Its really not that difficult, the proof is in the water.

This past month has been hectic for me since I work at a party store and the halloween season is in full swing now. I haven't had much time to myself, let alone to give to my tank, AT ALL.

However not much has been different. I seldom do water changes as it is....

My skimmer isn't top of the line, or even middle, but it does its job. Sometimes when i turn it off to dose the tank with DTs or whatever, i forget to turn it back on for days on end....

I don't have a sump, just a Penguin brand biowheel filter, which also gets turned off for days on end if the water level drops and it gets too loud....

I have been using tap water lately for top off because i just haven't had time to go to the store and buy RO....

I don't have a calcium reactor or anything else fancy like that...

I barely target feed any of the corals, or even dose supplements on any regular schedule. Its usually when i remember to, and when i know its been a week or so at least so as not to overdose...

And yet after all these "wrongdoings" as most of the seasoned and experienced hobbyists would see them (Ive been doing pretty much all of these habits for the 4 1/2 years I've had my tank running), my tank is simply FLOURISHING.

The green mushrooms have EXPLODED and are mulitplying way too rapidly for their own good, the colt coral which i just about took for dead due to brown jelly is alive and kicking and growing over its rock, all my SPS frags have quadrupled in size (no joke), my clam is happy, my green star polyps are going to overrun the tank in a years time, i cant even move the rock they started on because they have overgrown the adjacent rocks, my hammer and frogspawn look BEAUTIFUL every day, the flowerpot is doing well after about 3 months, no signs of deterioration whatsoever, the zoos have spread off their rock as well, the candy cane has split both heads, so now i have 4 mouths to feed on that one, and the list goes on....

oh and i don't feed my poor tang any vegetation, and he (or she?) is doing amazingly well (I've NEVER been able to keep a tang alive)...my royal gramma has been alive for like 3 years now, and the baby clown isn't much of a baby anymore....

My point for this post is not to brag....AT ALL. I just want it to been seen that you don't have to have your hand in the tank everyday or have all these special do-hickeys and a cabinet full of supplements to run a successful reef. Granted you have to provide a few simple necessities, but the rest you just let nature take its course. This beautiful and rewarding hobby doesn't have to be as difficult or as expensive or time consuming as many people make it out to be. And my tank runs the full gammet, because i have every type of coral (SPS, LPS, soft, mushrooms....) and a clam to boot! If at least one newbie sees this and understands this, then that will be great. Too many newbies are on here freaking out day to day and fiddling with their tanks everyday and that's just doing more harm then good. Let nature take its course and everyone will be a lot happier for it. Sometimes if something dies, nothing that anyone could have done would have saved it. Its just time for it to die, and usually its as simple as that. Not that you did something wrong, or even in my case something RIGHT, because I'm doing everything wrong....according to most. .......ok im done, hehe ;D

 

Nice work. There is much to be said about a tank that has been established for a few yrs and has a fully established echosystem

 

I think that's the key here, an ESTABLISHED ecosystem.

 

Yeah, i had the same kinda deal in my previous tank, it took me about 12-18 months to get it all settled but after that.. all i had to do was simulate rainfall...which was to top it up with the garden hose...and everything would still be great... mind u... it cost me a lot of money and time to carefully study the effects of what everything did to the eco system to get it to that stage...but from there on in..it was almost 0 maintenance...and im hoping to re-create that with my new tank...oh...and i ran skimmerless on my previous tank...

 

Im My Previous tank(29Gallon) i also went skimmerless and had my tank really taking off after about 15months.

After careful reading, I have decided to try out the skimmer in my new 110gallon set up. From what I have gathered we can simulate many of the oceans ecosystem except for the bubble action that occurs with waves.

Lets see how it goes this time around.
Chubbs