"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
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"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
Sounds fun if that’s what you do in your line of work! Too much for me at this stageI'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.
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.
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 merrierWhich one is most dominant? Even if I did automate some I would consider myself more hands-off.