Newbie with maintenance questions

[JoeF]

I'm new to the reef aquarium hobby and haven't bought any equipment yet because I'm still trying to learn everything I can. Can you tell me how much maintenance is involved? I'm interested in finding out how much maintenance the average reef aquarium owner does to maintain a good system. How often do you do water changes and how much? How often do you test the water for PH, specific gravity, ammonia, nitrates , nitrites, phosphates or whatever else you do. About how many hours per week is spent in maintenance?

I recently read a book called "The Reef Tank Owner's Manual" by John H. Tullock. After reading the book he says that some water changes are necessary every 3-4 days so that 20% of the water is changed every month & that testing for nitrates should be done weekly.

[Physh1]

Here is my maintenance schedule that I've used for a few years on my tanks and customers tanks....

--10-20 percent every 3-5 weeks.
--Dripping a form of calcium....like kalkwasser/turbo cal/seachem calcium/etc....to make up for evaporation on a constant basis.
--Alkalinity buffers and minor/major elements (personally I use Reef Solution) and Lugols solution on a weekly basis.

In new tanks testing and fiddling is time consuming....aka your getting a feel for how your system is going to establish itself. Within a few months you tend to feel your system and can cut back on testing so often and tin kering less. I spend about 1-2 hours weekly on the tank. Probably less. I spend hours and hours looking at it though. Once set-up and set-up CORRECTLY they are really not a huge chore. Setting them up correctly is REALLY IMPORTANT. Take your time and ask questions.....

Cameron

[Nagel]

Well, so far you are doing good, your educating yourself!

Maintenance varies from tank to tank, size differences, bioload, and how you feed can all affect what maintenance is needed.

I change 4-5 gallons every 6 weeks or so in my 29g (more to replenish trrace elements, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate all are 0 and have been for 5 months now)

Topoff every night with about a gallong of RO/DI water dosed with kalkwasser.

Test when things look "odd" When I say odd, I mean not looking good. I spend a good hour each day staring at my reef, so if something is not right, I will notice it.

I feed twice daily, once in the morning (8am) and once in the evening (5pm). I trty not to feed more then my fish will consume in a few minutes, but I make sure I feed enough that the cleanup critters on the bottom don't starve (mysid shrimp, bristleworms, pods, etc.)

The longer you wait before adding critters to a tank, the more stable the tank will end up being. Patience is a must, and you will reap the rewards of researching things and taking your time. Looks like you're off to a great start so far.

HTH

[naesco]

Nagel says it all.
His last paragraph is the key IMO. If your rush things things die, more algae, more nitrates, more stress therfor more problems.
If you go sloooow the tank is very forgiving.