How long do reef tanks last?

[ZoWhat]

Oddly enough just 2 weeks ago my 180g started leaking a slow drip along the bottom seal after 10yrs.

Only 1 drip caught by a 5gal buck and leaking about a half-gallon of water per day.

Gathering things and pulling the trigger on a 220g 72x24x30 from Planet Aquarium thru my local LFS store (who are awesome) in about a month

I'm too clumsy to reseal a 6ft bottom plate. I would totally scew it up with a 4am CRASH in the middle of the night from my reseal

 

[Mkus]

Mines going on 12 years with original clown and a 5 yo Pygmy angel I’ve never had a crash JBJ 24 upgrades Leds refugium and pump

 

[HeinritzReef]

I had my 120 up for just over two years before an upgrade.

We purchased the complete set-up from another Reefer who started it 5 years prior. No crashes...

Now our 300 gallon upgrade is 18 months old... haven’t added a fish in over a year and we’re going strong.

 

[Zionas]

12 years is still pretty good! Glad your new tank is doing well!

 

[Ksmmike]

Ive had a biocube going for 3 years and now a 120 gallon going for over 2 years. Hopefully they will both continue on for many years to come. I don't intend on getting a larger tank though I'd give the biocube to my son if he would take it

 

[DennistheMenace]

I’ve had my 165 going since 2002. The only upgrades were lighting when my MH shorted out. Replaced with LEDs. Upgraded my old sump a year and a half ago to add a refugium. Never experienced a total crash. Had some losses moving it from upstairs to downstairs. Still have 2 yellow tangs, a bunch of mushrooms, a bubble, and my brittle starfish from the startup. I have upgraded myself to test and do water changes. Didn’t test anything for the first 12/13 years. Did have a guy come once a month to clean it up and change about 30 gallons every month or so. Didn’t use a skimmer for those years either. Refilled from the tap. Did everything wrong, and the corals never seemed to be bothered. Life was simple! Of course my nitrate and phosphate levels were off the charts when I started testing.

 

[McPuff]

I chose 10+ years. My reef has been in the 300DD for almost 4 years but before that it was in a 120, a 180, and a 150. So overall, the soul and backbone of the reef is more like 15 years old. I have moved houses and that meant the contents simply moved from one box to another. Rocks/fish/sand have come and gone here and there, but I haven't started a new tank since 2005. My pink spotted watchment goby has been with me since the beginning.

 

[Richyreefer]

With proper set up and maintenance it should be good until the inevitable crisis .

 

[littlebigreef]

One thing I've learned over the years (and doing maintenance for shops a long, long time ago) is that every aquarium has a lifespan. Inevitably all of our reefs will come down one day or another. The most immediate 'threat' is always living situations, crashes and indifference.

It was often my experience that tanks would make it until a prized animal got too big and necessitated an upgrade. Regarding frustration 'quits' often people wouldn't immediately quit after a crash, rather they'd just do a slow fade out and talk about what the tank once was. Eventually tanks would just devolve into messes until a wife or girlfriend suggested it 'go away.' I was fortunate in my time to work on many that were 5 years or older- one one case 10+ years. Perhaps the best was a nondescript 90 gal That had become overrun with a bunch of mushrooms and simple acros. As long as we came in cleaned it every 6 weeks the tank just keep chugging along and was a great example of a 'grown in' aquarium. That is the difference though between having a service come and do the maintenance vs having the owner actively involved. Most people that do their own maintenance experience ebbs and flows in their motivation- which is to be expected- and its usually seasonal.

It's just my opinion but there's a 'filter' people must pass through when keeping an aquarium. It's basically just the sum total of motivation, consistency, and enthusiasm which will determine whether you continue to raise your ceiling and achieve your goals, or get stuck at a certain point and just spin your wheels. Probably very few people begin the hobby with a complete idea of what they want to achieve and so go from one thing to the next. Those folks, from my experience, are the type that go into the store and buy something new every week with little regard for how everything fits together in the big picture. When approaching the hobby that way its very easy to become complacent and 'settle' for middling results rather that pushing and developing their craft. Most of those aquariums have a few year life span at best. I also see the technology fetish as feeding into that demographic. All too often I seen an eye-watering equipment list but a non-existent understanding of basic reef chemistry. People that are able to get past these barriers tend to be in for the longer haul.

My current aquarium has been up going on 4 years- I set it up when we bought our house. However, the contents, including the rock structures date from 2011. We'd moved twice so I consolidated from a 120 to a 75 before arriving at the 220 I have now. I was fortunate that in both cases I was able to get the new tanks up and running before moving the livestock. In that way the aquarium I have now is very much the same as the one from 2011, the containers just changed and I got better at my craft.

My experience in the hobby: 1st marine aquarium 20 gal in 1995. Started working at the full service pet store in middle school and into high school 1997-2002. During that time I had a 55 gal which would give way to a Oceanic 120 in 2000. That tank would stay up while I was in college until about 2004-05 before my dad finally took it down. I restarted the 55 gal 2006 and it would go on till 2008 before I'd swap it out for the 120 gal. I also did maintenance for the aquarium shop from 2008-10. That 120 gal was up until the end of 2014 when we first moved. I had the 75 gal for about 2 years before we bought our house in 2016. I've seen a lot of changes over those years.

 

[Reeferdude1888]

My current tank is 8 years old and this is my final tank as I can't go any bigger so with good maintenance and care hopefully another 8 or more its seen the scape changed a few times but only with the original rock in it ,it seen dino,s and came through it ,it's had sand and now is bare bottom , I think the longevity of a tank is as long as you still like the hobby then the tank will be there.

 

[Kris 2020]

1. On average how long do you think that a reef tank lasts before it's upgraded, crashed or just shut down? 3-4 years

2. What's the longest you've ever had the same reef system set up? (without an upgrade to bigger and without a total crash or shut down) Current tank is at 8-9 years. I have no plans to upgrade from here. Prior I had a 12 gallon for 2 years and a 39 aio for about 4 years.

 

[Doctorgori]

Well it often takes a few years to find out the latest conventional wisdom isn’t: UG filters, Dolomite, DSB’s, et... My guess is the Blue lights are next

 

[Peter Steinberg]

It all matters! Most of my systems last more than 5 years, but the last one set up in December in a Marineland reef ready 220 cracked and spilled all over the floor in less than 5 months! a month after set up I contacted Marineland, they agreed it didn't look good and needed replacement, after 3 months and 3 different Marineland representatives and providing everything needed, Marineland stopped responding and returning phone calls! it ended spilling out and destroying more than the tank!

 

[sghera64]

I'm not sure if this question is aimed specifically at the "glass box" or the entire biosystem.

My DT is a 1991 Oceanic 135 Gallon Glass tank. And it is a TANK. It is nearly 30 years old and shows no sign of breaking down or leaking and has needed no repairs. It was put into dry storage for about 5 years. Acrylic tanks should last forever. I've heard one of the worst things you can do to a glass/silicone tank is use it for a number of years, then dry store it to cause the caulk to dry out and then put it back into service where at some point the caulk fails.

I used this Oceanic from 1991 to about 1997. Than I re-established it in 2003 until present. The system used all the original dry rock - - which sat for 5 years in storage and the old sand. It started in 2003 with a 4-5 inch deep sand bed which has dissolved down to about 3-4 inches (I need to top off my sand). The system has never crashed. I've had GHA, cyano and other "outbreaks", but nothing that could break the system or my will.

In 2003, I started with 3 x 250W MH. It is now fueled by 2 SBox 32" WiFi Extremes and a few T5s. Skimmer, fuge, sump and even the plumbed-in frag system are all DIY with PVC pipe, Acrylic or PetCo 20 Gal fish tanks. It is a mixed reef (SPS, LPS, Zoa, Payly, shrooms, RBTA explosion). See pic

 

[paraletho]

Average is probably 2-4 years.

My current system is in the same tank a 58 gallon Oceanic since 2003. It has moved twice. Never without inhabitants more than 6 hours. I have a torch that has been fragged well over 100 times since the initial. Well built tank carefully maintained but as they say nothing is forever.

 

[Borg]

Until the money runs out

 

[Paul B]

OMG

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

I went almost exactly a year before feeling the need to start over. I think there are a lot of reasons for many tanks to not last a year.

Just browsing these forums you see examples where a lack of research and understanding has lead tanks to not even last months without a major catastrophe. Lets face it, there are just a million things that can go wrong with a reef tank. One mistake can be a disaster.

Then there are some pests that can bring down even experienced reefers! I saw bryopsis, GHA, cyano, and aiptasia, all in the first year.

Aside from just plain fails, I think a year is also a good amount of time to get a feel for things and have a better idea of what you really want. I think it's pretty common to start with intro level equipment and find that once you've got the bug you want to upgrade everything! The first day you walked out of the LFS you wanted a pulsing xenia and clownfish. A year later maybe you want wall to wall acros, and an Achilles tang!

Or maybe you are already decades in obsessed...there are always new bigger better things on the market and what's really neat is that this hobby is still learning and evolving. There are always reasons to upgrade.

That said...

I don't think there is any reason that a tank can't be kept going indefinitely with proper knowledge and care.

 

[psychobilly07]

My 125g is lil over 8 and Im starting to get nervous about something happening

 

[rogersb]

Probably most are taken down after a year or so.

I've been doing this for 12 years and in that time I went from a 20 to a 46 to a 60 to a 75 to a 210 to a 125 and moved houses twice. Now that I'm in the house I want to live in and have the right tank for me I hope to have this one going for around 10 years or so. We'll want new flooring by then and it'll be time to get a new set up