novahobbies
Well-Known Member
Let me start off by saying the obvious: I am no expert at this. I'm just a hobbyist. I learn new things about these tanks of ours all the time.....and for me, that whole process of discovery is a big part of the appeal. I love watching the hobby evolve both on a meta level as a group, and on a personal level in my own living room aquarium.
That being said, I've been at this for a few years now.....and I've got a pretty nice aquarium to show for it. I get a few people who come over in person or see my tank online and ask me variations of the same question: "What's your secret?" That question, asked often enough, got me thinking about a good answer. What IS my secret?
Truth is, there is no secret. No magic pill, no secret sauce, no private potion that I add to the tank to make it look purty. But you probably already knew that. My personal "secret" is a combination of a few of the oldest and most obvious habits in our hobby. Water changes, stability, and patience.
I know there are a lot of people who have said "water changes are a thing of the past! Just dose your elements!" and, for them, they might be right. I also know what my tank used to look like when I didn't do regular water changes. Wasn't pretty. And I know what my tank looks like when I do perform regular changes. Hey, guess what? Suddenly it IS pretty! And the water changes are such a simple thing to do......I perform 2 water changes a month, either 15% or 20%, which means my total water change works out to about 35% monthly. It's not hard to do at all, once you get into a rhythm for it. Doing these two water changes every month has become an almost relaxing part of my maintenance routine, and it gives me a chance to get in and blow all the rocks down of any accumulated detritus....win-win, I suppose.
In a way, the idea of doing two big water changes a month seems counter-intuitive to my second "secret." But it really does mesh when you think about it. We’re trying to achieve some level of homeostasis here in these glass boxes, and there’s really no way of doing that without constant nutrient export via water changes, algal filters, skimmers, and other similar devices. Swapping out a moderate percentage every couple of weeks helps keep the numbers in line, so to speak, and should be no more stressful to the fish and corals than a regular low tide in the real world.
So, was that all I meant by stability? Well, no. It’s a big part, but what I really mean is overall system stability for the coral inhabitants. I’m talking about daily dosing for 2-part, regular testing, and the use of an automated topoff system. Fish can handle a little salinity swing or alk spike……invertebrates can’t. I can’t think of a single coral reef system that I’ve seen that didn’t have somebody at BARE MINIMUM using a method for topping off evap on a daily basis. Many hobbyists also use automated dosers for Calcium and Alk, but it’s not strictly necessary…as long as you take the time to manually dose your Ca and Alk loss every single day. I’ve learned (sadly through experience) that alk swings from skipping a few doses can and will kill off a coral or three. However you choose to dose, ya gotta do it religiously.
Which brings me to my third and final secret: Patience. Nothing magical happens fast in this hobby. We have to learn how to relax, be constant in our maintenance schedule, and sit back to let the inhabitants do “their thing.” It’s so easy to jump the gun in a thousand different ways. We try to rush the cycle instead of allowing the bacterial colonies to grow naturally. We tend to overload the tank with small coral frags instead of letting a few choice pieces grow out into display size. (We also tend to frag “colonies” of corals way before they really should be fragged out, but I digress.) And of course we all want to get all those beautiful fish into the tank all at once, instead of adding a couple fish at a time, properly quarantined, and allowing the tank to re-achieve its homeostasis before adding more fish. All of these pitfalls are easy to fall for, and I suspect that everyone here has made at least one of these mistakes along the way. God knows I have. Learning patience, in fact, was probably the hardest lesson I had to learn when I started out so long ago. But I’m glad I did. I wouldn’t have the tank I have today if I hadn’t figured that last bit out.
So that’s it. My super-dooper “secrets” for keeping a nice tank. But don’t tell anybody else……shhhhhhh. What are some of your tricks that you’ve picked up over the years?
That being said, I've been at this for a few years now.....and I've got a pretty nice aquarium to show for it. I get a few people who come over in person or see my tank online and ask me variations of the same question: "What's your secret?" That question, asked often enough, got me thinking about a good answer. What IS my secret?
Truth is, there is no secret. No magic pill, no secret sauce, no private potion that I add to the tank to make it look purty. But you probably already knew that. My personal "secret" is a combination of a few of the oldest and most obvious habits in our hobby. Water changes, stability, and patience.
I know there are a lot of people who have said "water changes are a thing of the past! Just dose your elements!" and, for them, they might be right. I also know what my tank used to look like when I didn't do regular water changes. Wasn't pretty. And I know what my tank looks like when I do perform regular changes. Hey, guess what? Suddenly it IS pretty! And the water changes are such a simple thing to do......I perform 2 water changes a month, either 15% or 20%, which means my total water change works out to about 35% monthly. It's not hard to do at all, once you get into a rhythm for it. Doing these two water changes every month has become an almost relaxing part of my maintenance routine, and it gives me a chance to get in and blow all the rocks down of any accumulated detritus....win-win, I suppose.
In a way, the idea of doing two big water changes a month seems counter-intuitive to my second "secret." But it really does mesh when you think about it. We’re trying to achieve some level of homeostasis here in these glass boxes, and there’s really no way of doing that without constant nutrient export via water changes, algal filters, skimmers, and other similar devices. Swapping out a moderate percentage every couple of weeks helps keep the numbers in line, so to speak, and should be no more stressful to the fish and corals than a regular low tide in the real world.
So, was that all I meant by stability? Well, no. It’s a big part, but what I really mean is overall system stability for the coral inhabitants. I’m talking about daily dosing for 2-part, regular testing, and the use of an automated topoff system. Fish can handle a little salinity swing or alk spike……invertebrates can’t. I can’t think of a single coral reef system that I’ve seen that didn’t have somebody at BARE MINIMUM using a method for topping off evap on a daily basis. Many hobbyists also use automated dosers for Calcium and Alk, but it’s not strictly necessary…as long as you take the time to manually dose your Ca and Alk loss every single day. I’ve learned (sadly through experience) that alk swings from skipping a few doses can and will kill off a coral or three. However you choose to dose, ya gotta do it religiously.
Which brings me to my third and final secret: Patience. Nothing magical happens fast in this hobby. We have to learn how to relax, be constant in our maintenance schedule, and sit back to let the inhabitants do “their thing.” It’s so easy to jump the gun in a thousand different ways. We try to rush the cycle instead of allowing the bacterial colonies to grow naturally. We tend to overload the tank with small coral frags instead of letting a few choice pieces grow out into display size. (We also tend to frag “colonies” of corals way before they really should be fragged out, but I digress.) And of course we all want to get all those beautiful fish into the tank all at once, instead of adding a couple fish at a time, properly quarantined, and allowing the tank to re-achieve its homeostasis before adding more fish. All of these pitfalls are easy to fall for, and I suspect that everyone here has made at least one of these mistakes along the way. God knows I have. Learning patience, in fact, was probably the hardest lesson I had to learn when I started out so long ago. But I’m glad I did. I wouldn’t have the tank I have today if I hadn’t figured that last bit out.
So that’s it. My super-dooper “secrets” for keeping a nice tank. But don’t tell anybody else……shhhhhhh. What are some of your tricks that you’ve picked up over the years?
