How often should you HAVE to service your tank---and how to do it less: an FYI

[Sk8r]

When you first start out in this hobby, you obsess: you futz; you fuss; and you sit in front of the tank for hours.

Then life intervenes: you're called out of town, you get a job emergency, your MIL comes to live with you, and you start paying less meticulous attention, or, more happily, you win 4 weeks in the Bahamas...

There are tanks that can survive waning attention; and those that can't. Here are some suggestions for a maintenance-free tank that will get along without you for weeks. But note: ultimately, you HAVE to do those water changes!

1. don't overstock fish. Every fish needs to be able to relax within its territory. Corals---you can't really overstock. Fish, oh, yes. Easily. Keep within the reasonable limits of your tank, and try to have one that eats algae and one critter that cleans the sand (nassarius, conch, or watchman goby)
2. have an ATO (autotopoff), and if you have to leave town, leave not just a bucket of fresh ro/di, but an entire Rubbermaid Brute trash can (rinsed; or with a garbage can liner.
3. use only ro/di. Period. It will help in the algae department, and your water changes will mean more.
4. set up a kalk drip (over 100 g, with corals, consider a calcium reactor) without a reactor---just put kalk in your ATO. A good balanced setup with a big reservoir can go for 2 months without intervention or a drop in calcium.
5. No filter. These have to be changed. You're not going to be there. Rely on your cheato moss in your fuge---I'm coming to that: its tight coils will be your living filter. Your live sand, rock, and worms will handle the waste.
6. Have a fuge going. If you have a packed 20 gal fuge with a second sandbed and another batch of live rock, and cheato thick and lush, all but your obligate meat-eating fish will thrive on pods, amphipods, mysis shrimp, all reproducing in the tangle of cheato. If you have obligate meat-eaters, you're going to have to get a neighbor to come in, but pretty well, if you don't, your fish that eat algae, pods and mysis will not starve. You will come back to a tank that needs its walls scraped, but your head-count of fish will not suffer. My fuge is the middle 20 gallons of a 30 gallon sump, and it's a food-farm for the whole tank.

Note, we're not talking optimum tank-of-the-month conditions, and those water changes do matter: we're talking about the ability of your tank to survive a sudden lapse in attention without anyone coming in for days.

Useful to know: your fish can survive two weeks with NO food better than they can survive one over-feeding by a well-meaning neighbor. Your fish can generally nosh off stuff in the tank. If you have one predator, you may come back to one predator and some missing fish. If you do not have a predator, you will come back to all your fish. I prefer not to have a predator. But that's me.

Anyway: this is meant to be food for thought. What would you do if you had to leave your tank for four weeks? How would you set up? One or two fat garbage cans sitting by your tank can keep you going for quite a while, and thinking about the situation when setting up your tank is a good idea.

[James404]

Very informative post, I often wonder what will happen to my tank if we have to leave town, I think at this point it would be fine.

[gleconte]

Great thread. Thank you!

[dzfish17]

Ive been an aquarists for over 30 yrs and the biggest mistake I see is youre first point, overstocking. This happens mostly to beginners who cram as many fish into a system as they can and then try and fix problems.

Overstocking can lead to stressed out fishes which can lead to disease and a list of other problems. Im guilty of this also in the past thinking I can add just one more fish and be ok. I guess some of us have to learn things the hard way.

Dave

[Jeff000]

How much is over stocking?

[Lynnmw1208]

good post! sometimes I think people have their hands in their tanks "too" much which disrupts the balance of things.

overstocking is more of a feeling nowadays since the inch per gallon rule has been thrown out the window. I think it mainly has to do with how much flow you have, the amount of skimming and LR you have. To me, having more than one tang in my tank would feel like too much, but that's my opinion. correct me if I'm wrong

[Sk8r]

My def of overstocking is frequent chases. If your fish can swim tranquilly and not be bothered, you're fine right now---and if they can reach their full adult growth and still swim peacefully, you did a great job.

If you have a fish that darts frantically, or one that's chasing another, you're overstocked. I don't mean there's never-ever a bluster and keep-away motion: but if there's habitual, hourly, defense of territory or pursuit, if there's actual nipping, or just a fish that always acts nervous and jerky in its motions, you're overstocked, or you've got one neurotic fish on your hands.

(If you have a fish that never comes out, you've installed something it's afraid of, and if you think back to what you added when you last saw it, you have your answer.) One great thing about modern reef-keeping: most reputable lfs's will take back a 'wrong' fish. If you're dubious, float the bag. (but never, ever, ever let one drop of its water touch your water! always quarantine) If one of your fishes attacks the fish in the bag, bad idea---roundtrip that baby back to the lfs.

In general, installing pillars of rock can 'fold' space and give more boundaries. But if you have given everybody space, but observe either insecurity or hostility in your tank, you're still overstocked. That's vague, requiring your observation, but it's also true. Clowns are about the most pugnacious little rascals, but they need enough room for them NOT to have to rush out and defend or chase. [That's why I personally gave up on clowns. 100 gallons didn't satisfy mine.]

Stocking is an art. And all I can say is---experience helps. Recognize that angsty behavior or bullying is not normal: this is not the great ocean, and the offender has nowhere to go but around again, with an endless merry-go-round of frustration. Some fish, like the yellow watchman, puff and display when annoyed, several times a day. That's just their nature. But they'll vanish into the rockwork if they have to do it too often.

Damsels establish a territory and chase anything that crosses it. It's their nature. What you have to do is give them ENOUGH territory this doesn't happen very often [in my experience, a damsel is happy with about 50 gallons around him, which is why they have such a rep as a bad fish.]

Just keep your tank peaceful.
That incidentally guarantees that if the power goes out, your fishes also have a good chance of having enough oxygen to breathe until the power gets fixed. Mine can go 8 hours. I had to find that out the hard way, when I had to get a pump serviced. If I'd been overstocked, that time would have been cut significantly---very significantly.