What are your laziest habits?

Roks-Sharky

Roks-Sharky

Member
I was once appalled when I saw straight salt dumped into the shark tank at the LFS.

Of course, then I started doing it myself at home. Well, not buckets full, just a cup here and there into the sump to keep it regulated.

My live rock has long since bleached, and rather than scrub clean from brown algae, when I do a water change, I simply turn the rocks to hide the slimy part, underneath is nice, white and clean.

Now, I am NOT promoting lazy habits, I have three kids and haven't had much time to enhance my tank lately, I'm just here keeping the ones I got alive.
 
ReefLady

ReefLady

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Why would you add salt directly to a tank or sump? Not only is it a very dangerous practice, but typically over time, the concentration of salt in tank water will become higher, rather than lower, due to evaporation. Most people are adding FW as topoff.
There are "easy" ways vs "lazy" ways to maintain a tank. Reduce nutrient levels (don't overfeed, rinse food in RO water, etc), export nutrients & organics (WC's, skimming, etc).
Maintaining proper water params (temp, salinity, ca, pH, alk) - is not difficult if regular water changes are done.

If your rocks are bleached, and you have slimy nuisance algae, you probably have high nutrient levels and out-of-whack water parameters. It just takes a little TLC to bring the tank back to "life".
When's the last time you tested the basic parameters?
Many of us here have kids. It's fun teaching them about the tank, what lives in it, how to care for it.
 
BigAl07

BigAl07

Administrator
RS STAFF
Surely this is a joke? If you simply "Add Salt to the tank" you're just waiting to a HUGE crash to happen.

Are you even testing at all?

Do you realize what a HUGE SG change that creates?

If you're not cleaning the "slime" from the work you're just hiding it and allowing it to grow and grow and grow.

SW tanks aren't "set up and forget" but once set up and stable they are close to it. They are a "commitment" and if someone isn't willing to do what's needed for bare minimums I honestly feel like "they" should just get a really cool Salt Water Screen Saver and then you don't have to do ANY work at all :)
 
B

BillW

Member
BigAl07 said:
SW tanks aren't "set up and forget" but once set up and stable they are close to it. They are a "commitment" and if someone isn't willing to do what's needed for bare minimums I honestly feel like "they" should just get a really cool Salt Water Screen Saver and then you don't have to do ANY work at all :)
Click to expand...

Boy did you hit the nail on the head. That's exactly why I shut mine down a couple of years ago. Between work, rebuilding my son's car and my father in law having terminal cancer there was no time. I found a good home for my fish and a buyer for my equipment. In hindsight I wish I kept the equipment but what's done is done.
 
BigAl07

BigAl07

Administrator
RS STAFF
BillW said:
Boy did you hit the nail on the head. That's exactly why I shut mine down a couple of years ago. Between work, rebuilding my son's car and my father in law having terminal cancer there was no time. I found a good home for my fish and a buyer for my equipment. In hindsight I wish I kept the equipment but what's done is done.
Click to expand...

Bill you have to be commended for that decision. I'm sure it wasn't easy or any fun at all but it was the "right" decision. KUDOS to you.

:D
 
BigAl07

BigAl07

Administrator
RS STAFF
I admit that once you have a solid "foundation" under your belt it is indeed easy to watch the tank and let it "Tell you" what's happening. That's how I do it day in and day out but I still test at least weekly when I do water changes just to make sure. Part of it is to make sure the New Salt Mix matches the tank conditions. I do this now because I didn't for a while and it came back to haunt me. It took probably 3-4 MONTHS of testing, dosing and re-testing. I got a bad batch of salt and skipped some testing. No more for me (yeah right). :)
 
cindyp

cindyp

Active Member
my laziest habbit is sittin on my butt reading all the threads after my tank has been tended to:thumbup:
 
chipmunkofdoom2

chipmunkofdoom2

Well-Known Member
My laziest habit is waiting more than 7 days to do a water change :columbo:

Do no take this as a personal attack, because it is not meant to be, but what you are doing is not laziness. It is a complete disregard for the protocol and procedures aquarists have developed over time to create healthy and stable environments for their marine livestock and should not be kept "alive".
 
Disciple882542

Disciple882542

Member
My laziest habit deals with water changes and consistent testing.

I test about every two weeks to 1 month...basically whenever the coraline stops growing on the glass.

The water for my next water change has been mixed, circulating and heating for the last couple of weeks...just waiting on me to change out about 35 gallons from my display.
 
Neptunesghost

Neptunesghost

Member
That's an easy question...laziest habbit is not changing my light bulbs as frequently as I should. Unfortunately, I forget about them until the algae starts.
 
B

BLAKEJOHN

Active Member
My laziest habit would be water changes and cleaning the tank. Not that I dont do it on a regular basis but I procrastinate on it throughout the day. The water is still changed every week and tank is cleaned every two weeks.

Oh yeah and I rarley test any more. Just SG and temp at water change .
 
Smiley1

Smiley1

Member
i think i top off my tank about once a week.... usually about 2 gallons of RO. I also do WC once a month of 25%. I might test twice a month to make sure everything is running stable.

But i'll tell ya this much. since I switched over to my lazy mode, my tank has done sooo much better than when i tested every other day and did WC once a week.
 
Roks-Sharky

Roks-Sharky

Member
Roks-Sharky said:
I'm just here keeping the ones I got alive.
Click to expand...

Oh, maybe I should say, my fish are not just alive despite my lazy habits, fish are thriving!

My hippo tang has grown larger than any I've seen for sale, more than double the size of when I bought him.

Yellow tang has lived through ALL my mistakes, one of my first fish, as well as the flame fish, maybe my third purchase, both have been through a lot of my trials and errors.

Pyjama Cardinal is developing quite a long sail, another thing I've never seen on a fish at the store.

And finally the picasso trigger, has great coloration.

One thing I don't skimp on is food.

They never have flake, just frozen, which I must drive miles to buy and pack in ice for the trip home:

Siprulina Brine
Mysis
and Trigger formula.

One curious thing is NEITHER macroalgae or ANY inverts will survived in my tank, it begins to die immediately.

I have come to my own possibly incorrect belief I have some weird toxic bacteria that merely does not affect fish, and that is why my tank crashed a year ago and nothing ever recovered. Again fish are fine and always were. Tank did not crash due to lazy habits, since it crashed while I was REALLY on top of things.
 
lcstorc

lcstorc

Well-Known Member
I totally forgot about bulb replacement so I guess that is certainly mine. In my defense my reef has LED so there is no need there, but I am sure my two tanks with T5s could use a replacement.
 
Roks-Sharky

Roks-Sharky

Member
Oh, speaking of R/O, here's a lazy invention.

I am not sharp enough to plumb in an R/O filter with auto-top off to my own plumbing, but I managed auto top off this way: I have a two story house, I squeezed a 30 gallon rubber made trash can into the upstairs linen closet and ran tubing to the auto-top off in the 2 tanks down stairs. I fill the trash can once a month, instead of twice weekly top-offs I did in the hot summer months.

There is a power head in the trash can to keep water fresh, and I can move the line to uptake kalwasser (but that was before I got really lazy-haven't made kalkwasser in a while)

I am not lazy about bulbs, August is bulb replacement month in our house and new bulbs make the tank look SO much nicer.
 
C

cheeks69

Wannabe Guru
RS STAFF
Those that don't test regularly must not have much SPS...lol

I must admit that since the new addition to the family the tank I just don't have the time to take care of the tank like I used to, I haven't done a W/C in about 5 months :eek:
 
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