What does maintenance day look like?

Acro maniac

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I purposely started this thread under the sps forum. Because I want to know what maintenance looks like for sps dominate systems. I know lps and softies can live and thrive with much less maintenance and that's not the point of this thread.

I have a concern with my rock being saturated with nutreints, kinda like old sand. In the past a concern was if you don't blow your rocks out they would clog up and not filter as well plus leach po4 back into your system. So you blew it out to allow bacteria flocking and suck out the residual detritus. Is this still common thought today and what happens when the tank is fully grown in and you can't get to the rocks?

So what do you do when conducting a water change? Do you just swap out water? And or Suck out detritus? Do you Blow out your rocks? How often? Clean your sand or Bare bottom? How long has this schedule has been affective, years ?
Kinda loaded questions but I think some insight would help the people trying to get started and remind people not to get complacent with maintenace. Might also help people assess why they cant keep sps.

Know one ever talk about the dynamics of the water change and I'm curious what you all do?

Thanks
 

Salty1962

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I've set aside Sunday as my tank day of the week. During it I:
-Change the filter sock
-Clean out ATS
-Check all of my equipment for salt build up, no loose fittings, etc.
-Blast all of my LR to loosen up debris and other build up
-Do a 10-15% water change sucking out loose debris
-Check all of my levels, No2, Po4, Big 3, etc.
-Every other week change carbon and add GFO if needed
-Wipe everything down to get rid of salt residue
-Every 3 months, take out circulation pumps out, soak and clean
-Every 6 months, take out return and manifold pumps, soak and clean
-As necessary change out T5 bulbs
I've been doing this for many years.
I keep track of my maintenance practices through my APEX so I won't miss anything. Getting Old! Lol...
 

Yuki Rihwa

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I'm generally just a fish only guy for past few decades so I don't have habit to do critical tests all my water parameter, also I don't own any fancy equipment that critical must have for a SPS dominated tank so I'm not trying to keep any SPS listed under expert category. My maintenance work just around keeping tank bottom clean, swap/clean out my mechanical filter media every 2 days (I'm using canister filter just for mechanical filtration and activated carbon, and it's running without bio media), blow up rocks so my filters can pick up the waste/debris before I do the water change, I'm generally doing 2x (12.5%) water change a week and spend lot of time to observation my tank progress and health of my live stocks.
 

AdamNC

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Here’s a copy/past from my Aquaticlog.

Daily
Dose 0.4 ml of Red Sea Coral Colors Part B
Dose 0.4 ml of Red Sea Coral Colors Part C
Dose 0.4 ml of Red Sea Coral Colors Part D
Dose 0.5 ml of Red Sea NO3/PO4-X
Feed 1 drop of New Life Spectrum Marine Fish Formula
Measure Temperature
Measure pH

Every 2 days
Dose 0.2 ml of Red Sea Coral Colors Part A

Weekly
Feed 12 drops of Poylp Labs Polyp Booster
Feed 0.1 tsp of Polyp Labs Reef-Roids
Feed 1 drop of Random SanFrancisco Bay Frozen food (every 3 days)
Feed 1 sheet of Ocean Nutrition Green Marine Algae (every 3 days)
Clean AC70 filter
Service Mix Salt
Clean Blow off detritus from rocks
Measure Alkalinity (every 3 days)
Measure Potassium
Measure Iodine
Measure Iron
Measure Calcium (every 3 days)
Measure Salinity
Measure Magnesium
Measure Nitrate
Measure Phosphate
Change 2.5 gal of water

Monthly
Clean ATO container
Clean light fixture and screen top
 

madweazl

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I generally perform a 10g water change (roughly 13%) every other week just to introduce trace elements. My sand bed is roughly four inches deep and I vacuum that two or three times a year though it never looks particularly bad when I do; I credit the diamond goby and pistol shrimp for constantly turning the sand over, and over, and over... The tiger sand conch does some work but it's minimal in comparison to these two who literally move all of the sand on a daily basis.

I don't test anything all that often; if something looks off I'll check things out but I rarely find anything amiss (salinity is usually the only that changes which is something I'd like to get as stable as everything else). I dose two part and run carbon most of the time but that is it. I feed LRS Reef Frenzy fairly heavily, twice a day and sometimes add Sea Veggies to a clip for the tang to munch on if it isn't looking plump. I have directed the output of the wavemakers over the rocks a couple times in the past 18 months but I typically don't see a whole lot of debris get kicked up. I also place the pumps in NTM occasionally (every month or so) for a few hours before returning back to reef crest.

When I test, I check:

Salinity
Alkalinity
Calcium
Magnesium
Nitrate
Phospate

I don't own any other kits and I rarely use the ones above though alkalinity is checked far more often than the rest (every two to three weeks).
 

Newb73

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Since i got the DOS doing AWC all day....maintenance day is just harvesting Chaeto, adding 20ml of reef energy part A &B, turning off my skimmer/ozone all day, dumping the skimmate locker, changing filter socks, topping off ATO, surveying tge corals, ocassionally wiping salt splash from the lights, and testing the water.

I only test for phosphate once a month, just before changing filter media (and how much gfo i use is based on the result).

Nitrate test is very sporadic...just when i think ive got a bit more brown growth than i should on sand bed (i like to have a little and if there is no i dont bother testing).

Alk gets checked wednesday and saturday.

Ca gets checked when i make a new batch of water for my Resovoir (about every 11 days) and mg gets checked once a month.

I have continuous monitor for ph, conductivity, orp, temp and par. Temp is actually monitored in both the display and sump so i can catch it if a probe goes bad.

I do spot check the Salinity when i make a new batch of salt...every 11 days or so.
 

emvanburen

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Other things I️ do besides the obvious are check dosing fluid levels and refill or remix more stock as needed. Change co2 scrubber media. Suck crud out of sump a bit at a time w Turkey baster.
 
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Acro maniac

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I've set aside Sunday as my tank day of the week. During it I:
-Change the filter sock
-Clean out ATS
-Check all of my equipment for salt build up, no loose fittings, etc.
-Blast all of my LR to loosen up debris and other build up
-Do a 10-15% water change sucking out loose debris
-Check all of my levels, No2, Po4, Big 3, etc.
-Every other week change carbon and add GFO if needed
-Wipe everything down to get rid of salt residue
-Every 3 months, take out circulation pumps out, soak and clean
-Every 6 months, take out return and manifold pumps, soak and clean
-As necessary change out T5 bulbs
I've been doing this for many years.
I keep track of my maintenance practices through my APEX so I won't miss anything. Getting Old! Lol...
Are you running bb?
 
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Acro maniac

Acro maniac

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Man, where is all the "expert" I really thought this thread would have taken off with more succesful sps keepers wanting to share how they maintain success.
 

Anirban

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I am an easy lazy person. So, generally either every Sunday or alternate ones I blow my rocks and then do a water change after sucking out the detritus. My tank is bare bottom so no issue with sand. Generally I do a 15% water change. I soak and wash my return pump and vortechs in vinegar after every couple of months. I try to spend 10 min each day with my tank and try to study the behaviour of each coral and fish. I follow aquaforest full balling but need to dose potassium in addition to the regular balling dose as my tank consumes it more. Also, try to keep my hands off the water as much as I can.but its the hardest part to do...;)
 

Daniel@R2R

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Cool thread idea! Following!
 

Sandroni

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  1. Make 1 bucket of 4.5 gallons 1 bucket of 2.5 gallons
  2. clean the skimmer and glass of both tanks
  3. shut everything off feed the corals
  4. blow excess detritus off of the rocks
  5. siphon the sand
  6. change filter floss
This is all for my 45 gallon and my 14 gallon :)
 
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Acro maniac

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Come on fellas, I know we all love posting pics of how great are acros are doing but let hear some technical stuff on how you got them that way!
 

Denisk

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So I’m a real estate agent so my days can be hectic. I wish I had a set day for my tank maintenance as I have two but unfortunately I don’t. Luckily I keep things simple in my sps only tank. My sps are currently thriving even though I’m dealing with Dino’s at the moment.

My 350 reefer only SPS Tank maintenance:
Check only alk every few days
Top off ato water every three days
Pay attention to my apex alerts
Water change maybe every two weeks and that’ll be 5 to 10 gallons depending on how I’m feeling.
Clean skimmer whenever too dirty

I don’t think my SPS Tank is any more difficult then any other tank at least for me. Yes they can crash and it can happen quickly but i look at my tank everyday. So if something looks off, I will do additional testing but I don’t do anything drastic as everything you do to your tank has it’s own repercussions. If something does go wrong like my doser is acting weird, I’m ready to stay awake and figure it out till 2am.
I believe the less you do the better. People do way to many things at once and that’s why sps fail. Understand the fundamentals and your tank will thrive.
 

revhtree

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Following!
 

Labridaedicted

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180 Gallon SPS Dominant (Newish setup) with lots of SPS in 40 frag plumbed in (Approx 350 Gallons Total System volume)

Daily Stuff
1. Daily tests (Alk Daily, Ca and Mg every 3 days, NO3 and PO4 weekly)
2. Swap Socks
3. Target feed Frag tank corals
4. Dose Amino acids to sump
5. Check skimmer level
6. Clean frag and dt glass
7. Check apex levels compulsively throughout the day
8. Check level in R/O Brute for top off
9. Supplemental broadcast feeding coral food in dt (Auto feeder does most of this)
10. Check CO2 tank level for calcium reactor
11. Have beer and observe tank

Additional Tasks (non daily)
-Monthly - soak and clean pumps, skimmer, gyres
-Every 2 months remove skimmer for full cleaning
-Appx every 3 weeks change GFO
-change carbon after 2 weeks if running
-Monthly 55 gallon water change
-As needed siphon/pump clean sump, frag, fuge, and bypass sump

I try to keep it fairly simple by automating as much as possible and not dosing a bunch of trace elements. I like using a decent quality salt and water changes plus a calcium reactor to maintain most of my levels. My autofeeder doses reef nutrition ROE (5x daily) and Oyster feast (2x daily) in addition to phyto and rotifer dosing manually once per day(ish). I also splash some Koralcolor in there every few days (Seems to help maintain color).
 
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Acro maniac

Acro maniac

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180 Gallon SPS Dominant (Newish setup) with lots of SPS in 40 frag plumbed in (Approx 350 Gallons Total System volume)

Daily Stuff
1. Daily tests (Alk Daily, Ca and Mg every 3 days, NO3 and PO4 weekly)
2. Swap Socks
3. Target feed Frag tank corals
4. Dose Amino acids to sump
5. Check skimmer level
6. Clean frag and dt glass
7. Check apex levels compulsively throughout the day
8. Check level in R/O Brute for top off
9. Supplemental broadcast feeding coral food in dt (Auto feeder does most of this)
10. Check CO2 tank level for calcium reactor
11. Have beer and observe tank

Additional Tasks (non daily)
-Monthly - soak and clean pumps, skimmer, gyres
-Every 2 months remove skimmer for full cleaning
-Appx every 3 weeks change GFO
-change carbon after 2 weeks if running
-Monthly 55 gallon water change
-As needed siphon/pump clean sump, frag, fuge, and bypass sump

I try to keep it fairly simple by automating as much as possible and not dosing a bunch of trace elements. I like using a decent quality salt and water changes plus a calcium reactor to maintain most of my levels. My autofeeder doses reef nutrition ROE (5x daily) and Oyster feast (2x daily) in addition to phyto and rotifer dosing manually once per day(ish). I also splash some Koralcolor in there every few days (Seems to help maintain color).
Thanks for the responses
Do you have concerns with detritus build in your rocks? Do you remove it during wc or just swap out water?
 

Labridaedicted

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Thanks for the responses
Do you have concerns with detritus build in your rocks? Do you remove it during wc or just swap out water?
I keep my flow rate very high on the upper portion of the reef so I don't get much detritus build up there. I have largish detritivores that clean the bottom pretty clean as well (cukes and conchs). I don't mind a bit of junk here and there, though. I run dual gyre 250s and a 3600 gph return with 4 return loc lines. Between all these, stuff tends to stay in suspension until it ends up in a sock. I do have one spot that accumulates a bit of detritus with a lower flow and I put what soft corals I keep, there. The frag tank and fuge tend to accumulate most of my detritus though, since I run a very slow turnover through them (around 350 gph) and the chaeto eats up those nutrients between cleanings.
 

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