One or many

Crabs McJones · Jan 13, 2026

In the past I've tried running multiple tanks and quickly found it overwhelming. The testing and maintenance became alot. I see people with 2, 3, 4 or more tanks and have to wonder, how are you managing so many tanks and life. Curious to hear everyone's story.

PSA totally an AI generated picture

jsmkmavity · Jan 13, 2026

They are like Pringles, you cant have just one!!!

tbrown · Jan 13, 2026

Crabs McJones said:
In the past I've tried running multiple tanks and quickly found it overwhelming. The testing and maintenance became alot. I see people with 2, 3, 4 or more tanks and have to wonder, how are you managing so many tanks and life. Curious to hear everyone's story.

PSA totally an AI generated picture

Weird how AI generated @SPS Freak's fish room...

Reefer Matt · Jan 13, 2026

Oh, it’s amazingly simple. You have a life, I don’t.

JumboShrimp · Jan 13, 2026

I try to keep it simple. My bigger tanks (150s) are FOWLRs. Any tanks with corals are only small AIOs, usually in the 20-gallon range, and with 'easy' corals that can survive basically my same FOWLR mentality (few if any water changes, little testing other than salinity).

TheNative192 · Jan 13, 2026

I have four tanks. One at my office & three at home. My office tank is very basic with Macro Algae, a clown, & an Anemone. For my tanks at home I honestly plan (likely far off in the future) to get one larger tank at some point and slowly combine a lot of the inhabitants into one larger system to make my life easier. I probably will shut down my Red sea cube tank and move its inhabitants into the larger tank eventually & I will always keep my Lagoon going as I really like the shallow design. Its not particularly difficult as all my tanks are on the smaller side although my biggest problem is the stability of all my tanks. If I have issues with my cube tank again with LPS corals I may just keep it soft coral only again. I also purchased a lot of high end tech & testing equipment to help with my time management/schedule for my Lagoon and I plan to probably make it 100% automatic outside of refilling AWC buckets, ATOs, & testing. Also if the Hydros Maven ever comes out I will likely purchase that as well..

Gumbies R Us · Jan 14, 2026

Easy, you manage none right now, haha. For real, I kept up with two tanks. One being a pico and the other a 20g nano. Both were very manageable to keep up with, just because of how small they were. Well, I say manageable even though the 20g had a dino outbreak plus GHA and a couple of other things....

Tahoe61 · Jan 14, 2026

Absolutely one of the best things I have done is to run multiple Nanos.
Having other systems to allow for observation of new corals and fish has been well worth the extra work.
Current the IM 14 has an Urchin and that's it. But it's ready to go if I need to move a sick or aggressive fish, or a struggling coral.

revhtree · Jan 14, 2026

I'm so with you!!

I stress over one box of water and then don't even manage that as well as I should! But I sure do love to see multiple reef tanks all in the same room!

Idoc · Jan 14, 2026

I want more and bigger tanks, but can't keep up with one!

NanoSteam · Jan 14, 2026

It's my first time keeping more than one tank. Decided to keep my nano running after transferring everything over to my new larger tank so I'll have to get back to you on how it goes

Plan is to keep it simple though. Im thinking "pest" corals and one fish with a lot of personality. This way I can avoid any dosing and won't run a skimmer either.

fishface NJ · Jan 14, 2026

One 150g tank is enough.

Staticmoves · Jan 14, 2026

Hardest part of having multiple tanks..............is getting permission to have more than one!

Tahoe61 · Jan 14, 2026

Staticmoves said:
Hardest part of having multiple tanks..............is getting permission to have more than one!

Wait, what!

Was I supposed to ask permission?

Dragen Fiend · Jan 14, 2026

I can handle multiple nano tanks. Anything under 15G is manageable. I have no clue how anyone does big ones above that though.

I do like multiple tanks because they let you try different designs.

Right now I have 25G IM, 7G with 15G sump and a 5G deskmate.

exnisstech · Jan 14, 2026

~~I enter by accident so am finishing this up~~

Run them simple.
5 tanks running currently. Weekly testing of NO3, PO4, and alkalinity on 3 takes less than an hour including clean up using Hanna testers. I test every Saturday morning while drinking some coffee. I test calcium once every month or two. Nothing else is tested and nothing is continuously monitored.

Tank one is a 40g breeder running a hob filter, floating ATS, ATO and heater on an inkbird and powerheads I recently added a UV because I had one laying here and I was bored. This tank is my observation/ grow out tank. I test alk and nothing else. Probably haven't changed more that 20g of water in the last year.

Tank 2 an 8g nano, 5g total. It's a trial run at NPS but i haven't done much with it yet. I have phyto on a doser with a little mini fridge next to the tank so I only need to fill the phyto ounce a week or so. I do 0.5g water changes 3-4 times a week which takes about 5 minutes each. I toss some floss in the cup if i scrape the glass or blow the rocks. Heater on a inkbird controller. I don't test.

Tank 3 an IM20. Filter floss in the cups, heater on an inkbird controller, ATO and power heads. I manually dose some AFR each day. Water changes? meh tank runs N and P at or near zero so I manually dose some PO4 and ammonium once a week of I see 0 on my test. I do a random 2g WC on no set schedule.

Tank 4 a reefer 300. Heaters on an inkbird, reefmat, skimmer with an outside airline for aeration never emptied or cleaned, powerheads, AFR on a doser and an ATO. The 8g sits next to this tank so I share an ATO reservoir and a 2 head doser between the two tanks. WCs 2g every 2-3 weeks to vacuum detritus that collects in a corner. N and P run low and I'll manually dose PO4 and ammonium as needed but it's been several weeks since I've tested 0.

Last a WB 330.7 285g total with skimmer and a floating ATS that are cleaned weekly. ATS is a rain 4x so all I have to do is lift the cover off and pull the algae out and done. I feed the algae I harvest to my tangs. I manually dose two part each day, ATO, heat on an inkbird. I run a little rowaphos in a reactor changed out every 3 weeks to keep PO4 below 0.9 so I can get a number on my Hanna ULR tester. NO4 runs 25-40 I do a 25g WC every Sunday which takes about 45 minutes including cleanup and rolling the brute to the bottom of the basement stairs and pumping the new water up using a pond pump on a $10 remote controlled outlet. I refill all tank ATO containers using the same pump after doing the WC.

I keep two 32g brutes full of fresh mixed saltwater and rodi so I always have some on hand for emergencies if needed.
I get to spend way more time just sitting and watching the tanks than performing maintenance. I don't try to control every little thing. No auto testing gadgets or controllers to fiddle with or worry about failing. I have a lot of individual pieces of equipment like ATO and heat controllers that can fail but those are easy fixes with stuff laying around and nothing that is going to wipe out a tank when something fails. Spare return pumps for every tank are on hand as well.

Reeferbadness · Jan 14, 2026

I don't have many, but do have 2 x 200g tanks in different rooms. I enjoy swapping corals or even fish that for one reason or another find there way to the other tank. It's also good for an emergency - like i had when one of my tanks (RS 750 XXL g1) failed - and i put a lot of the coral and and live rock into the other tank while i had the broken one replaced. Last positive thing for me is to experiment with things like dosing etc in one tank and see if it makes much of a difference - since both tank parameters are pretty closely alligned.

tbrown · Jan 14, 2026

I have MTS (everyone says it's a syndrome but I believe it's actually a solution!).

Currently running 3 saltwater tanks - 5.6 Tenecore DIY AIO with water, rocks, and sand - no light, no livestock yet; 8 gallon IOAOI AIO reef with a YWG/Randall's Pistol combo, Green Banded Goby, and Hector's; and my ESHOPPS M70 mixed Reef with a buncha stuff.

Also 4 freshwater tanks - 110EH planted with angels, tetras, BN Plecos (4 varieties), German Blue Rams, and some Endlers; 15 Gallon HelloReef planted (currently no fish - office tank but I just changed jobs so it's running but not at work again yet); 2 gallon planted jar; 1/2 gallon currently running but empty.