All work and no play makes Jack...

[Flagg37]

If you had to pick one thing that you did that had the greatest impact on decreasing the amount of maintenance you do, what would it be?

 

[zeroinverse]

Algae blade addon
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/easy-blade-algae-scraper.html

 

[Enderturtle]

+1 to zeroinverse suggestion. If your tank isn't acrylic, get the best magnetic glass cleaner you can.

When that thin film of algae builds up on your glass, it makes your tank kinda....not so great looking. After using my algae glass cleaner, my tank is all of a sudden 40% better looking.

Alright I'm just gonna unload all the things I think really help me with maintenance.


20 Gallon Brute Trash Can + Rolly Wheels

• Good if you mix a lot of your own water or if you plan on doing a big water change. Short enough to hide under my rarely used kitchen table.
• The wheels are helpful too! You probably iwll want to roll that 200 pound bucket of water to the nearby sink/toilet to pump out the old water.

Spare Return Pump + Hosing

• Allows to quickly pump water into your tank during water changes./Good for backup return pump in case your main one dies.
• No heavy lifting of buckets or repeated scoop/pour method.

Plastic Clamps

• I use these to clamp down the hose when I pump water back into my tank.
• Also use them to hold the egg crate over my sump that the refugium light sits on.
• Also good for holding the acclimation airline tubes in place.
• I got my pack of 20 from Ross for like 10$ but I bet you can find them at ace hardware and the dollar store.
• Do NOT leave in saltwater long term, The plastic coloration dissolves in saltwater long term.
• 

Hose Holders

• Neuro told me about this one. Used for holding hoses, instead of the plastic clamp I mentioned. Can be found on ebay for cheap.
• I have no experience with these.
• 

Don't overstock/overfeed your tank

• People love cramming way too many big fish into their tanks. These fish poop/you have to feed them = fuel for algae growth (but its good for corals too to an extent).
• If your tank is overstocked, you might run into nuisance pest algae problems. Ugly algae pest problems = ugly tank = long battle = you want to break it down or start over.

Tongs

• My snails flip over all the time, corals fall off, etc.
• Having nice long tongs to grab things and move things in your aquarium without getting your hands wet is great.

Auto Top Off

• Most of us are burning through freshwater for top off right now due to Winter.
• It's nice having my JBJ Auto Top Off, re-fill my tank on its own so that I down have to pour freshwater into the tank. Picked it up used from 40$ for a bar member.

Aquatic Log App

• This is a free app that you can use to record your tank parameters when you do testing. Pretty popular.
• When I test, I use this app instead of pen/paper. It allows me to look back at past dates and see what my chemistries were.

Clean Up Crew

• Let these little guys take care of minor algae growth. Hair algae, bryopsis, etc. They will never do a good enough job with the algae on the glass.
• If you have major algae problems and an appropriate size clean-up-crew, you've got other problems and should to try figure out whats causing the excess algae growth.

Protein Skimmer

Calcium Reactors/Dosing Pumps

• Dont worry about this until your tank runs into alkalinity/calcium issues.

Feeding Fish Pellets

• I'm glad all my fish eat pellets. Opening the jar and throwing pellets in is much faster than thawing out mysis/brine/other frozen food.
  • I'm paranoid about excess nutrient issues (due to a 6 month long battle with crazy hair algae) so I do thaw and strain my frozen food through a small net before feeding.
• Also good if you want to set up an auto-feeder or while you're away.
• Don't get me wrong, my absolute favorite moment with my tank is when I spot feed frozen food to my corals and fish, but I only get to do that less than 3 times a week.
  • The pellets are their staple food in my tank for when I don't get much tank time.

 

[wpeterson]

Props to @Enderturtle 's super post, a lot of good information.

Here are my maintenance/productivity hacks in order of time/hassle saved:

1. Automatic Top Off and Large Reservoir: Never worry about salinity levels or adding water again. Can't believe I did this manually for 6 months in our first nano years ago. I like the AutoAqua SmartATO (optical). I also invested in an 15 gallon acrylic ATO reservoir that looks nice and means I only have to fill up top off water every two weeks. I alternate filling up ATO and water changes every two weeks.
2. Two Part Dosing Pump: Continuously adds Alk/Calc so I don't have to dose every day or two and I can trust my levels are stable. Best $75 I ever spent (Jebao DP-4)
3. Kitchen Scale: Measure salt and dry chemicals by weight instead of volume. I know a 25gal batch of saltwater needs 8.5lbs of salt to reach 1.025 and I can measure and mix it in 5 minutes now, when I used to scoop half a cup at a time, count them out, and make mistakes and have to add salt/water and measure multiple times. I use the same strategy for mixing Alk/Calc dosing solution now (weigh dry baking soda or calcium and add pre-defined volume of water). Both faster and much more accurate.
4. Brute w/ Wheels and RODI auto-shutoff and lid: Our RODI filter is in the laundry room and I have a nook this brute container wheels into. I connect up the RODI outlet to a float valve/auto-shutoff on RODI to fill with filtered water. I can roll this to my tank to fill up the ATO reservoir and back. I can mix saltwater in it for water changes. Can't believe I used to lug 5 gallon buckets up and down stairs and spilling everywhere. The RODI ASV allows me to turn on the water and then check on it later or the next day without stress or floods.
5. Autofeeder: I have a cheapo eheim autofeeder that dispenses micro-pellets to my tank. I had to tape the dispensing aperture mostly shut to get a properly small dose of pellets (always test this OFF the tank first!), but now I'm confident there's enough food to keep everyone alive (if not happy) if I'm busy.
6. Extra Filter socks: I bought a pack of 10 filter socks which means I can change socks and let dirty ones dry and then do one big filter sock load of laundry every few months.

My goal is that anything in the tank should run by itself for two weeks at a time without my intervention. That way I can go on vacation with less stress. When I'm home I have less work I need to do urgently. Now that we're dosing more, I need to upgrade to bigger dosing reservoirs since the ones I use now only hold about 5 days of alk/calc.

 

[wpeterson]

Spare Return Pump + Hosing

• Allows to quickly pump water into your tank during water changes./Good for backup return pump in case your main one dies.
• No heavy lifting of buckets or repeated scoop/pour method.

What return pumps do you use for water changes?

I've been using MJ1200s for their small size and flexibility in low water levels (getting the last water out of the sump), but they are not very powerful or move much water at once. The big DC return pumps I use for the tank seem way too big to use for a water change.

So, I've been thinking about finding something in between those two sizes - a medium sized cheap AC pump that moves a good amount of water but is small and simple enough for utility use.

 

[Baykes]

1. Two Part Dosing Pump: Continuously adds Alk/Calc so I don't have to dose every day or two and I can trust my levels are stable. Best $75 I ever spent

I have been wanting to get into dosing two part and have been researching the equipment. What pump did you find for $75? The ones I have been seeing run ~$90 each and I would need at least two so ~$180 total. I have been thinking about going the used route and I see many around $50 each and $90 for two.

 

[rygh]

One tidbit is to get a BIG 50 gallon brute trash can.
If you get Instant Ocean 200G boxes, there are 4 x 50G bags of salt inside.
So I can simply mix the entire bag now.

 

[wpeterson]

I have been wanting to get into dosing two part and have been researching the equipment. What pump did you find for $75? The ones I have been seeing run ~$90 each and I would need at least two so ~$180 total. I have been thinking about going the used route and I see many around $50 each and $90 for two.

I bought a Jebao DP-4. They are cheap, but get the job done. The first one I bought only had 2 out of 4 dosing heads working, but I bought another one that has had zero defects. They can be had on Amazon for $69 now (I paid $75): http://www.amazon.com/Jebao-Programmable-Auto-Dosing-DP-4/dp/B014KKCILE

The programming interface is a pain in the ass but it's worked out well and is substantially cheaper than other alternatives. If money were no object, I would use the Apex DOS unit but it's radically overpriced. I do wish I could program the doser through my Apex Fusion interface.

 

[Enderturtle]

What return pumps do you use for water changes?

I've been using MJ1200s for their small size and flexibility in low water levels (getting the last water out of the sump), but they are not very powerful or move much water at once. The big DC return pumps I use for the tank seem way too big to use for a water change.

So, I've been thinking about finding something in between those two sizes - a medium sized cheap AC pump that moves a good amount of water but is small and simple enough for utility use.

I have the same set up.

When I want to pump out detritus out of the sump, I use the small MJ1200.


When I want to pump new water into my tank I use the RIO1400. I actually put the rio1400 in my sump as a dedicated return pump for the frag tank.

Going to buy either another RIO1400 for water changes or one step larger for even faster results.

 

[Vhuang168]

If you had to pick one thing that you did that had the greatest impact on decreasing the amount of maintenance you do, what would it be?

If I had to pick 1 thing I bought that could really impact maintenance is my Kore 5th doser.

5 dosing heads, optical ato with high low floats, temp monitoring with optional control able fan, dc water change pumps. Lots of stuff in 1 package. It's not cheap but if you don't want to run a controller and did or want to buy all the separate components, it is a good way to go.

It does have its drawbacks.

Mac software is still in beta after nearly a year and very buggy.

Will only work through Bluetooth and not just any Bluetooth, has to be a class 1 so the built in Bluetooth in your laptop may not work.

No apps for smart devices meaning you have to pull out the laptop every time you want to make changes or monitor the doser.

There is a Ethernet Bluetooth adapter they are developing but so far it is vaporware.

If we're talking about 1 thing I did, it would be to feed less. Those nitrates and phosphates will creep up fairly quickly leading to algae problems and more frequent water changes etc


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Baykes]

I bought a Jebao DP-4. They are cheap, but get the job done. The first one I bought only had 2 out of 4 dosing heads working, but I bought another one that has had zero defects. They can be had on Amazon for $69 now (I paid $75): http://www.amazon.com/Jebao-Programmable-Auto-Dosing-DP-4/dp/B014KKCILE

The programming interface is a pain in the ass but it's worked out well and is substantially cheaper than other alternatives. If money were no object, I would use the Apex DOS unit but it's radically overpriced. I do wish I could program the doser through my Apex Fusion interface.

Nice, I actually was looking at those, but then I got a little discouraged after reading a post on RC that one of the heads on this guys unit was stuck in the on position and dumped a gallon of Alk mixture and crashed his tank. But then I also see a lot of reviews that it works great. How long has yours been running? I am wondering if there is a way to add redundancy somewhere to prevent something like the above experience from happening?

 

[Enderturtle]

@Baykes

Gonna add my 2 cents. Equipment can and do fail. Heaters die, dosing pumps get stuck on, aquarium controllers die. We've all heard about it happening.

The question is "Is this particular equipment, reliable for-the-most-part? And what redundancy/protection measures can you use to respond to it failing.

As for a dosing pump, I wonder if you can program your Apex to turn off your dosing pump AND send you a text message/email alerting you of unusual high pH (which might be associated with overdosing of alkalinity supplements). For this to work, I imagine your pH probe should placed in an area which will not read your dosing drips as a false reading of your overall tank pH, meaning if your pH probe is right next to where you dose or downstream of your dosing tube, it will detect the higher alkalinity dosing as higher pH, making this protection measure useless.

Calcium reactors are pretty reliable too. The summarized/simple idea is you have a reactor filled with dead coral skeletons/reactor media and you add CO2 to decrease the pH in the chamber to dissolve the corals. The dissolved calcium/carbonate is dripped into your tank. Not as complicated as it sounds. Just need to do some googling.

 

[Baykes]

@Baykes
The question is "Is this particular equipment, reliable for-the-most-part? And what redundancy/protection measures can you use to respond to it failing.

I definitely agree. I am looking to try to automate the different equipment for a reef and it is definitely easy to become almost paranoid of all the what-if scenarios

I definitely like your idea to monitor the pH and program the controller to shutoff the pump if the pH is too high, which would happen if you were beginning to overdose on all solution.

I definitely like this thread though! A lot of really beneficial information for my reef wishlist

 

[wpeterson]

Nice, I actually was looking at those, but then I got a little discouraged after reading a post on RC that one of the heads on this guys unit was stuck in the on position and dumped a gallon of Alk mixture and crashed his tank. But then I also see a lot of reviews that it works great. How long has yours been running? I am wondering if there is a way to add redundancy somewhere to prevent something like the above experience from happening?

I would say it's very unlikely for these peristaltic dosers to become stuck on. I've also found them to be quite accurate after calibration (which is built into the controller).

The defects I had were manufacturing defects, where the dosing heads weren't installed correctly (backwards?) or the tubing wasn't installed properly. Some folks have repaired theirs themselves but for the limited cost I just replaced it.

I'd also say the programming interface is nicer with these than running a manually powered dosing pump from an Apex or controller. You can select 1-24 dosing intervals, the exact time of dosing, and the amount in (1-1000ml). Unfortunately, programming it requires entering data on a 4-button arrow pad which is tedious. So, I would rate these as better than buying a dosing pump and manually controlling it. I would rate them 80% as good as the fancy Apex dosing unit, where the Apex wins with bulletproof hardware and a web interface you can program.

 

[sfsuphysics]

With my glass tank, a razor blade was the best tool I used, get sloppy with algae, no problem swipe swipe swipe looks good as new and twice as clear as my acrylic tank that has a haze of algae on it.

In general though, what helped decrease maintenance is a way to mix new salt AND pump it into the tank as all in one unit. I've used brute cans with pumps connected to hoses, but currently I have a 100g poly container that has a supply of salt water in it, I simply plug a pump in, turn a valve and water comes out the hose that is attached to it, and poof water goes into the tank (if I put the hose there, which FYI has a series of PVC in a "U" shape so that it can hang over the edge of the tank without being able to fall out). The pump that pushes the water also mixes the water until the valve is turned, so no need to double up on pumps.

But having salt water ready to go at a moment's notice is probably the best thing you can do for your tank. Then you REALLY have to be lazy to not do a water change.

 

[Flagg37]

There's some great stuff here. I like hearing what other people have done to solve problems. Often times I'm unaware of equipment that is available to solve these issues.

 

[pixelpixi]

Sump Sink! It's not a real sink. It's just a small acrylic box (I seem to be into those lately) with a bulkhead in the bottom, plumbed via a trap to the sewer. No more lugging buckets of water to the toilet for water changes!

 

[Kensington Reefer]

1" drain hose down the patio drain
3/4" fill hose with mag18 from 44gal brute can filled with heated and circulated sea water
And best of all, the delivery of 500 gal sea water from curb up up up to the reservoir

My knuckles would be dragging if I had to carry all those buckets of salt!!

Drought...what drought

 

[sjbro]

Wow, lots of good information here. I will definitely "steal" some ideas.

From my side, the big steps in easing the maintenance were:
- adding a sump with a good skimmer, macro algae refugium & sand bed. They got rid of nitrates in short time, while before I had to do often water changes to keep them in check.
- ATO with Kalk. It can refill my tank for up to 3 weeks. The Kalk is critical to keep my water params in check, and IMO it is much easier to deal with Kalk dosing that the 2 parts.
- Bio-pellets reactor. When my tank got into the algae bloom phase, I tried various solutions such as GFO & carbon. They are way too much maintenance as compared with the bio-pellets reactor. Now' I'm only running the skimmer, the refugium & bio-pellets to keep the nitrates & phosphates in check.
- a big Brute bin with a small pump in my garage for new saltwater mix. Combined with a long hose & a Mag7 pump that pushes water from garage to the tank, makes me finish the water changes in less than half an hour without having to carry any water. And right beside the Brute bin I have the RODI filter feeding a 55G bin with a float valve for auto shut off.
- a controller. I had used timers before. They were too bulky, I had to set them manually, hard to sync them. Then the controller can also monitor params & can combine monitoring with controlling (ATO, fail-safe shut off if the tank overheats).

There are others that were mentioned above such as the auto-feeder or the algae scrapper blade attached to a strong floating magnet.

 

[MolaMola]

ATO with big reservoir! (Tank inhabitants are cheering about this one, too.)
Also figured out sweet setup like others for moving water and water changes: brute cans on rollers, Mag 5 for dedicated mixing and pumping, long tube, sometimes PVC U to hold hose if working alone with DT. By plugging pump into power strip with switch I can turn it off/on easily when I am working alone.
Great idea to switch to a MaxiJet for accessing smaller areas in sump. My skimmer section is totally cramped and I have to move everything to get a Mag pump in so I tend to skip it.