Tell us something about your tank that you don’t normally tell others.

[ScottJ]

My overflow is pretty noisy and I like it that way. I spent over a decade with a tank right by my bed and just got accustomed to it.

Mine is too! I asked my wife if it bothers her, and she said she likes it too. We're both Pisces, so I guess that might have something to do with it

 

[AlyciaMarie]

If you put it up next to Oscar the Grouch, you would be able to tell which is which.

 

[rishma]

I tinker. Obsessively.

If my goal was a healthy, growing, stable reef I’d stop changing things and just watch things grow. My tank is the best it has ever been, and maybe the best tank I’ve ever had. There is literally nothing left to improve but I won’t stop. I know I’ll never be satisfied. I’ll keep messing with it, and that is actually what I enjoy about the hobby. I guess my goal is too keep experimenting and not mess it up.

 

[hoffmeyerz]

I tinker. Obsessively.

My tank is the best it has ever been, and maybe the best tank I’ve ever had. There is literally nothing left to improve but I won’t stop.

I am the same type of person but I've been literally forcing myself to keep my hands off since things are going well LOL

 

[tbrown]

This is a hard one to answer... I tell all my deep, dark, dirty secrets on Reef2Reef. I used to use a disclaimer when answering people because the "right" way and my way don't always line up.

I've been running Reef tanks for 5-6 years this time (and about 10 years previously) and I just got an RODI from a Secret Santa. I work for a Municipal water utility (and even used to do the water quality sampling) so I know most of our water is garbage for fish tanks but it worked for years. Besides elevated alkalinity in the winter, my tank ran along just fine with little to no dosing needed except phosphates and magnesium. Since switching to RODI, I now have to add calcium, alkalinity, and nitrates.

 

[subodhs]

I will give you the whole truth. That "I rarely ever look at my tank admiringly anymore." It’s like providing for a high-maintenance someone with very little to get in return . Bubble algae, overachieving freeloaders, rogue fish, bullies and pesky coralline everyone, the decorative cousins who took over the walls, and worse, "Too much coral growth, they're like unruly tenants who won’t stop encroaching on other's territory even though they got enough space of their own. It's like wherever I lay my eyes, there's something I need to fix. And vermetids? Darn those things.
Alright, I'm done venting

 

[Gumbies R Us]

The thought of doing a water change makes me want to go crazy. I don't know what it is, but I absolutely dread doing them.

 

[tbrown]

Sometimes - when nobody is looking...

...I feed the green brittle serpent start in the sump bacon while we practice reciting bacon haikus to each other

Golden strips of dawn,
Crisp edges whispering joy—
Morning's melody.

Bacon in my tentacle,
No words can truly capture
Heaven wrapped in fat.

Smoke rises, flavors
etched into the morning's light.
This is the way—bacon.
I have spoken.

If the warden happens to catch me and asks "Hey who are you talking to???"

I say "You must be losing it, I am not talking to anybody"

Then the serpent star and I have a good laugh and eat more bacon.

 

[BryanM]

The thought of doing a water change makes me want to go crazy. I don't know what it is, but I absolutely dread doing them.

Same

 

[jabberwock]

The thought of doing a water change makes me want to go crazy. I don't know what it is, but I absolutely dread doing them.

Try "Micro Daily Water Changes"

Everyday, take out 16 to 20 oz from your tank. Then add 16 to 20 oz of new salt water. It does not clean your sand... Turn off the ATO while changing.

 

[NCsalt]

I used to have to go to office late at night to clean up after I left the RODI running…multiple times.

 

[Saffer1]

I never tell anyone that I've been doing this for 40 years. When I started, the first mini reef was just a prototype, there were no dosers, RO water units, UV sterilizers, skimmers, reactors or fancy LEDs. We've certainly come a long way since!

 

[littlefoxx]

That I have eels I like to see people’s reactions when they start to come out of the rocks when I go to feed them lol well people who have never see. My tank before lol

 

[voelter76]

The little Nemo in there that everyone loves to see in a reef tank can be a real JERK!

That’s why I named mine Pennywise from “IT”.

 

[SomeHappyFish]

I have crazy ups and down, sometimes I buy a ton of corals and other times I wonder why I even own all this but it's rare, but it happens.

I will admit that even after researching one full year before getting into the hobby and watching videos of people's reef tank, I will say that I underestimated the difficulty of owning a mixed reef.

 

[hoffmeyerz]

That’s why I named mine Pennywise from “IT”.

Mine had a name, now it just gets called...well...not so friendly names LOL

 

[voelter76]

Every time I clean the circulation pump on my Red Sea Peninsula I drop that stupid spherical return nozzle and spend 30 minutes trying to fish it out.

Also, a lot of my aquarium admiring time is spent sitting drinking beer while I watch the fish watch me drink beer with the eternal hungry looks on their little faces.

 

[Janet Belanger]

i talk to my fish and coral

I talk to them in the 'baby voice'. So embarrassing, and yet somehow satisfying when my angel comes up and does her 'shark fin' above the water line, or my flasher wrasse flashes at me.

 

[Janet Belanger]

Try "Micro Daily Water Changes"

Everyday, take out 16 to 20 oz from your tank. Then add 16 to 20 oz of new salt water. It does not clean your sand... Turn off the ATO while changing.

This is kinda genius! Do you keep premixed saltwater?

To clean the sand, I siphon water from the tank to a filter sock in the sump, or I just use a turkey baster to churn the sand to create a poo storm to get (at least partly) sucked down the overflow.

 

[Dos]

Tell us something about your tank that you don’t normally tell others.

Easy enough right?

First 5 years it's eating bunch of money. Now after 15 years it's paying me my bills