Quote:
Originally Posted by jsyteng
Frogmanx82: for the couple of hours of maintenance required each week for your reef tank . . . can you give me some specific examples of what work you are doing?
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It takes me about 45 minutes to run all the chemistry checks, Calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, pH, salinity, nitrate and phosphate and then add Calcium Chloride, Sodium Carbonate and Magnesium as needed. Cleaning the filter socks twice a week is only 5 minutes but you can't skip that. Cleaning the glass weekly, same as an african tank 10 minutes. Mixing up the top off water with vinegar and hydrated lime and adding to the top off reservoir is another 15 minutes. Cleaning the protein skimmer twice a week but thats just 5 minutes, again can't skip that. Feeding takes a bit longer every day as I mix in frozen foods, nori sheets and hand feed some of the anemone and lps.
So the biggest time suck is the testing and chemistry balance. You can skip a week here and there but you don't want to go too long without knowing where you stand if you have hard corals that depend on steady calcium and magnesium levels to survive.
I only do a 33% water change on the african tank once a month when I clean the filter and that takes an hour. I can leave for vacation for 2 weeks and not worry at all about the african tank with simple auto feeders. The reef tank is tougher to set an auto pilot for that long.
You also have to add in all the extra time you just want to watch it ;-)