Most annoying tank chores?

[tapar]

I have been planning my tank out for a while now and find myself wondering what the most annoying tank maintenance chores are? I kind of dread cleaning the skimmer and emptying the skimmer cup. I can also see how manually handling ATO and water changes could be a real drag. I am curious if there are other tasks that rank up there as obnoxious or a pain.

[doctorgori]

measuring calcium

[stingythingy45]

Definitely the skimmer cup has to be #1 for me.
But,water changes can also be a hassle with a basement sump.

[zigzag1]

Cleaning/replacing media in reactors. Always a mess.

[f3honda4me]

Skimmer cup. Smells so awful.

[shaginwagon13]

+1 on the skimmer cup and water changes.

Those are the 2 most difficult chores if you don't plan your tank to do them easily. I learned from my first tank and designed my new tank to make water changes and skimmer cleaning super easy.

[Putty]

Skimmer cup!!!

[njudson]

cleaning the glass and testing the water

[Jocko]

It was definitely water changes BY FAR with my last tank. So I built a water change tank with drain into my current setup to make water changes easy.

Top off would annoy me if I didn't have that automated.

[ryeguyy84]

water testing is #1 for me.

[dunc101]

Cleaning/replacing media in reactors. Always a mess.

This is the most annoying one, by far, for me as well. I have to take my media reactor off it's mount b/c I don't have enough space to do it while mounted in the sump...
Then... I have to take the media outside and wash off with the hose to get it completely clean if I don't want my sink clogged up with GAC and / or GFO...

[lucas73]

Cleaning/replacing media in reactors. Always a mess.

Another here for media changing.

[phenom5]

This is the most annoying one, by far, for me as well. I have to take my media reactor off it's mount b/c I don't have enough space to do it while mounted in the sump...
Then... I have to take the media outside and wash off with the hose to get it completely clean if I don't want my sink clogged up with GAC and / or GFO...

GFO/ GAC is probably the most annoying for me as well, but he's something that will make it a little easier for you. Change it out when you're doing a water change, change the media in the reactor, and then just run the reactor into a bucket. It'll run clear after about a gallon, and it's a lot less messy than trying to rinse it in the sink/ outside with the hose.

[lxeroxl]

i would have to go with skimmer cup, filter sock, and changing media

[nanito]

Water changes

[xCry0x]

Water change.. making ro/di, adding salt, getting salinity right, mixing it & heating it.. it is all a big process.

My skimmer is not huge and I do not dry skim so emptying the cup is not bad at all.

[jucario]

Water Change, changing media and preparing and cleaning after the QT

[cincyjim]

Cleaning the glass and water testing for me as well!

[MedRed]

mixing salt

[njudson]

Interesting that mixing salt is a popular choice here. I use esv which is more work than most but the whole process is less than 10 minutes. I've never concerned myself with matching my tank parameters exactly ... if you're only changing a small percentage is gonna be really tough for you to throw the temo /pH / salinity etc off without majorly botching your salt prep.

[IndexKey]

Mine has to be waiting. From the time of cycle, to adding new additions, to fixing tank parameters, waiting has to be he most enduring task someone in this hobby exPeriences.

[leeit2me]

Tearing apart the skimmer/return pumps for cleaning. Or any PH or media pumps.. it's wet and have long power cords where you have to snake back and forth..

Biggest chore.. well not a chore but more of scratching your head, why my skimmer just over flowed when it was running perfectly for the last month... LOL.. Makes you go.. Hmmmmmm

[eferna]

+ on the calcium testing. they need to make a much easier test.

[asim58]

Hate scrubbing algae on the glass, don't mind really anything else really. I hear ya on the skimmer overflowing, always happens when I'm not home and the wife is, then I get a panicked phone call about how "your stupid skimmer is shooting water everywhere", not fun.

[Putty]

+ on the calcium testing. they need to make a much easier test.


Especially when you gotta add 24 drops to make it change color...like me :uhoh3:

[1Sik1500]

Cleaning glass every other day and Topping off Evap water.

[Reef264]

Cleaning Sump & all Equiptment, then I guess fragging, because I usually end up glueing my hand to something!

[a.browning]

Testing water and changing reactor media are probably the most annoying for me.

[sporto0]

Nothing about reefkeeping or saltwater fish husbandry is annoying to me, I like emptying my foul smelling skimmer cup because it amazes me everytime that I can pull that "invisible" gunk out of my water column & I love they way the tank looks after I clean the glass every 2-3 days. I look forward to my scheduled maintainenace days & the way my fish & corals respond to a water change. Whereas I might agree you almost need a chemistry degree to get a concise calcium reading, I don't find it annoying, just a bit tedious.

[agreeive?fish]

replacing equipment that was undersized/wrong choice ect on the initial setup

tearing down and re setup of multiple tanks during house remodel

[ORayRay]

I don't like scrubbing the glass and hate digging out frags my blue spot jawfish decides to bury

[Aaarrrggg]

I'm surprised nobody has said QTing yet! I've finally set up a QT tank and I'm dreading keeping a fish in there and remembering to keep up with WCs.

[ibefishy]

For me its changing the filter socks and picking all the pods out of them that end up going thru the overflow into the sump. I have to pick them out of the filter socks and put them back into the dt. If I wasnt buying and adding them to the tank for food for my manderin and red scooter I'd just rinse them out.

[ken1977]

Salt mixing, feeding the corals and the fish, cleaning algae off glass, skimmer cup, scrapping the glass near the sand, water changes, testing all, cleaning out the sump, pretty much everything. Lol Oh yeah and cleaning my QT all of the above with that too.

[RNX CTD]

I like the smell of skimmer cups:beer: cleaning pumps and vinegar water

[danil]

ATO, WC even skimmer cup could be automated with little effort. Cleaning the glass/sump/rocks from algae and testing the water for CA, Mg, Alk can't. Same with media replacement...

[vermonter310]

replacing equipment that was undersized/wrong choice ect on the initial setup


+1

and picking up the coral my angel keeps picking at and knocking off the rocks! ( But I knew it was a crap shoot :)

[bnumair]

skimmer cleaning and measuring cal is always 2 chores i dont care for.

[Casey8]

Cleaning/replacing media in reactors. Always a mess.

+1 I hate to clean them too.

[Sport507]

Probably hand scraping the coralline off the glass with a razor blade. I like the chemistry testing.

I love cleaning the skimmer cup, brings back fond memories of cleaning the hog barn. Then the best part was taking dinner break (that’s what is was on the farm not lunch) and getting to set on that bale of straw and eat the ham sandwich with a glass of ice tea that mom brought out.

[6rotorguy]

Water changes, killing aiptasia, and manual dosing

[T Diddy]

+1

and picking up the coral my angel keeps picking at and knocking off the rocks! ( But I knew it was a crap shoot :)

I was gonna say picking up corals that my bulldozer snails knock off of the rocks!! :hmm3:

[globe]

Right now im so tired of cleaning my qt tank every day...been really sick and having to do it still is a pain in the butt.

[rezaktp]

:fish1:Paying the Mastercard bill after a weekend of coral shopping!

[SushiGirl]

Interesting that mixing salt is a popular choice here. I use esv which is more work than most but the whole process is less than 10 minutes. I've never concerned myself with matching my tank parameters exactly ... if you're only changing a small percentage is gonna be really tough for you to throw the temo /pH / salinity etc off without majorly botching your salt prep.

We use ESV too, bought a small digital kitchen scale to weight it all out & the parameters are identical every batch. And we don't have to dose at all now.

Worst for me is the Mag test. I hate hate hate it. Too many intricate steps, then you never know if you're right or not LOL.

Our skimmer cup has a hole in it with a small hose. It runs from the bottom of the skimmer cup into a pitcher. Just have to dump the pitcher rarely unless the skimmer goes nuts from a wrong setting (it's happened twice).

[biecacka]

Right now, scrubbing my rocks of the GHA I've acquared lately :(
Corey

[tapar]

Thanks for the replies! I am really glad that I asked too because there were some things I had not thought enough about. I was planning to automate the auto top off and at least semi-automate water changes. I have been eyeballing the auto skimmer cleaning systems. There is the ones that squeegee the cup itself, and then the ones that handle cleaning the neck. I definitely want to at least get a remote skim container thing going so I can postpone dealing with it for as long as possible. :)

I already know I don't love performing water quality tests from when I took care of a pool. I really hate trying to decide what shade of pink something is. In this case I feel like it won't really annoy me too much because the data will be interesting to me. I can easily see enjoying tracking the parameters. I do intend to so some research into the tests to find the least annoying ones though, I am hoping those hanna checkers that spit out numbers are accurate enough to justify using. If not I am sure I can suck it up and deal with water tests anyway.

The hassle I didn't fully consider was QT'ing. I thought of QT'ing as a temporary hassle so I didn't factor it in appropriately. Looking at the long list of fish I want to add and that they will be spread out over time....I could be actively running a QT for over a year. I think I will need to change my planning to include a more long term sustainable solution. I had not put much thought into where I was going to put the QT, I was thinking it was temporary so it didn't matter much. Daily massive water changes for ammonia export aren't going to cut it either, I will have to think on a better solution. Thanks again!

[ginger7286]

cleaning the red calcium crust off my powerheads and scrubbing the glass.

[Franklin B.]

Lugging water from lfs to do manual top off and water changes. All about to change though. New RO/DI unit on the way from Bulk Reef Supply.

[gmate]

Making salt water prior to changes.

[nicholasdances]

water changes

[bkoo29]

Cleaning the skimmer. Stinks!!!

[mm949]

wiping 144sq' of acrylic with a 3" blade

[StephLionfish]

Cleaning Sump & all Equiptment, then I guess fragging, because I usually end up glueing my hand to something!

Funny. I got super glue all over my fingers the other day from gluing corals down. I thought the glue was dry....not.

Water testing is a pain for me. Not hard, just something I don't enjoy.

[SushiGirl]

LOL, last night I had to put the little rubber stopper back in my powerhead and it was loose, so I told my boyfriend to put some glue on it. He put some on my finger first, the turkey LOL.