Hours per week maintenance?

[JJohn]

Hi! I wonder if I could get some data from all of you. This info might be of use to new people to the hobby (or their significant others). Let them know what to plan for. It could be interesting - we might learn something. I will try to compile the data if enough people respond to make it meaningful. Four simple questions:

1) What is the average number of hours per week you spend working on your reef tank?

2) How many gallons is your reef tank?

3) How long has it been setup?

3) Is it dominated by SPS, LPS, Soft corals, or mixed reef?


Thanks!
John

[JJohn]

I'll go first.

4 hours per week, 75G, 10 years, mixed

[fsn77]

1) 2 - 3 hours per week
2) 90g
3) 2 months
4) mixed: soft corals / LPS

[DaveG99]

1-2 hours
125gallon
2 months
some softies

[Briankook]

3 hours a week
180 gallon
2 years
mixed reef / SPS & xenia

[exacta123]

1 hour or less a week
75 gallon
mixed reef

[mityoak]

4hrs
120g mixed +30g frag
2yr

[futrtrubl]

Make this into a poll, would be very interesting to see the results.

Edward

[reefshadow]

2 hours - unless i'm really messing with something-
240 gallons
18 months i think
mixed reef- softies, sps, lps

[Saltz Creep]

I do some things every other day, some things every week, and some things every month, but I guess the average breaks down to 1.5 hours a week.

75 + 20 gallon
2 years
Softies

[JJohn]

I should have made this a poll but did not know how and only had ten minutes to start the thing. If anyone wants to somehow make this a poll, I do think we can learn something.

[funman1]

Poll has been made..
:)

~Steve~

[andiruleu]

1 hour or less a week
60gal
4-5 months
mixed reef

[JJohn]

Thanks!

One of the things I was trying to learn is the correlation of tank size to maintenance. And, how long the tank has been setup versus how much effort. My theory is that 1) small tanks and really large ones take a fair amount of time and 2) that older tanks might require less time. Not sure though and wanted to see if this theory was correct.

Any chance to add two more questions to the poll? If not, it will still be interesting to see what effort people dedicate to their reefs.

Thanks again,
John

[corals b 4 bills]

2-3 hours a week
155 gal. bowfront
1 year

[futrtrubl]

Well, here are the results so far (sorry about using ball size, excel not doing 3d surface graphs properly)

http://www.edowner.net/maint_graph.gif

Everything looks pretty bad for the hypothesis that large and small tanks take more time, and older tanks take less time... except your own tank JJohn, which is just wierd ;']
This is of course a far too small sample size to really get anything from it ;']

Edward

[funman1]

12 g nano
2-3 hours per week
4 months old

[JJohn]

Thanks, this graph is what I had in mind. Need more data.

My own tank is weird in that when my twin sons were born five years ago, I went to maybe ten minutes a week upkeep. For five years all I did was top of with tap water once a week and clean the front glass. Fed fish once a week at most.

Two months ago, I realized I had some time again, so I am doing major work to get things up and looking good. Swapped out a third of my live rock, re-aquascaped the whole thing, replaced all the powerheads, cleaned out the sump, added another SPS, started feeding my anemone, etc etc. It has been fun putting some time into it. For me, I realize that if it is just stable, it is not as enjoyable. God, I am too type-A!

[McCrary]

Less than 2 hours per week.
110 Gallons- Mixed Reef.
Over 1 year.

[futrtrubl]

Updated the chart with the new data. Looks like just under 100gals is the sweet spot for low maintenance (with one non-conforming data point).

JJohn: So the 4hours per week is not really just maintenance, or rather it's a patch of increased maintenance. What would you say it would be once you finished the upgrades/averaged it out?

Edward

[JJohn]

I'd put it at an one hour per week once I am done doing all my little upgrades and rebuilds. Maybe we should change my data point. This is just a month or two or three spurt to get things back to where they were. An hour is about right for normal maintenance for me.

John

PS thanks again for plotting the data so that we can understand it.

[reefNetWork]

2 hours per week
80 gallon
2 months
Soft Corals / LPS

[PDA]

The time required actually should drop as the tank matures and the reefer becomes more experienced with his/her tank.
I spend maybe 1 hour a week on my 90 mixed tank that is 2.5 years old.
I bet I spent over 3 hours (maybe much more depending on the week) on my tank when it was new.

[dj synystr]

less than 30 minutes a week including feeding, testing, cleaning all that jazz. 2 tanks 125 room divider with prop tank and a 12 gallon nano. my clean up crew does most of the work, and my system is totally automated. all i do is feed. i dont even bother testing anymore unless i notice a problem. 125 been up for a year from an old setup and the nano a month.

[raskal311]

30min
90gal+40 sps tank
20months old.

[ODB_Heck]

After a teardown I do about 2 hours a week with a 60 gal 2 month old. no corals yet only 3 fish.

[trippyl]

I think that the answer to the questions posed is, it depends. If you are particular about not having a single thread of algae in the display you will spend much more time then a hobbiest who might not care about that as much.

Running more corals, vs more fish, vs the type of organisms all change the equation. As does the level of filtration, the amount of flow, and even to a small degree the amount of light. Do you drip kalk, have a reactor or dose nothing at all? This too will change the maintenance you need to perform and how often.

Reefs are your own world, so many factors go into the formula that makes the maintenance easy or hard. A poll is sort of a backward looking stat as I could design a system that required very little maintenance given my experience, but if money or space is an issue some of those solutions could not be employed.

[futrtrubl]

Updated the chart.

http://www.edowner.net/maint_graph.gif

Edward

[jackel55]

dang call me the the laziest person on RC. I spend about 1.5-2 hrs per MONTH on my 75G and I find this to be unacceptable. I've given serious thought to selling or downgrading the tank to FOWLR, in order to reduce the maintenance. It used to occupy even less time until it developed algae problems that I've surrendered to.

75G
4.5 yrs
mixed LPS/softy, some fish
1.5-2 hrs per month