best thing to hit the hobby?

[Dburr1014]

Hello everyone, I'm interested in your opinions about what has been the best thing to hit the hobby as far as tools or life support for our tanks. We have come a long way in the past 10 years and I'm thinking of a new toy for myself and tank but want to spend my money wisely.
Could be monitoring equipment or pumps or even test kits.
What is it that you can't believe you have done without for so long?

Thanks for your input!

 

[Daltrey]

Neptune Apex, I will never run another tank that isn't automated.

 

[vertigo01]

Controllers and their assorted accessories regardless of their manufacturer have done more to help stabilize the reefing hobby than any other single product IMHO.

 

[Jason mack]

Probably not the answer your looking for , but Im gonna have too say R2R .. the wealth of knowledge and experience on here has been a great help too 1000s ... can’t put a price on that !!!!

 

[MaiReef]

Probably not the answer your looking for , but Im gonna have too say R2R .. the wealth of knowledge and experience on here has been a great help too 1000s ... can’t put a price on that !!!!

I would agree. The second I think is LEDs.

 

[jsker]

Besides R2R, automated dosing pumps.

 

[Radman73]

+1 on a controller. Especially if you travel.

 

[Greybeard]

GFO

Truly a miracle. Being able to efficiently and inexpensively control Phosphates is just YUGE.

Controllers are great, even my cheap little RKL is pretty amazing. LED's? Ask me again in a few years... IMHO, they're not quite 'there' yet.

Don't discount the large number of high quality, internet based vendors. BRS, LiveAquaria, MarineDepot, etc... as well as all of the smaller online coral sellers. Being able to shop around, having such a large number of high quality products available is amazing, compared to what reefing was like when I started in the 80's.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Skimmers and circulation pump have been around but now you can get a good one at a reasonable price. Lighting has also improved in that you have many options.

Most importantly, in the last ten year there are many ways to remove nutrients and you just need to find one that works for your tank. IMO harboring bacteria, algae and sponges is still the best!

 

[MillerR.]

Cheap??? Where are you buying your GFO? LOL

GFO

Truly a miracle. Being able to efficiently and inexpensively control Phosphates is just YUGE.

Controllers are great, even my cheap little RKL is pretty amazing. LED's? Ask me again in a few years... IMHO, they're not quite 'there' yet.

Don't discount the large number of high quality, internet based vendors. BRS, LiveAquaria, MarineDepot, etc... as well as all of the smaller online coral sellers. Being able to shop around, having such a large number of high quality products available is amazing, compared to what reefing was like when I started in the 80's.

 

[brandon429]

its not the tool its how its wielded


peroxide, by a mile.

 

[Greybeard]

Cheap??? Where are you buying your GFO? LOL

Ok... how 'bout 'reasonable'.

It's a hobby. Nothing is cheap, but GFO certainly doesn't qualify as a major portion of my expenses in maintaining an aquarium!

 

[Dburr1014]

Thanks for all the replies, keep them coming!

 

[Chuk]

I think LEDs especially the rise of relatively cheap PAR meters it really allows you to dial in the PAR you want in different areas.
For me a close second is DC controllable pumps. They save a bunch of power, and more importantly money, by increasing efficiency allowing the pump to be dialed back rather than throttled.

 

[ca1ore]

Hah, lightweights (well, mostly). I started keeping reef tanks in 1987, when the available equipment was mostly crap. Thing that got me the first jump start was the adoption of metal halide lighting (although not specific to the reefing hobby, a huge jump over the mercury vapor and incandescent alternatives). Second, in 1997, was the calcium reactor (I still run the same one) that finally made it possiblele for me to keep stony corals and clams. Controllers are a convenience, but not a must-have in my view.

 

[brandon429]

one funny note

if we went back in time, nanos that keep stony corals with only weekly water changes and no dosing/reactor support could have been kept then (im not talking browns and pales, Im talking top shelf sps, look at Maritza the vase reef on youtube) and better in many cases under MH as we went through that phase with Viper 70 w mh and all you had to do was fan, and raise the lights up to heat compensate.


the reason nobody attempted no dose sps/lps nano reef keeping in the 90s was falsehoods about microbial instability and chemical warfare, it pretty much wasn't even tried, of course there were Julians and stuff, but not widescale work. That's a 2000s thing

evaporation control wasn't considered, only that a nano would be a topoff hassle.

I think an endearing aspect of nano reefs is that the first ones ran on the same lighting (power compacts and mh) avail to 90's systems, but every other way we run them today would've translated into amazing simpler reefing w same results 30 yrs ago, they just simply didn't try on the scale we have the experiments running now.

That means the 90s missed out on nano reefing for no good reason. it means pico reefs can work in any decade.

The nano reef, or pico reef, must factor into this mix somehow.

we got to see straight up reef rule breaking there, and saw advancements in salinity control



micro tiny reefs that grow the same corals are for sure a reefing advancement, a critical one or I wouldn't be reefing.

no dollars avail for a large reef.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Interesting topic!

 

[wattson]

Fluconazole to cure byropsis,,at least a super high percentage of users have gotten great results from this plague..

 

[Ranjib]

Controllers, and the tech scene in general. R2R , NR both have been tremendous value for me. Judicious use of technology is what the community has taught me. I think the basic (softies, LPS ) reef keeping was kinda sorted already, the new surge in information around sps husbandry (Ca, Alk ), testing ICP, methodology (ULNS, aquaforest, triton etc) have been tremendous. If you pair up right tech gadgets (like dosing pumps, specific fuge light) its very effective, reliable and reproducible. I wont say a specific controller has been good, as I was able to roll my own from the community derived knowledge and the inexpensive parts (both are open), hence I am highlighting the online community (r2r, NR, youtube), their feedback, honest reviews, experience reports and pairing it with host of possible choices (from dosing pumps, to overflows to led lights).. its been a very rewarding and learning experience for me.

 

[Epicreefster]

I would rate them as follows:
1 the online forums/information. I started web browsing for aquarium info when I was 10 or so in the late 90's, before photo bucket when people would do whole pages of text to "draw" something like with a cell phone back before emoji .
2 DC pumps for sump return, in tank flow(gyre, vectra, and so on) and skimmers
3 LED lights, while I dont think they are the best lighting option on the market the power and heat advantage they provide makes them beneficial by eliminating other equipment or fluctuations in temp. I have however yet to see an led fixture pay for itself in electrical savings and I have been through hundreds of thousands in LEDs so maybe I know what I'm talking about.
4 controllers, its nice to have everything in one place and able to access it over the web but most of the functions can be duplicated with lots of little components. Also many reef aquariums have been functional for decades without them so these are more for simplicity or a toy than necessary. hopefully that makes sense. Also I have kept tanks without any automation that do fine or better than those with automation.

Most everything from there ties back into #1. Without info you can overdose GFO and kill everything, run your LED too high and bleach it all, or chase numbers on the controller and fight yourself every day. Experience / trial and error and access to it is definitely far above any piece of equipment.