Does anyone have a guide to the ultimate lazy reef tank? (AIO)

pygo1 · Aug 16, 2023

I have an IM Nuvo 30L. It's been running for about 3 years with a series up ups and downs, mostly due to persistent/recurring GHA, also some alk issues due to laziness. I generally change water every 1-1.5months. Over time I've kept a variety of solfties, LPS, and SPS. Most recently, a severe infection and a poorly timed vacation led to me not being able to take care of the tank for almost a month(after my usual lazy stint). I just lost a few corals, most notably my prized scoly, a pretty unique one, as well as a candy cane and a trachy thats on its way out.

What's remaining is a 10-15 head torch, a very large toadstool, a bunch of smaller toadstools/other leathers, mushrooms, zoas, a trachy, a chalice, and a single hammer head. I run the IM media reactor with activated carbon, IM ghost skimmer, a filter sock that doesn't get changed much, and a basket of chaeto/razor caulerpa thats being overrun by gha. Right now I'm in the process of cleaning things up. Did a couple WCs, picking out algae, using AiptasiaX, moved some rock around for a lil rescape.

Ultimately my question is, how tf can we maintain the easiest possible reef tank. My involvement with the tank goes in cycles, so sometimes I work on it daily, sometimes I hardly look at it for a month. Being an established tank, a month between WCs is generally fine, but algae will slowly take over, then it'll be time for a more serious cleaning. The obvious answer is to WC more and take care of the tank better, but I'm looking for a more hands off approach. I'm slowly transitioning to totally softy tank(minus the torch and chalice).

I think one of the big shortcomings is nutrient export. I started with some dirty rock and had phos issues for years. The IM skimmer works, but could probably be better. I could probably utilize other media in the reactor. I'm in the process of swapping my filter sock for a roller mat, hoping @isealive is still offering to send the design files, otherwise I'm designing from scratch at the moment. And lastly, I'm working on scrapping the chaeto and going back to a DIY gha scrubber that's in the design phase as well.

If you had this tank, or other AIO, how would you make it work for you with as little testing/fiddling as possible? Nutrient export is a bit of a hurdle without a sump/refugium and after 3 years, I'm really hoping to find something that'll work long term

7of9 · Aug 16, 2023

Have you considered rigging up an automatic water change (AWC) system in addition to an ATO? That might help a lot and there are a lot of different ways to do it.

nothing_fancy · Aug 16, 2023

I have a similar tank running a lot of automation. Nutrient export, Id looking into fitting an EXT skimmer behind the tank if you want real skimming.

pygo1 · Aug 16, 2023

7of9 said:
Have you considered rigging up an automatic water change (AWC) system in addition to an ATO? That might help a lot and there are a lot of different ways to do it.

I’ve been looking into it a bit recently.. I need to spend some time to really research it, but I wasn’t able to find a solid way to do it at a glance. Any tips? Should I just use a standard dosing pump, because the few dedicated awc options I saw were overpriced lol.

I’m also a little bit limited on space for my setup, but I should be able to squeeze it into the corner if I find the right containers

pygo1 · Aug 16, 2023

nothing_fancy said:
I have a similar tank running a lot of automation. Nutrient export, Id looking into fitting an EXT skimmer behind the tank if you want real skimming.

That’s def something work looking into, thanks! My current one does a better job than most reviews seem to state, but yeah, something a little more powerful would prob be pretty beneficial

7of9 · Aug 16, 2023

I'm considering doing this, too, and was planning to use dosing pumps along with a hydros controller, which should be able to do this cheaper than most of the dedicated AWC solutions out there. Ideally, I'd like to do smaller water changes more frequently, which would mean the only thing that having a bigger container would buy you would be less times filling it back up.

I feel like reducing the maintenance burden is going to require some form of automation or controller so that you can set parameters and then have your different systems react to those parameters or alert you so that when you are in a mood to do less, you're at least alerted when something is necessary.

That being said, I don't have the money for an Apex system and I don't have the time for a reef-pi, so I'm looking at Hydros as my goldilocks solution there.

pygo1 · Aug 16, 2023

7of9 said:
I'm considering doing this, too, and was planning to use dosing pumps along with a hydros controller, which should be able to do this cheaper than most of the dedicated AWC solutions out there. Ideally, I'd like to do smaller water changes more frequently, which would mean the only thing that having a bigger container would buy you would be less times filling it back up.

I feel like reducing the maintenance burden is going to require some form of automation or controller so that you can set parameters and then have your different systems react to those parameters or alert you so that when you are in a mood to do less, you're at least alerted when something is necessary.

That being said, I don't have the money for an Apex system and I don't have the time for a reef-pi, so I'm looking at Hydros as my goldilocks solution there.

Whew the hydros isn’t really cheap either! I guess it is compared to the apex though lol.

Yeah dosing pump seems like the best/easiest bet. I can barely squeeze 5gal buckets between the wall and tank, so it’ll be a hassle to get in there and change things, but will probably still beat manual WCs.

Param monitoring would be nice, but I’m not dying to have it. With auto water change and a diy filter roller + a scrubber if still needed, I prob wouldn’t need to bother checking

nothing_fancy · Aug 16, 2023

For a 30 I think AWC is a pretty big luxury. IMO testing and dosing alk everyday is way more of a pain than water changes. Its an expense but you could get an apex JR used probably in the marketplace here and a trident and run your doses off some affordable pumps with the power bar 4. That would be a tight little setup. The coral vue trident chemicals are way cheaper too, Ive been using those they work perfect for alk cal and mag

pygo1 · Aug 16, 2023

nothing_fancy said:
For a 30 I think AWC is a pretty big luxury. IMO testing and dosing alk everyday is way more of a pain than water changes. Its an expense but you could get an apex JR used probably in the marketplace here and a trident and run your doses off some affordable pumps with the power bar 4. That would be a tight little setup. The coral vue trident chemicals are way cheaper too, Ive been using those they work perfect for alk cal and mag

Ideally, I would 100% have an apex/trident set up and automate the crap out of my system. But, I don’t think I’ll be spending that money on this tank any time soon. I plan to save total automation for a larger tank in the future. Unless I find a sweet deal, we’ll see

With AWC, I prob wouldn’t check alk much/ever lol. I already don’t ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Toss a lil kalk in the ATO and I’m good to go

nothing_fancy · Aug 16, 2023

pygo1 said:
Ideally, I would 100% have an apex/trident set up and automate the crap out of my system. But, I don’t think I’ll be spending that money on this tank any time soon. I plan to save total automation for a larger tank in the future. Unless I find a sweet deal, we’ll see

With AWC, I prob wouldn’t check alk much/ever lol. I already don’t ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Toss a lil kalk in the ATO and I’m good to go

Haha, ya I get it fair enough. The answer to your original question is unfortunately to get a tank controller but I sincerely wish you the best of luck never checking your alkalinity lol

pygo1 · Aug 16, 2023

nothing_fancy said:
Haha, ya I get it fair enough. The answer to your original question is unfortunately to get a tank controller but I sincerely wish you the best of luck never checking your alkalinity lol

Lol thanks. I check it every few months at best, partly due to laziness, partly due to an inconvenient setup in my office. My tank has historically run on the low side, but for the most part, I’ve only really experienced reduced growth rates, not a ton of negative effects on its own in my experience.

But also, the alk thing is why I’m transitioning to mostly softies now, to just avoid large consumption in the first place.

at the moment, I’m more concerned about filtration/export than I am with Alk. This tank has always struggled a bit with nutrients. Sometimes it’ll reach a nice equilibrium for a few months, then it gets out of wack again

nothing_fancy · Aug 16, 2023

pygo1 said:
Lol thanks. I check it every few months at best, partly due to laziness, partly due to an inconvenient setup in my office. My tank has historically run on the low side, but for the most part, I’ve only really experienced reduced growth rates, not a ton of negative effects on its own in my experience.

But also, the alk thing is why I’m transitioning to mostly softies now, to just avoid large consumption in the first place.

at the moment, I’m more concerned about filtration/export than I am with Alk. This tank has always struggled a bit with nutrients. Sometimes it’ll reach a nice equilibrium for a few months, then it gets out of wack again

Look into the "Intank" brand baskets for filter media as opposed to the socks, you can just get some floss for the top chamber and throw carbon/gfo/phosguard or whatever in the other chambers. They make them for IM tanks, way less maintenance than the socks IMO. Id put my money into a good skimmer then especially if you have fish and nutrient export is a concern.

themcnertney · Aug 16, 2023

For me personally, on all my tanks, I run the Water Change Wednesday method. I change 20% of water weekly every Wednesday. This day means clean skimmer, sponges, and topping off ATO. It takes average about 30 minutes and I'm done. Every other day is clean the glass day, takes about 5 minutes. I dont test water, or add supplements, I let the water changes level my parameters.

These routines become a bit like brushing ones teeth or making the bed. Don't even notice its a thing after a while.

If circumstances arise where I cant do this maintenance, I just skip it and catch it the following week. The tanks seems to do well under this method.

Note, I have done this for about 16 years. This works for me however, and might not be what works for others.

pygo1 · Aug 16, 2023

Dan McNertney said:
For me personally, on all my tanks, I run the Water Change Wednesday method. I change 20% of water weekly every Wednesday. This day means clean skimmer, sponges, and topping off ATO. It takes average about 30 minutes and I'm done. Every other day is clean the glass day, takes about 5 minutes. I dont test water, or add supplements, I let the water changes level my parameters.

These routines become a bit like brushing ones teeth or making the bed. Don't even notice its a thing after a while.

If circumstances arise where I cant do this maintenance, I just skip it and catch it the following week. The tanks seems to do well under this method.

Note, I have done this for about 16 years. This works for me however, and might not be what works for others.

I think if I had a better setup, I’d be much better about water changes and could/would do them regularly. But, my RODI is only 75gpd and takes around 45-60mins to mix up the needed 5 gals. Then I have to mix the salt, then lug it to the office to do the change, then lug the waste to the toilet to dump it.

It’s not the worst process, but I’m a little tight for space, so I can’t really store extra water to have ready on hand, plus other obligations(fiancée, dog, family, friends, work, etc.) cause my schedule to be pretty random, so it’s hard to make a real routine out of it.

Living in a rental is a lil rough sometimes, because I can’t make the necessary changes to my setup to make it ideal. So for the time being, I’m stuck in a cycle of laziness lol

dthom · Aug 16, 2023

Curious, what do you have for a clean up crew?
I always go heavy on the snails and hermit crabs.
Any pic's of the tank?

Get a dosing pump. I have 2 Kamoer pumps.
Game changer even when you don't have anything fancy.
Dose All for Reef and Kalk. Saves so much headache when you only have to mix it up once a month.

Maybe look at just buying premixed saltwater at your LFS. Pay a little more, but don't have to buy salt, buy and run an RO and don't have to wait for it to mix. Can save a lot of time on smaller tanks. Buy 2 water 5 gallon water jugs. One you go and get filled up at the LFS. Then when ready to do a water change, drain water out of the tank into the empty jug till it is at the same level as your full jug. Then dump your jug of new saltwater into the tank. Dump your waste water into the toilet. Rinse jugs out, and put them in the garage or closet and you are done....

nothing_fancy · Aug 16, 2023

Definitely second the all for reef recommendation, you can run that off the brs Doser if you want a cheap decent auto doser. The Kamoer pump is the way to go tho. If you don’t have a lot of sps afr is good but expensive. If you wanna get real crazy and never do water changes look into the reef
Moonshiners stuff. Small tanks are tough tho lots of swings are possible

pygo1 · Aug 16, 2023

nothing_fancy said:
Look into the "Intank" brand baskets for filter media as opposed to the socks, you can just get some floss for the top chamber and throw carbon/gfo/phosguard or whatever in the other chambers. They make them for IM tanks, way less maintenance than the socks IMO. Id put my money into a good skimmer then especially if you have fish and nutrient export is a concern.

I did the floss in a basket route for a while and it was ok, but i find the filter socks to be a bit better imo. I have like 6 of em, so I cycle through them, then clean all at once. It's a decent method, but I have fun tinkering with automation, so something like a floss roller is pretty appealing to me. I'm trying to look around for a manually wound one to build for cheap, just having a little trouble with my dimensions, not sure how tight the floss needs to be against the "exit" hole(s)

pygo1 · Aug 16, 2023

dthom said:
Curious, what do you have for a clean up crew?
I always go heavy on the snails and hermit crabs.
Any pic's of the tank?

Get a dosing pump. I have 2 Kamoer pumps.
Game changer even when you don't have anything fancy.
Dose All for Reef and Kalk. Saves so much headache when you only have to mix it up once a month.

Maybe look at just buying premixed saltwater at your LFS. Pay a little more, but don't have to buy salt, buy and run an RO and don't have to wait for it to mix. Can save a lot of time on smaller tanks. Buy 2 water 5 gallon water jugs. One you go and get filled up at the LFS. Then when ready to do a water change, drain water out of the tank into the empty jug till it is at the same level as your full jug. Then dump your jug of new saltwater into the tank. Dump your waste water into the toilet. Rinse jugs out, and put them in the garage or closet and you are done....

I have 5 spiny astrea snails(new additions), 1 or 2 regular astrea, a trochus, a bunch of asterina stars, a bunch of little limpets, and a bunch of red leg and blue leg hermits.. It had been a while since I've restocked my CUC, so I'm in the process of adding more right now.

I have been dabbling with the idea of getting a doser, as well as using AFR, but my lack of testing has caused me to shy away from the idea. I'm not sure what the repercussions of overdosing looks like.

Also, I used to buy premixed water when I first started, that's more of a hassle as well as more expensive in the long run. Also, the two LFS near me are not the greatest quality, so I don't really trust their water lol

pygo1 · Aug 16, 2023

dthom said:
Curious, what do you have for a clean up crew?
I always go heavy on the snails and hermit crabs.
Any pic's of the tank?

Get a dosing pump. I have 2 Kamoer pumps.
Game changer even when you don't have anything fancy.
Dose All for Reef and Kalk. Saves so much headache when you only have to mix it up once a month.

Maybe look at just buying premixed saltwater at your LFS. Pay a little more, but don't have to buy salt, buy and run an RO and don't have to wait for it to mix. Can save a lot of time on smaller tanks. Buy 2 water 5 gallon water jugs. One you go and get filled up at the LFS. Then when ready to do a water change, drain water out of the tank into the empty jug till it is at the same level as your full jug. Then dump your jug of new saltwater into the tank. Dump your waste water into the toilet. Rinse jugs out, and put them in the garage or closet and you are done....