How much extra work are big tanks? 200-300 gallons

[Sneak]

So we all know that bigger tanks stay more stable, and stability = easy. But how much work does it take to run truly big tanks in the 200-300g range?

I want to build a big tank, but I worry about the size of water changes and even auto top offs. I imagine a 250g tank evaporates 25+ gallons per week.

Are these tanks a full time job to keep filled and water changed? What's the optimum size tank for ease of maintenance and optimum enjoyment


Picture of a beautiful 1000g reef for attention

 

[Biff0rz]

Depends on what you put in it and goals. At a minimum, you'll want and ATO with a good size reservoir. An sps tank will be a bit of work. Softies easier. FO, a lot easier.

 

[JTP424]

Someone recently posted something about this....
The larger the tank... the easier it is to keep stable parameters, but the more you should automate to lessen the physical and time burden.
I.e. the bigger it is the more labor you'll have to put in etc.

 

[Gundy]

I just set up a 380 gallon a few months ago. I used to have a 90 gallon reef 20 years ago and from what I can remember, this tank takes a lot more time to manage. The biggest difference is the amount of time it takes for maintenance and cleaning. Also consider the increased cost for livestock, equipment, salt and misc. things. Everything you buy has to be a bigger size and larger quantities, thus the cost goes up.

Big tanks with lots of fish, coral, nice equipment and automation are expensive. Yes, it does take more time but the real difference is money.

 

[lbacha]

I have a 4 month old 300+ gallon SPS tank and it is not a lot more work than my 120g system. The difference is the cost which was exponentially more than the 120g system. Having said that I spared no expense on this tank so a lot is automated as I want to be able to leave it for a week at a time.

 

[hart24601]

If you like big tanks then it’s all good, but honestly the saying of big tanks are easier is somewhat out of date. Sure 30 years ago when a 55 was considered big and keeping acros was rare it was quite valid, but I feel it’s more used now as a justification to go larger. Of course if one wants a 300+ gallon tank that’s fine and rock on, just as others have said be aware of the cost and work unless automate.

For stability, it can be a double edge sword since it is harder to correct issues - but honesty it’s just an excuse. If one can’t keep a 40b of sps or a 120, a 300g or 1000g isn’t going to make one successful simply due to it being larger. I would argue it’s a lot harder due to large water changes being more intensive if you need to hit the reset button and it is course is exponentially more expensive.

1g pico vs a 60g? Yeah that is a big impact for being easy at 60x larger, but that like comparing a 60g to a 3,600g (60x larger).

Again it’s all good if want a big tank, but the sweet spot for being easy tends to be for most 60-120g.

 

[Tamberav]

Agree with the above. The larger for more stability is meh after a certain point.

There has simply been many advancements that make small tanks more stable.

This isn’t the days when a nano had a metal halide (heats up water on a nano quickly) or CFL (under powered for many things) as the options… and now we have heaters that can make temperature extremely tightly controlled.. salt mixes have gotten better and all sorts of offerings..

Gone are the days of using Maxijets for power heads.. we now have tons of nano controllable wave makers and skimmers and even filter rollers now…

The whole bigger is better is just not a very big impact anymore.

 

[Max93]

My 220 is less maintenance than my old 25g, since it’s so easy to keep everything stable.

Everything is just bigger, so just the space. I put in maybe 2-3 hours a week of true work. And every other month or so I have like a 5-8 hour ordeal (fragging, mostly). This is also when I manually clean the glass versus using the magnet

 

[Holmes Grown Coral]

I went from 20-70g reefs to a 250g system recently and tried to keep it pretty simple but still have managed to spend enough that I don't really tell my family the actual cost. A few things I didn't really think about was how much rodi it would take to fill and run it compared to my other tanks so I sold all of them but one wb65.4 to keep as my frag tank/fish grow out. The amount of fish and not just little old fish you need the big boys to really put on a show and they cost, another secret we won't discuss with the family. Dosing is another story, I needed 2g of whatever to make a difference like neophos or neonitro when I started getting dinos and food by the big bags so more to me it is all the little stuff that adds up more than anything but it's more than the little slice of the ocean it's like the dang gulf in the living room!

 

[hart24601]

I would also say one thing to consider is many people start small and Get larger tanks over time. They are far more experienced and have an easier time of it, however it isn’t because of the tank but the years of additional experience. Of course that isn’t true for everyone, but it’s worthwhile to consider.

 

[sawdonkey]

It’s been a while since I had a small tank, but I don’t think a big tank is much more work. Takes longer to make up the RODI for water changes and topoff water. There’s a little more equipment to take care of (lights, powerheads, etc).

Water changes are easy. I just do a 45 gallon brute garbage can worth of water change about once per month. More gravel to vacuum I suppose. Inevitably I have more coral than you could have in a small tank, so more gluing, trimming, dragging, etc.

What really made for more work is upgrading to a peninsula tank. DOUBLE THE GLASS TO KEEP CLEAN!!!

 

[vsolovyev]

I have a 600 gallon SPS system, as a few others have stated it’s the same theory as a smaller tank just super size everything. For example my Kalk reservoir is a 275 gallon tote, I run 3 800 watt heaters instead of 1 and 10x the trace elements.
TBH I would have kept doing smaller tanks if it wasn’t for the fish I wanted to keep that require the space.

 

[Ernie Mccracken]

I hate to sound like I'm trying to talk anyone out of a big tank, but it's another league for sure. Look through the build threads. Almost all of them are either never finished or are taken down within 2 years due to uncontrolled pests, algae, mysterious livestock crashes, and equipment failures that nuked everything. Many issues that are more easily solved on small systems spiral into massive, expensive problems on big tanks.

You need to be skilled/disciplined in all areas of reefing (e.g. construction, plumbing, electrical, lighting, flow dynamics, IT, biological processes, water chemistry, livestock choices, QT/pests, animal care, and having dump trucks of money to pour into it). I have a ton of respect for any home gamer who can take a 300+ gallon reef from napkin concept all the way to maturity. To me it's like building a project car, tons of guys try because it's a great hobby, but 99% of projects are never finished because very few guys posess the skills/discipline/money to build a whole car out of their garage.

I wouldn't do another one without auto power backup, true isolated QT tank, automated water changes with saltwater on hand 24/7, auto testing, advanced monitoring and notification system, chiller plumbed outdoors even if only for emergencies, and redundancy for every single piece of life support gear on the tank.