Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law!!!

[H.crispa]

I have had this discussion with Ron on more than one occasion and one time he said I was the luckiest person on earth. I disagree. There is absolutely no way I could do all the things I routinely do for as long as I have done them and have no ill effects. Below is a list of rules that I break all the time and if anyone doubts the health of my reef you are welcome to check out my pics or come on over and see it. The one thing I CAN'T do... the one rule I CAN'T break-- is to neglect. Then things go bad. I tweak things a little each day or every other day etc.... Anyway, I believe in Zen Reefkeeping. Be in touch with your reef and it almost becomes instinctive. This is why my reef is the "Zen Reef".

List of infractions:
1. I seldom ever monitor any of the following: calcium levels, pH, temperature, salinity, nitrates, phosphates etc etc ad nausium. I seldom check the specific gravity of the water when I do water changes. Periodically I will check the SG in the tank and it is always where it needs to be. My temperature fluctuates between 76 to 83 degrees.. it has gone up to 86 at times. My livestock does not care. In fact they love it judging from their health.

2. I never acclimate anything (except crustaceans). I bring home fish and dump them straight in. corals??? LPS, SPS softies... I just put them where I want them and usually within an hour they are fully open and do great-- no bleaching of anything ever. And the SPS corals I have added tend to grow and attach within a week and color up within four.

3. I stick my bare hands and arms in the tank every day, many times a day and have done so as long as I have kept aquariums... with absolutely no ill effects. No polyps ever close up, nothing ever dies... as a matter of fact, they seem to take no notice of this at all, ever.

4. I often dump top off water into the tank very quickly when I either forget to drip kalkwasser or if I get a particularly high evaporation day with absolutely no concern for pH or salinity or temperature fluctuations... and the fish and corals don't care

5. I run my 2, 250 watt 12,000k metal halides over my 75 gallon tank for 14 hours per day. I have no supplementation other than an LED moonlight which I leave on 24/7 because it has no impact on the lighting during the day. This is what causes my high average temperature and large daily fluctuations. My reef loves it.

6. I keep small polyped stoney corals and anemones under PC fluorescents in my 20 gallon hex with low water movement and they do extremely well. As do LPS, softies, brain corals, xenia bla bla bla.

I am sure I can come up with a dozen more jailable infractions but I see no need to do so at this point. After all, I am just stirring the puddin' here. This is all true by the way and I think the reason it works is that I noticed while scuba diving, that there are huge fluctuations in temperature, current, salinity, availability of food, lighting etc. etc. etc. over a wild reef and the inhabitants deal with it just fine. In my closed system of 75 gallons the same holds true. Reefs are a lot more durable then we sometimes give them credit for.

OK!!!!!!!! now that I have given you all the cannon fodder you need to call me a "voodoo reefer", a quack, irresponsible, scary, stupid, arrogant, obnoxious, "LUCKY", crazy, dangerous, menace to the reef keeping hobby........................ Let the crucifiction begin! I'll just sit back and point to the results.

[LowCel]

Just one question. Where's your disclaimer? Ya know the one that says that you are in no way responsible if someone else decides that if you can get by with it then so can they.

This is one of those "do as I say not as I do" things isn't it? ;)

J/K, it's your tank do whatever works for you. From what I can recall you have a very nice tank.

*disclaimer* This does not mean that I agree with any/all of the above methods. *disclaimer*

[artful-dodger]

As Gomer Pyle said, "Citizen's arrest!!! Citizen's arrest!!!

(I won't argue with success, but I won't tempt the same fates...)

[H.crispa]

HA!!! I love it!!!!!! Stirrin' the puddin'!!!!!!!
I'm not saying that everyone can "get away" with the things I do, but according to ALL conventional wisdom, my reef should be completely devoid of life... not thriving. In addition, this has been going on far too long and with far too much frequency to be attributable to luck. I must be doing a lot of stuff right despite my "use the force, Luke" approach.

Oh boy, this is going to be a lively thread chock full of plenty of abuse directed toward me. That's OK. I'm a big boy and I can take it.

I think Zen reefkeeping is the way of the future...well, I can dream can't I?

[LowCel]

I don't get it. Why would there be abuse? You said your tank is healthy, isn't that the goal?

I just took another look at your tank. It looks very healthy and well established. Congratulations and keep it up. Whatever it is that you are doing seems to be working.

[pappygonefishin2002]

I do many of these same things myself as do others Im sure. The fact remains that you have been at this a long time, and like most of us the 1st thing and last thing I do before bed is to check my tanks, that visual observation usually says it all! After doing the same thing over and over again for years you really dont need to look at the recipe anymore unless it doesnt look or taste the same! I do always try to acclimate my corals though, there is no logical reason not to make there move to a totally new environment , as easy as possible! As a beginning reefer I was constantly testing and adjusting water parameters, and never sure what to do next. Now I do the routine water change and enjoy my tank without all the constant work I used to put into it. I think thats when u really start to enjoy your tank , when you become confident that your tank is successful and pretty much takes care of itself , other than a occasional water change, and cleaning! Like (Presentation)
(Set Up Is Everything)

[H.crispa]

I'm not looking for "abuse" per se, just lively debate over techniques.

[Ijoshjoycei]

Eh well I'm guilty of some of these same things... and my tank thrives on it...the Angels in my tank seem to love the water temp drop and increse as well do my corals.. they seem to grow and be beautiful.. So no arguement from me..

[firefish2020]

I think if it works for you , it works for you whoever you are and however you choose to run your system(s). I think it's very good practice to test paremeters during the first few months of a new tank. Later on it's not as needed as the system should be balancing out at this point. However Im just to paranoid not to at least test once a month or so :) but thats just me, and temp and salinity I always try to stay on top of that, again that may be just me. If it's not broken you know the rest but sometimes things wont break as long as we can monitor them.

[msu]

have to say my temp swings in about the same maner and untill just recently i always dumped top off water in sometimes as much as 2 gallons at a time.

[1package]

I think everyone is guilty of a couple of these things. I seldom due many of the checks due to seeing the same thing over and over - OK - OK. I got lazy with a FO tank (nitrates) and it got wiped out.

As for just dumping new fish or gallons of fresh water in the tank, maybe luck.....even a blind squirrel can find an acorn - sometimes. I think you would agree that regardless of where you dive the fish/corals do not see that type drastic change.

Also, just because things are living or growing, does not mean they are thriving or doing even a fraction as well as they could be - or as you said, perhaps they are.

[H.crispa]

I have to disagree on the reef thing. On a wild reef the amount of light can vary drastically from day to day, the salinity and current varies drastically during a hurricane (which the reefs survive quite nicely), turbidity from runoff after a good soaker as well as dissolved organics...temperature from day to day can vary greatly in shallow reefs... Heck in John Pennycamp I dove on some reefs that are exposed to the sun and air at low tide and this occurs in reefs throughout the world. How many of us would be willing to take out a prized specimen and leave it baking under the halides for 6 hours (low tide)? But, if the coral is used to this kind of thing it does just fine. I don't plan on baking my corals under halides but I don't freak out trying to keep them wet during a water change either. As for my animals, It's pretty obvious when something is thriving or not-- tissue/polyp expansion, growth, color-- Healthy coral is gorgeous. Really when it looks like something isn't doing as well as it normally does, a water change almost always works wonders. I'm not saying anyone should abuse their reef but rather you should establish a "relationship" with it, and after a while you just sort of know what your reef needs and what you can "get away with". By "get away with" I mean what isn't going to matter one iota to your reef's inhabitants, but that conventional wisdom dictates you monitor and tweak ad nauseum.

Love your reef-- use the force!

And as I said, my reef is open for inspection any time I'm home. Just ring the doorbell.

[1package]

I guess it is whatever works for whomever. I do not think anyone would argue the storm/light issue. I am certain that if my lights did not come on for a day or two or came partially on all would be well. Temperature changes or salinity due to a several thousands of gallons of water runoff in a tropical area dumping into 100s of trillions of gallons of sea water would likely not have the same instantaneous affect as your dumping of 1-2 gallons into a 75 tank. As for the tides going out, once again a suttle thing over several hours but obviously your point is the corals are very durable, I think everyone would once again agree. However, I doubt that the plastic crossbar on your tank would have melted under the sun on a beach at low tide, so there is a difference there as well.

If it is working for you no point in changing but your comparing apples to oranges.

[H.crispa]

Good point about the center brace. But, The point source is a lot closer to the center brace in the tank situation; however, the lux and lumen over a wild reef are far greater about two minutes after sunrise then we can generate with several thousand watts of metal halide. We just happen to be farther from the source over a wild reef. This is the reason I am not a fan of dimmers for CFs or MHs-- it seems rather absurd, kind of like if you were used to being slugged by Mike Tyson every day, then someone picks you up and plops you into a smaller boxing ring with Pee Wee Herman, then instructs Mr. Herman to "go easy on you".