5. Maintenance - Husbandry

Regardless of how well you set your aquarium up, regardless of the expense you go to equipment-wise, if you do not maintain both the aquarium, and service the equipment, problems are in store for you. Even the best of equipment needs to be serviced from time to time; the best pumps money can buy need cleaning from time to time; the best filter around needs cleaning out too, etc.

Husbandry and maintenance are really two different tasks. Maintenance is taking care of your tank's equipment. Husbandry is caring for the tank itself, i.e. the water changes, cleaning the substrate, removing detritus, taking out dead or dying algae, adding water to compensate for evaporation, dispensing water additives, testing the water quality at regular intervals, and tasks of that nature. Both are very distinct of each other.

Maintenance is necessary mostly to prevent either :

- equipment failure
- equipment malfunction
- erroneous readings if you use meters to monitor certain water conditions
- problems with equipment that can directly and quickly influence the water quality, which in turn affects the lifeforms.

Husbandry are all those tasks that ensure that once the water quality is good, that it remains there, and that your tank always looks at its best. Husbandry requires more work, and certainly more dedication. In highly automated systems a lot of these tasks can be automated and do not have to be performed by the tank's owner. In our small Reef, the one discussed in this book, this is not the case. You, the Hobbyist will have to perform the work, and you will have to do so on a regular basis, not just once in a while, when you think about it, or when it is convenient.

Successful tanks, especially reef tanks, cannot be kept if they are not cared for as they need to be. Let's face it, the best of cars needs maintenance and care too; the best of golf clubs need to be properly taken care of; the best of SCUBA gear needs constant attention to keep it in top shape. Well, the same applies to your reef tank, and even more so, because you are dealing with live animals and invert- brates.

The quality of the water in which they live is as important to them, as the air you breathe is to you. Even more so, because they, the lifeforms in the tank, cannot do anything about it. They have to rely on you, the owner of the aquarium.

If all those reasons are not enough yet to convince you, think of all the money you have invested in a reef system, and in the rocks and lifeforms that are in it. Replacing livestock that died because you did not take proper care of the tank, can be very expensive, but is something you can control, something you can avoid. All you have to do is "care" for the hobby you got into. Tanks do not take care of themselves...

I have outlined, in great detail, a schedule for reef tank maintenance in my book : The Marine Fish and Invert Reef Aquarium, one geared to more automated systems. Disregard the items that do not apply to you, and take care of the others. If you do not have the book it is available from stores nationwide, or from us directly.

What I am more concerned with here, in Small Reef Aquarium Basics, is husbandry, not because maintenance is not important, it is, but because little is written about husbandry in magazines and other books that deal with Reef tanks ( of course there aren't that many available to begin with).

Let's review some of the tasks that I consider important, and that I perform myself on my home aquarium, and on the tanks we keep at the business :

Cleaning : Cleaning includes several areas of concern. A very important one is the tank bottom : you should remove any dead material uneaten food, organic detritus, dead algae, etc. as soon as you see it. Do not let it decompose, all such achieves is fouling the water up by producing breakdown products that increase the load on the biological filters, by producing ammonia, and subsequently nitrite, and nitrate, not to speak of other by-products, phosphates, both organic and inorganic being just two of them.

Of course, dead fish, or dead invertebrates, however small they may be, should be taken out at once. All that you would achieve by not doing so, is letting them "rot" so to speak, and stress your filters, as well as all the lifeforms in the tank. Organic breakdown not only adds noxious compounds "to" the water, but it takes beneficial compounds, e.g. oxygen "out" of the water. That is a double-edged sword.

Often, a greyish to brownish material referred to in the hobby as mulm, collects on the bottom of the tank. Incidentally, I have not been able to find an exact definition for that word in 5 different compre- hensive dictionaries I looked into, including the latest 2nd Edition of The Random House Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, and Science and Technology dictionaries as well. Mulm is usually defined, in the hobby, as material that is totally mineralized, meaning it cannot break down further, and is, therefore, considered harmless.

The problem is how does the hobbyist know whether it is mulm or not that is lying on the bottom of the tank ? My recommendation, therefore, is that you syphon off anything that lies on the substrate, or bottom, or rocks, that is not something you yourself added to the aquarium. You might call it the better safe than sorry approach.

Most important for you is to clean all your mechanical filters at least once a week, and preferably more often. Any material trapped in the filters is still part of the system, as I explained elsewhere, the only difference is, that you do not see it anymore. Leaving it in the filters, will start decay with the resulting reduction in oxygen in the water, the appearance of ammonia, etc. You may not look at it as such, but an overflow corner filter, a syphon surface skimmer, and other such items, also trap dirt and need to be cleaned.

The bottom of the trickle filter, the drip plate, and any mechanical filtering device you may have inside the trickle filter, falls in this category as well. The same applies, of course, to micron filters, sand filters, and other such canister type arrangements.

Some Hobbyists like to clean the rocks in the tank from time to time, to remove accumulated dust and other material. That is usually best done by directing the output of a very small power head at them, and letting the dust and other material get caught in your normal mech- anical filters. If you are going to do this, do it before you clean your mechanical filters. It will save you from cleaning them twice the same day, or within a day of each other. While on the subject of powerheads, they have a tendency to collect dirt too, and must be clean- ed as well.

It is obvious, but for the sake of being complete, the glass or acrylic of the tank must be cleaned regularly as well, including the back and sides. They may be harder to get to, but clean as much as you can. Whatever you can remove, is no longer part of the system and cannot decay, as a result.

Water Changes and Level Adjustments :

I have made recommendationson how to do this, how often, and why, elsewhere in this book already. Istress again though, that I really feel that changing water is an absolute must. Don't be fooled by advertising that claims that if youuse such and such a product you no longer need to change water. In my experience such is not possible. You must make regular and small water changes. Your tank will look much better, and more vibrant.

Although not necessarily a form of cleaning, chemical filters such as Poly Filters, activated carbon, resins, etc. need to be either changed on a regular basis, or in the case of Poly Filters, rinsed and evaluated to determine whether or not they can be used for longer. If you are a firm believer in activated carbon, and rely on it as your chemical filter, change it every few weeks; depending on the load your tank carries, sooner or later. I usually recommend a maximum of 4 to 5 weeks.

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