Tank neglect

[johnnyb]

Woke up this morning at 3 am in a cold sweat. Not sure what made me wake up but as soon as my eyes popped open I was thinking OMG I havent been taking care of my tank! I have 8 kids an 2 play football and 1 cheers so from Aug 1st till the end of the playoffs (looks like 2 will be playing post season this year so this may go till Christmas) my life is constant running. I get up at 5 go to work leave work take kids to practice eat dinner shower and off to bed for 10. There are few days that dont go that way. Now normally I leave Sundays for tank care and I have a pretty good system so my water changes take about half an hour. But even that much time has been tough to find lately. A jumped out of bed and ran to the cellar to check the filters (its been at least 2 weeks since I had been done here and at least 3 weeks the time before that) I found my sock filters clogged and overflowing the tops into the sump. The skimmer tank was about 3/4 full.I was pretty worried, all I had done in about 6 weeks was a 50 gallon water change(my wife feeds the tank and cleans the glass daily).My first thought was do a water change but I started wondering how far behind I was and how much water should I change. So if figured Id start by testing everything. its been at least since August since I have tested every level. Now I knew I have a pretty amazing system but wasnt prepared to find all my levels were perfect or close to perfect. I have a phosban reactor and a carbon reactor. I have a calcium reactor and I use a magnum hot flow for zeolite. I have an rodi system hooked to a tank with a ATO that tops off about 5 gallons a day. I have a refuge with cheato and additional rock and live sand that has auto timed metal halides. I use a ton of live rock in my system probably about 225 lbs in my 180 and 85 in my 54 corner and both tanks have a deep sand bed. The two systems are plumbed together in the basement so they share the same water and filter. The funny part was after all my testing I realized my rodi system I use for water changes had the water sitting for over 2 weeks so I pumped out my salt mix tank and my fresh water tank using the fresh water to flush the salt tank and dumped all the water so I couldnt even do a water change today either. I restarted my rodi to fill my tank so I can mix the water when I get home tonite for a water change hopefully this weekend. But I was very happy to see that my system can keep itself at healthy levels and salinity correct without me looking at it for essentaily 2 months. It got me wondering though...How long have you left your system without a problem?

 

[Flame Angel]

Man, this is a loaded question and there are many variables that can effect things.

Just a few: Over feeding, type of water used, amount of rock, artificial means of removing contaminants, light timing and intensity, inhabitants and the list goes on.

But to answer your questions. Other than toping off... the last real water change I did was back in May 2012.

I actually posted something similiar to this a year back entitled " is less more".

I suppose if you can remove certain contaninants and only add water as it evaporates as in the real oceans... makes you wonder.

By no means am I saying ignore your tanks as there is so many things that can fluctuate. But I guess you need to find what works best for your individual and unique system. But by no mean ignore what ever you have going on as issues could arise.

Consider yourself lucky and be dilligent. Good Luck!

 

[jamesdong009]

I was in the same boat during the spring and summer. Basically working 7 days a week with at least a 2 hour commute each way. My tanks were on complete auto-pilot. I just had to make sure the fish we're fed at least 3 times a week and the auto-topoff container had water in it. My skimmer was always full everytime I had a chance to check.

Now that my schedule is getting back to a normal routine, I can put more attention to them. My xenia definitely didn't mind the lack of attention ...and people say saltwater tanks are hard

 

[banshee1]

My life is somewhat similar.work, work, work.last water change I did on the reef tank was Probly end of august.I checked all my level last night and everything was spot on.all I do is top off feed and dose a little calcium 1ce a week.I've been focused on getting the lionfish tank squared away so the reef has gotten less attention lately but hasn't really showed it

 

[The Ng Thing]

I find the more I neglect my tank (within reason of course) the better it looks.

 

[Tcancel]

Well, we had a baby back in the beginning May. I ignored the tank till late August. Funny part is before that i was neuronic with trying to keep my Ca, Mg, and Kh levels correct. Yet, was having such a hard time getting my corals to grow. I dont have a RO/DI system at home, but have one at work, so i used to bring from work and always have minimum 20gal. Well, after my son was born, i made a trip to Petco and bought some aqua safe. All i did was add tap water with aqua safe, and fed. I ignored it so bad Coraline and Algae blocked front my view for almost 2 months.

To my surprise in late August when i cleaned the glass, notice most of my corals were growing like weeds. My anemone was ginormous, my green frog spawn had almost doubled in size. I had lost a head of my regular frogspawn right before i started ignoring it, when i cleaned it i noticed it had 2 new nice size heads and about 6 tiny ones starting to come out. My pulsating xenia, anthelia, and most of my palies and zoos started taking over the whole tank. Its just weird.

So i guess, sometimes less is better. Although i never want to ignore it like that again!

 

[johnnyb]

Lol Im starting to feel better about this....I was feeling like I was in deep trouble....may be I need to strech this out a little and see how it goes.

 

[frank180reef]

I think a lot of the corals do in fact like the "nutrient rich" environment

dont u guys have to dose though, without that my corals dont due well at all

 

[jdeb101]

It does seem to me as well that things grow a lot better the more I neglect, however that also goes for things like hair and bubble algae!

Frank - j/c do you dose anything besides alk / calc ?

 

[johntan]

My buddy didn't do any water changes or maintenance beyond ato and empty the skimmer for 6 months. Fussy acros didn't make it, but lps/caps/zoas got huge. This was in his jbj 29g cube.