How old can a reef really be...

[slayerhellfire]

Just curious on how old your reefs are and how long can they last given you keep on your regular matience. My buddy's is 10 years or more never did a water change but is biologically stable due to live rock and the deep sand bed.

 

[Va_Reef]

@Paul B is at 40+ years

 

[DAPG8GT]

I have live rock that's going on 19 years old in my care.. My first ever sw fish from 1998 is still going strong as well, A pair of ocelaris clowns. As stated above Paul B has had the same tank running for a looooong time..

 

[slayerhellfire]

wow good to hear about people staying in the hobby so long

 

[Rjramos]

22 years right now with same live rock and 2 corals a bubble and pearl bubble just as old.

Bubble and pearl bubble in 1994

Pearl bubble today

Bubble today

Here is a full tank shot. It was an acrylic Tenecor 55 gal. 330w VHO's! Also had a really big elegance in there. Back in those days, nothing was aquacultured. You would find a lot of big LPS's and colonies of other corals at the LFS. Not much SPS back then. Berlin method was most common technique. Heavy protein skimming and live rock/sand. Nuisance algaes were problematic with aged set ups.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

I added a poll!

 

[renato120]

22 years right now with same live rock and 2 corals a bubble and pearl bubble just as old.

Bubble and pearl bubble in 1994

Pearl bubble today

Bubble today

Wow!

 

[Galcar]

I had that issue in the past. Don't waste your money in medications. Feed your fish twice a day with green algae sheets, but first put some garlic drops on them until well absorbed. Also feed him twice a day with brine shrimp, but also put garlic drops on a glass with water and the brine shrimp and leave them for 5 mins so they can absorb the garlic as well. Keep doing this every single day until you start seeing your tang improving his health. That is the only alternative I did and it worked fine. Good luck!! [emoji106]

 

[Rjramos]

I had that issue in the past. Don't waste your money in medications. Feed your fish twice a day with green algae sheets, but first put some garlic drops on them until well absorbed. Also feed him twice a day with brine shrimp, but also put garlic drops on a glass with water and the brine shrimp and leave them for 5 mins so they can absorb the garlic as well. Keep doing this every single day until you start seeing your tang improving his health. That is the only alternative I did and it worked fine. Good luck!! [emoji106]

It sounds like something I said?!?[emoji848][emoji108]

 

[jimmy2times]

why can a tank have a defined life span if you stay on top of things and add species as some die as everything dies eventually. i mean reefs in nature live for millions of years not sure why there can be such a definitive date or guess nobody been reefing long enough in bigger scheme of things. a reefer thats been reefing for 40 years is really impressive i can't wait to see what the future of reefing will bring to us with all our technology and love and passion for the hobby. cheers guys

 

[ksatterf]

Great thread! I'm at about 9 years. Original live rock and sand. I see several references to having the same live rock. What about substrate. I keep reading about people replacing sand every couple of years and since I'm having a small issue with algae on my sand I'm thinking of starting a replacement plan. Would appreciate any info concerning substrate replacement in the long life reef systems.

 

[jimmy2times]

I would go different approach cause just replacing the sand isn't going to solve the problem I built a 20 dollar algae turf scrubber due to some algae in dt within 2 weeks of operation I had zero in dt all in turf scrubber. My skimmer does not even skin sometimes cause turf scrubber working so well

 

[Bdog4u2]

this pic is from 2002 and it was 4 yrs 0ld (notice under gravel filter) and I still have the yellow tang and live rock.

 

[brandon429]

Ksa: we love that type of bed work here-

http://reef2reef.com/threads/the-of...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445

pls post before and after pics if you do, agreed 9 yrs on a bed= change time. we can do it easily without a cycle on the new setup and it will shimmer nicely.

 

[Paul B]

Great thread! I'm at about 9 years. Original live rock and sand. I see several references to having the same live rock. What about substrate. I keep reading about people replacing sand every couple of years and since I'm having a small issue with algae on my sand I'm thinking of starting a replacement plan. Would appreciate any info concerning substrate replacement in the long life reef systems.

I don't use sand, I use gravel. But it is the same gravel from 1971. I did add some in about 1980 because I moved the tank into a larger glass. I also moved myself and family into a larger house. But the majority of my dolomite gravel is 46 years old.

 

[Nano sapiens]

A few months shy of 9 years with a 12g nano. The LR, most of the LS and some corals are all~18 years old (from a previous 55g).

 

[srad750c]

I have had a reef of some sort since 1990, started out with a 29 gal. After about 3 years moved up to 50 cube, then 90 gal. Moved to a really small apartment for a while in 1999, downgraded to 29 gal, I stored all my live rock and sand in 50 gal trash cans in a storage unit, topping off water occasionally for 4 years. Moved to bigger apt. in 2004 and set 90 gal back up. Whew!! Bought house in 2006 moved everything. I still have my original rock and sand after all this time. I have a cabbage coral, green button polyps and some mushrooms from 2001. They survived the big wipe out, that to this day, I can never figure out what happened. Now my problem is my system is ultra low nutrient. Never thought that would be an issue. All my corals went pale and some died about 2 years ago, I'm just getting some of my corals to color back up by dosing nitrate, go figure

 

[Scrappy RN]

I have a friend who helped me get started recently with some live rock and a few soft corals from his tank. It's over 30 yrs old! He has a clown in there that is around 20 yrs old and a hippo tang that is around 30 yrs! I showed a pic of one of the corals he have me to a lfs guy who's been in the business for a while and he said it's a coral you can't find for sale anymore. My friend has a deep sand bed refugium in line with his sump, does about 10% water changes every 2 weeks or so and almost never checks any parameters, lol.

 

[Paul B]

The Hippo that is 30 years old really impresses me. If that is true, that means their lifespan is at least that. I have only kept them about 10 or 12 years and I thought that was good. Now I realize that was a failure.

 

[Scrappy RN]

I may have it backwards that the clown is 30 and the hippo is 20. I'll check next time I talk with him!