How many hours a week do you spend "Reefing"

[Max93]

I’d say about 15-20 hours on average a week. Lol. Used to not be that much but then I wanted to stop killing acros and it looks like this is the time commitment until I become a pro.

 

[steveschuerger]

I wake up. Go to the tank watch it wake up, then admire and maybe putter about fir a bit(well, more than a bit) . Maybe a total of 2-3 hrs a day on average. I work evening shift so i have some extra time in the mornings.

 

[bakbay]

With 2 tanks on Apex + Trident, I find myself looking at both portals & their trend graphs multiple times / day, esp after testing intervals! Ha

 

[EliMelly]

At least 20 hours a week and most of it here or learning about fish. As well as a couple hours in a lfs. Thanks for the post it’s time I put a time limit….

 

[Julbra]

If you ask my fish I spent way too much time cleaning and not enough feeding.

On average I think it’s about 8h a week of actual wet hands work and another 7h reading/watching.

 

[Buckster]

Many hours between the water changes, feeding, cleaning algae off the glass, filter cleaning etc. Time spent worrying and observing the just added mandarin pair to the 180. Time on R2R! How do I have time for anything else? but I do!

 

[DJMCB35]

I’m the tank itself weekly, about the same time it would take to play a round of golf, not counting driving to and from. Reading and researching, probably another couple of hours weekly.

 

[nuxx Verified Sponsor]

I fed my fish 2x a day, so that was probably 30 minutes a shot, so say 7 hours.

Just general tinkering / QT / maintenance / testing / etc... probably another hour a day.

So probably around 14.

 

[Philip Chin]

Got it down to two hours on water change weekends and less than 1 hour on non-water change weekends

 

[Joe.D]

I’m about a year in and it’s more time than I was lead to believe (“it’s not that much more work than freshwater”). That said, I’m loving it - except when dealing with bubble algae infestations (I think I’m clear now) or jumping fish (despite my efforts at containment while cleaning - yes I have a lid on the tank).

Actually working on tank - probably 2 hours per week. Thinking about it and researching - several more hours per week. Probably another 10 hrs.

 

[J&K Reefers]

Just curious, I've been in the hobby almost three months and I am shocked how willing I am to dump hours of time into this fish tank. Despite all the hiccups, (Ba da ba ba ba!) I'm lovin it! What's surprising to me is not the amount of time I spend doing water changes and scraping glass, but the time spent researching topics, watching YouTube videos, diagnosing problems, shopping for livestock, etc. Its just always on my mind. Maybe its just a bit of a honeymoon phase, so I'd love to hear from you all, how much time do you spend doing actual work on the tank, and how much do you spending thinking about it, researching things, online reading about reefing, etc...

For me it’s a labor of love. I too am constantly trying to learn and watch videos like it’s my job. I have recently (bought a tank in August of last year) gotten back into the hobby. My wife found pictures from 20 years ago when I first got into the hobby and I am more immersed in it now than ever. I currently have 2 tanks up and running (170 and 120) and am currently working on a 300 gallon new tank build. Couldn’t say how much time I spend, but it is significant.

 

[Paul B]

I spend very little time daily on my tank. Just the time it takes to dump in a little frozen food and run the magnet scraper over the glass. Of course if I am changing water, something I do maybe 4 times a year, it takes a couple of hours because I collect my water in the ocean.

And also, if something breaks, I need to either build another part or (rarely) buy something.

 

[Gobi1canobi]

Just curious, I've been in the hobby almost three months and I am shocked how willing I am to dump hours of time into this fish tank. Despite all the hiccups, (Ba da ba ba ba!) I'm lovin it! What's surprising to me is not the amount of time I spend doing water changes and scraping glass, but the time spent researching topics, watching YouTube videos, diagnosing problems, shopping for livestock, etc. Its just always on my mind. Maybe its just a bit of a honeymoon phase, so I'd love to hear from you all, how much time do you spend doing actual work on the tank, and how much do you spending thinking about it, researching things, online reading about reefing, etc...

How many hours of the week? All of them!
And I need more!

 

[Narideth]

I'm a year and a half into my first and second saltwater tank on top of my 4 fresh tanks, so... I spend several hours a week checking and working in them. Every time I walk by I pause to inspect and look for issues, watch the fish be silly and beg for food, and then subsequently give in to their begging demands if they haven't eaten already.

I turn to admire the tank behind my office chair rather often.

I can drop 4-5 hours into a deep cleaning if it's needed and I barely notice the time passing. Water changes are quick enough.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Just curious, I've been in the hobby almost three months and I am shocked how willing I am to dump hours of time into this fish tank. Despite all the hiccups, (Ba da ba ba ba!) I'm lovin it! What's surprising to me is not the amount of time I spend doing water changes and scraping glass, but the time spent researching topics, watching YouTube videos, diagnosing problems, shopping for livestock, etc. Its just always on my mind. Maybe its just a bit of a honeymoon phase, so I'd love to hear from you all, how much time do you spend doing actual work on the tank, and how much do you spending thinking about it, researching things, online reading about reefing, etc...

Yep! It's an obsession for sure!

 

[fodsod]

I just consider it a lifestyle now. My wife loves the "lifestyle" also (she likes to look at all the critters and pick out new ones but not so much the work part) so that makes it a lot easier when it comes to time spent and money spent .

She had a great time when WWC had their last live sale. She spent all weekend on the laptop trying to win the corals she wanted. It was fun to watch.

I've got 2 tanks and I average probably an hour a day on average just feeding, testing, looking over the coral and fish or doing small maintenance stuff. Water changes every 10 days is another 1-2 hours or so start to finish. So maybe 9-10 hours a week as a baseline.

Projects, research and general R2R time adds another 30 hours easy weekly. I'm lucky that I have a job that has me in front of my PC most of the day so R2R stays pulled up M-F the entire day so I look in on what's going on whenever I want.

So weekly total time spent physically doing or looking at reef related stuff is approximately- 40 hours

Time spent thinking about reefing stuff- all the time