Bi-Weekly Discussion of the Week: How much time/effort does it really take?

[Geoff]

How much time and effort does it really take to keep a SW tank? Lets talk regular maintenance, and startup. How does this compare with other hobbies?

G~

[gregt]

For me the operative word is "effort". One of my other hobbies is flying remote control planes. When I started out I had a lot of free time and building a new plane was a blast and a great part of the hobby. Later, when life became more busy my attitude changed and repairing and building planes became a chore that prevented me from going out flying. (ie: the joy became effort).

This is the same reason I now focus on easy maintenance for my systems. Yeah, a sandbed may look nice and have cool stuff in it, but I really don't want to be a full time sandbed "sanitation engineer" any more.

Just my perspective....

[bgaineshunter]

for my tank inhabitants requires work. Every day I spend about 30 minutes cleaning the glass and sand. I replace evaporated water daily, and, of course, pickup snails and corals that have fallen over. I change about 30% of the water twice a month. With each water change, I also use a chemical waste remover and hope the protein skimmer catches the slime. I also clean all powerheads... once each month. I empty the protein skimmer cup about three times a week. I change the floss weekly and the carbon monthly. Luckily I have a "CustomSeaLife" power compact with moonlights whose bulbs only have to be replaced yearly.

All in all, I'd say I spend about 3 hours a week caring for my tank.

[Joel]

On average I'd say I spend 0-5 minutes a day on maintenance, (cleaning skimmer cup, wiping front glass, or changing filter media), weekly to bi-weekly normal testing for ph, Alk, and CA take another 15-20 minutes when I do them, bi-monthly water changes take about 30 minutes of actual time (not including the time the water is mixing and heating) and all this is difinitely worth the 30 minutes or so a day enjoying the peaceful serinity of the tank. And as an added bonus my 21 month old boy is mesmerised by the tank. Since he was born he has really enjoyed the movement and lights in the tank. One of his first words was "shish" (translated fish).

[Geoff]

i spend about an hour a day on the tank. this is hard core looking and maintenance. this does not count the countless times i look over at the tank and just veg!

G~

[Geoff]

what do you all consider a hobby?

G~

[MiddletonMark]

That's a good question. I would also say that playing music is a hobby of mine. When I was involved in a band [have been bandless since last fall] ... that required once or twice a week 2-3 hours of practices, playing around.
Plus about half an hour a day, every day, just practicing, getting songs/lyrics down, etc .. and keeping in touch with my guitar.

As for my tanks ... I'd say three times a week I clean the glass, maybe 5-10 minutes per tank [outside and inside].
Roughly 10 minutes a day doing top-up, dosing, feeding, macro-harvesting, or other routine maintenance.

So we're looking at an hour or two [more accurate] a week just for normal maintenance. Roughly an hour doing water changes and testing every other week for both tanks.

Then you have fragging, needlessly messing around with one of the two tanks, or other things that aren't exactly needed but I love to do. That can be a couple hours a month to one weekend day per month.

Setup ... let's not even get into that. Just installed a closed loop last week ... had to redo the plumbing to get rid of the microbubbles that kept popping up ... we're talking about 10-12 hours to do the spraybar, design, install, testing, tweaking, etc ...

But that should now be good for a long time ... and got rid of powerheads that needed monthly cleaning [and will help rid tank of detritus, so less glass cleaning].

[Spanky]

Every night I add top-off water with either alk or Ca and feed the fish. About twice a week I clean the skimmer. Once a week I test and clean the glass.

So maybe about 1-2 hours a week total.

Then some things like clean the UV and wipe off the bulbs, change the bulbs, service the pumps, I do twice a year or so.

[Geoff]

how many hours of TV do you watch? do you consider this a hobby?

G~

[ruhspolostar]

The Simpsons and Star Trek

ummm yeah I would say thats a hobby.........

cheers

-Adam

[jeepjon]

hmm...about five minutes a day minimum, with about an hour once a week really getting things down clean (glass, overflow sponge, that kind of stuff). I do water changes monthly...with those taking about an hour start to finish. I try to watch my tank at least 15 minutes a day, because it really calms me down. I try to make it a point to look at the tank at least 15 minutes, because it reduces my stress and gets my mind off of the wait lists (I'm wait-listed for medical school at two schools...not much fun right now not knowing what's going on in my life next year). The tank has been a good stress relief for that.

[photobarry]

Originally posted by Geoff
how many hours of TV do you watch? do you consider this a hobby?

G~

My sad situation is that I spend more time staring at my computer screen talking to you guys than watching my tank! And no, I don't consider browsing the web a hobby. Anyway, I prefer the term activity to hobby. It sounds more upscale. Maybe.

Normal daily maintenance and feeding is probably 30mins or so. I'll spend an extra hour or so over the weekend. That's not counting the hours it takes to make RO/DI water. I don't like to waste it so I use the rejection water to water plants outside, hence I have to babysit the sytem. (A snail just toppled one of my corals so there's another couple minutes of work today.)

[Geoff]

Originally posted by photobarry
(A snail just toppled one of my corals so there's another couple minutes of work today.)

i figured you would have heard of epoxy.

G~

[ruhspolostar]

I havent used epoxy yet although I should, it would save me a lot of work as well....

[photobarry]

Originally posted by Geoff
i figured you would have heard of epoxy.

G~

That would be too easy. lol It's almost a lost cause when you have turbo snails and urchins in the tank (let alone 3 large brittlestars that attack me whenever I put my hand in the tank).