Is less more? Micromanaging vs Lassiez Faire

[AJsTank]

"less is more", everyone probably initially agrees with this. Until you see someone else's tank with a cool gadget or upgrade Then you're like me and you want to buy lol

 

[Radman73]

I've bounced back and forth between control freak and lazy. I enjoy the hobby much more when I'm lazy lol! That being said, control to the rescue. One of the main reason I upgraded to the 2016 Apex is so I can take advantage of the Trident monitoring some time next year. My 220 is still new so I have no rush to fill it with SPS, yet. But I'd like to get there someday and I know I'll need to test better than I have in the past. Hoping this will allow me to maintain my slight lazy streak and still keep what I want. Win for me and a win for Neptune Systems!

 

[jsker]

"less is more", everyone probably initially agrees with this. Until you see someone else's tank with a cool gadget or upgrade Then you're like me and you want to buy lol

LOL

 

[cilyjr]

Here's what I've come to be comfortable

Less is more when it comes to keeping your hands out meaning stick a frag and leave it alone and give stuff time to adapt.

More is better when it comes to keeping an eye on parameters. I test alk every other day. Calcium weekly. The rest when the spirit moves me. I water change every 2 weeks and I use an apex for control. I like things on a controller when I'm away.

Recently I've become a fan of dosing various bacteria supplements which happens every few days.

Tank was redone in Feb 2017. Almost all of the coral is from frags from that date.

 

[Tbyram]

I'm an engineer so I love the automation. I just got into the hobby in March 2017. I always wanted a reef tank but traveled way too much to manage one. I love gadgets so this hobby allows me to play with all of them. I do have to force myself to go SLOW as I know that is best. I started fast but have slowed a bunch now to let things settle in.

I started my 125 gal tank with the new Neptune Apex.....LOVE IT. I'm into analytics in my line of work so love the monitoring and graphs and more. I am dosing 2 part with the BRS 1.1ml dosers. I even bought the KH Gardian Monitor about 2 months ago to monitor my ALK. I'm still trying to get it tweaked just right to be perfectly stable dosing a little bit every hour. I test the ALK every 3 hours now but started it running every hour. I have the Apex ATO with at 10 gal reservoir so I only have to add to it once a week. I typically test all the parameters on Saturday mornings. I started out doing a 20 gal water change every Saturday but now only ever other week....seemed like my water was too clean....and not allowing stuff to mature. I do have an RODI system in the garage pumping into 2 32gal Brute cans. I just installed some pipe from my washing machine connections to the RODI so I don't have to keep connecting the hose pipe. I would probably be one of those to do the auto water change system but there isn't any way to run the pipes for me. I have 1 of the IceCap underwater reef cameras running and just got 2 more for Christmas so I can put another in the display and the other in my small 29 gal QT or Frag tank in my home office. I also installed a YI Home WiFi camera under the cabinet so I can see (and hear) what's going on in the sump when not home.

I'm excited to check out the Trident when it comes out so that it can monitor more of the parameters. My least favorite thing is doing the testing.

Long story short...I'm all for the automation....but once again, I'm a newbie so some of you may know better.

 

[4FordFamily]

I'm an engineer so I love the automation. I just got into the hobby in March 2017. I always wanted a reef tank but traveled way too much to manage one. I love gadgets so this hobby allows me to play with all of them. I do have to force myself to go SLOW as I know that is best. I started fast but have slowed a bunch now to let things settle in.

I started my 125 gal tank with the new Neptune Apex.....LOVE IT. I'm into analytics in my line of work so love the monitoring and graphs and more. I am dosing 2 part with the BRS 1.1ml dosers. I even bought the KH Gardian Monitor about 2 months ago to monitor my ALK. I'm still trying to get it tweaked just right to be perfectly stable dosing a little bit every hour. I test the ALK every 3 hours now but started it running every hour. I have the Apex ATO with at 10 gal reservoir so I only have to add to it once a week. I typically test all the parameters on Saturday mornings. I started out doing a 20 gal water change every Saturday but now only ever other week....seemed like my water was too clean....and not allowing stuff to mature. I do have an RODI system in the garage pumping into 2 32gal Brute cans. I just installed some pipe from my washing machine connections to the RODI so I don't have to keep connecting the hose pipe. I would probably be one of those to do the auto water change system but there isn't any way to run the pipes for me. I have 1 of the IceCap underwater reef cameras running and just got 2 more for Christmas so I can put another in the display and the other in my small 29 gal QT or Frag tank in my home office. I also installed a YI Home WiFi camera under the cabinet so I can see (and hear) what's going on in the sump when not home.

I'm excited to check out the Trident when it comes out so that it can monitor more of the parameters. My least favorite thing is doing the testing.

Long story short...I'm all for the automation....but once again, I'm a newbie so some of you may know better.

Sounds fun if that’s what you do in your line of work! Too much for me at this stage

 

[Sharvey103]

I'm a engineer so I like the toys but run chemistry only once a month with biweekly 10% water changes.

 

[becks]

I tested nitrate twice in about 5 months and both times it showed about 2.5ppm,

Alk, ca & mg I test every two to three weeks and is generally the same level, some times I just tweek my doser slightly, then test the following week. Everything is pretty stable.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

I like toys...

 

[malacoda]

I am almost totally automated but still find less is better

Same here.

Automation 'frees' me enough to go on vacation or travel for work without worry of finding a tank sitter. (For example, my wife and I just got back from a 14 day trip and the tank did fine on its own.). I'm talking fairly basic automation though - ato, lights, doser, temp. controller, and autofeeder (which is only used when I'm traveling). No controller - I don't feel the need or desire to invest in one for a 24g tank.

As far as testing, I test alk a few times a week. But that's about it. Like many other posters, I find the tank does better when I don't chase numbers and just let 'the kingdom' do its thing.

 

[jsker]

Same here.

Automation 'frees' me enough to go on vacation or travel for work without worry of finding a tank sitter. (For example, my wife and I just got back from a 14 day trip and the tank did fine on its own.). I'm talking fairly basic automation though - ato, lights, doser, temp. controller, and autofeeder (which is only used when I'm traveling). No controller - I don't feel the need or desire to invest in one for a 24g tank.

As far as testing, I test alk a few times a week. But that's about it. Like many other posters, I find the tank does better when I don't chase numbers and just let 'the kingdom' do its thing.

I forgot about the testing. but correct, besides water changes right now, feeding, and testing I am pretty much automated.

 

[NS Mike D]

the exception to this rule of less in more, is the space we are dedicating to below and behind the DT. Our tanks are merely a sliver of the reef and the more we know how the different reef zones dependently interact we either add more sump zones or add hardware to compensate for the lack of these other zones that mother nature so brilliantly brought together over billions of years.

I am struggling to find another hobby that has embraced an equal insanity of ours in that we go to great lengths to strip nutrients from our systems only to spend more money to dose them right back in.

 

[Sipec]

Which one is most dominant? Even if I did automate some I would consider myself more hands-off.

Yeah, i try to keep my hands out when i can, i like playing rough with my cat and the saltwater kinda makes the scratches hurt. I should probably be more careful now that i have zoas. With controllers, though, i’d say the more the merrier