How easy is keeping a saltwater reef aquarium for you?

[Greybeard]

Never been easier, that's for certain. We've an abundance of equipment, methods, research, and vendors supplying our hobby these days.

If reefing is too hard... I suggest you lower your goals to more closely match your current skills. A softy tank can still be beautiful.. and with modern techniques, there's nothing 'difficult' about it. Something more intriguing? How 'bout a mangrove habitat? I've rarely seen these done well... and when done right, they're just amazing.

New reefers jumping into the deep end of the pool account for much of the cheap used gear we see around here. Don't be that guy. Start with reasonable goals... you're much more likely to reach them.

 

[Hitman]

I’m going with hardeasy. It would be easier if I would stop trying new things! Lol I’ve been doing reef tanks for 22 years now and in the last several years I started trying new things ie dosing pumps, different chemicals, LED lights etc etc. Oh then this year I got the SPS bug so that added a new level of ups and downs lol.
To sum it up if I would stop using my Big tank as a test dumby things would be easy. Heck I have a 55 gallon in the next room I got bored with so why don’t I use it as the test pig? Well as the wife says I’m getting lazy in my age lol. My 240 is at a point everything is growing and happy so maybe it is time to leave it alone and re-set up the 55 with the 40 breader sump to play with. ;Greedy

 

[jtl]

Never been easier, that's for certain. We've an abundance of equipment, methods, research, and vendors supplying our hobby these days.

If reefing is too hard... I suggest you lower your goals to more closely match your current skills. A softy tank can still be beautiful.. and with modern techniques, there's nothing 'difficult' about it. Something more intriguing? How 'bout a mangrove habitat? I've rarely seen these done well... and when done right, they're just amazing.

New reefers jumping into the deep end of the pool account for much of the cheap used gear we see around here. Don't be that guy. Start with reasonable goals... you're much more likely to reach them.

While I agree with some of what you say, it is not easy to make a tank look like the one at the beginning of this thread. I have been doing this for a very long time and have yet to achieve that level of success. Perhaps my expectations are too high but I have certainly not gone on the cheap. Grooming a beautiful tank to get rid of nuisance algae is a lot of work. I have seen hundreds of tanks over the years where people have posted things like..."I don't do anything to my tank and everything grows". Well, they are not that great. Most of the people that I know get to point where they accept sort of a "natural" look. Not me, I am still trying for the show tank.

 

[Hitman]

While I agree with some of what you say, it is not easy to make a tank look like the one at the beginning of this thread. I have been doing this for a very long time and have yet to achieve that level of success. Perhaps my expectations are too high but I have certainly not gone on the cheap. Grooming a beautiful tank to get rid of nuisance algae is a lot of work. I have seen hundreds of tanks over the years where people have posted things like..."I don't do anything to my tank and everything grows". Well, they are not that great. Most of the people that I know get to point where they accept sort of a "natural" look. Not me, I am still trying for the show tank.

It took several years of being stable and stocking the correct CUC for me to get the show tank look. If I would have stop trying different things like the Triton method for one I honestly think I would still have that look I had several years ago. Now that my tank is 98% there again I’m going to leave it alone and try to get that back as once it’s there maintenance drops drastically in my opinion.

 

[saltyhog]

If you had asked my 9 months ago I would have said easy as pie. After dealing with dinos and the aftermath of them I'm still struggling and beginning to wonder if I will ever get my mojo back!

 

[Hitman]

If you had asked my 9 months ago I would have said easy as pie. After dealing with dinos and the aftermath of them I'm still struggling and beginning to wonder if I will ever get my mojo back!

Just don’t give up!!! Like everything in this hobby slow and steady will win! Just don’t try to make drastic changes and stay consistent and you will win the battle. I’ve never battled Dinos, but my byropsis battle took months and months. I won and have never had to deal with it or GHA since.

 

[saltyhog]

Thanks @Hitman. It's weird, my parameters are perfect, no sign of dinos for 3 months but can't keep corals alive for anything. A couple of frags added this week are still looking good, zoas are opening back up so hopefully the corner is turned. Fish/inverts/nemes are thriving.

 

[Mrs. Herbert]

At first it was hard for me to manage my 75gallon reef tank, being I was new at the time. Now its just cake for me and I am only in 1 year into the hobby.

 

[Jason mack]

Ive definitely found R2R to be a big help in my success , having so much info available and expert help at the press of a few buttons ,I don’t think I would be as far as I am now ..

 

[Mark Gray]

I don't find it difficult I haven't lost any fish except for 2 one committed suicide the other I am not sure. I did have a large SPSD die out. I guess lighting tripped my ground fault circuit witch knocked my lights out (has been taken out again) while I was in Fiji working for 2 weeks. My house keeper called my son but he was too busy I guess would have taken him 30 seconds to reset it, lost most everything

 

[sfin52]

soft corals not hard don't dare to try the sticks.

 

[Amado]

Having a reef tank is very difficult. I took my kids to the Camden nj aquarium and this aquarium is huge one of the biggest I have ever seen. With a bunch of display tanks. One thing I noticed all the tanks were fish only no corals. Only one reef tank in the whole building. The tank was on its own stand alone system and it was like 120 gallon. I asked one of the workers if they had anymore tanks with Coral they said it’s too difficult to maintain. This is coming from one of the biggest aquariums in the country.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Once established- Easy Peasy !!!

 

[doughboy]

Keeping a reef aquarium is no picnic. If I had known this, I would not have done it. It’s not the difficulty per se, but it requires a major time and money commitment. It’s not like other hobbies that you can put in storage while you take a break or go on an extended vacation without worrying about the tank. Not to mention those who live in natural disaster area that have mandatory evacuation and power outage whenever a calamity hits. I would not advise it to anyone who cannot afford to take the financial hit.

 

[Reefcowboy]

Having had transitioned to full sps, and worried this tank would be the most difficult...it couldnt have been more different. This is by far the easiest tank ive ever owned, with the best growth and coloration.

Bumped my head on the walls trying different ways to reef as they came promissing better results, but have finally found success is very attainable to those who use simple, proven methods.

Water changes, proven lighting, good skimmer, stability =results

 

[Reefcowboy]

Having had transitioned to full sps, and worried this tank would be the most difficult...it couldnt have been more different. This is by far the easiest tank ive ever owned, with the best growth and coloration.

Bumped my head on the walls trying different ways to reef as they came promissing better results, but have finally found success is very attainable to those who use simple, proven methods.

Water changes, proven lighting, good skimmer, stability =results

 

[Reefcowboy]

Having had transitioned to full sps, and worried this tank would be the most difficult...it couldnt have been more different. This is by far the easiest tank ive ever owned, with the best growth and coloration.

Bumped my head on the walls trying different ways to reef as they came promissing better results, but have finally found success is very attainable to those who use simple, proven methods.

Water changes, proven lighting, good skimmer, stability =results

 

[Reefcowboy]

Having had transitioned to full sps, and worried this tank would be the most difficult...it couldnt have been more different. This is by far the easiest tank ive ever owned, with the best growth and coloration.

Bumped my head on the walls trying different ways to reef as they came promissing better results, but have finally found success is very attainable to those who use simple, proven methods.

Water changes, proven lighting, good skimmer, stability =results

 

[Ly78]

It was easy till i start doing regular tests and my numbers was all over the place. Chasing numbers killed some of my corals that was otherwise doing well. Go figure heh.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Having had transitioned to full sps, and worried this tank would be the most difficult...it couldnt have been more different. This is by far the easiest tank ive ever owned, with the best growth and coloration.

Bumped my head on the walls trying different ways to reef as they came promissing better results, but have finally found success is very attainable to those who use simple, proven methods.

Water changes, proven lighting, good skimmer, stability =results

And keep those hand out of tank.LOL

 

[Zeal]

For me, So far its been easy but up until last week I noticed that my Alk/Calc is starting to drop a bit now I have to figure out how to deal with that.

Im more interested in Corals then fish so... yeah...

 

[Orcus Varuna]

Haha. This is a trick question! I find it pretty easy to maintain my Reefs until I all of the sudden have issues that make things difficult. Anyone of us can get stumped at any given time in my experience.

Truer words have never been put to digital paper.

 

[Paul B]

I don't find it easy or hard, sometimes I can't even find it, but I am old. It's just there and has been for just about all of my life. I know what I can keep and keep that stuff. If I wanted to have problems I would buy test kits. But I don't so I won't