it was getting better). Now I have the soft fuzzy hair algae, and it still isn't going away. The bulbs are due for a change as well - so equipment cost is really roughly the same.
 
Salinity does take a huge swing if you don't have an ATO. My pico has a AquaHub ATO (dual float switches) powered by a Aquamedic 3000 dosing pump on a 2.5 gallon reservoir. It's been a lot more consistent than I am and has been keeping my salinity pretty steady throughout the day.

The only thing that I really do nowadays is feed the corals and do twice a week water changes. The water changes are a breeze since it only requires me to change 1L of water per week (Gatorade bottle :) ).
 
So chemical math question here.. if you dump 1 gallon of saturated lime water into a 100 gallon tank at 8.0 pH does the pH really spike? ( 100 * 8.0 + 1 * 12.6 ) / 101 = 8.046 pH so seems that other than perhaps a local spike (i.e. before it gets a chance to evenly distribute into the tank) there's no issues with large volumes and topping off with quite a bit of lime water.

Arnold, yeah definitely leaning more towards a mixed reef, definitely don't want any anemone in the damn thing though *laugh* I think I've had enough of them... although it's funny non-reef people always seem to like those the most! Although I think I'll still keep particular corals segregated so I don't have to worry as much about encroaching.
 
We have a 40 ga tank abd have contemplated the opposite. How much more work ie. trouble would a larger, say 75-100 ga tank be? Our corals just do OK. Nothing grows really well. Some things really struggle. I use no additives. Just manual topoffs, skimmer and occasional water changes. Very easy. We only worry a little while on vacation. My ex takes care of the tank, birds and cats when we're away. So we have the simplest system, but the results are good only for LPS.We have wanted to get more serious(technical) but we also want to keep it manageable for my ex. Would you suggest kalk or two part?
 
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