What do you do about tweaker’s itch?

[RuuToo]

I’ve been lucky over COVID times - I’ve had a stable work from home job, money that isn’t being spent on vacations and a lot of time to stare at the tank...

I've got everything as perfect as I can think of doing (and I can think of a lot). I ran water lines and set up auto water changes. I have a trident and the most stable alk/calcium/magnesium/pH I’ve ever seen. My nutrient import/export is amazing (turf scrubber plus fuge, with 8 daily feedings and 0.05/1.5 po/no3), and the system is beautifully pest algae free. I have triple pump redundancy, triple heater redundancy and two backup generators plus leak detectors for safety. I bought a PAR meter and the lighting is just where I want it to be. Flow is spot on. I have a grow out tank, a full time coral quarantine tank that is now full of new arrivals and a hospital set up when I need it. I cleared some room in the main display so that everything is ready for them.

I have literally no room to do another tank, and I’m out of things to do for this one (hell, I did pump maintenance yesterday). I’m pretty confident that if I just stood back and watched this it would be the most successful tank I’ve ever owned by some distance (it already is anyway, but some of the new additions in waiting are awesome)

This is *killing me*. I need to tinker with something - my inner child needs a new toy.

What do you guys do to defeat the tinkers itch and just leave it alone?

 

[zalick]

When I read tweakers itch I was expecting a completely different thread...

always something more to tinker with! Do you have a fully automated feeding system.

 

[College_Reefer]

You could hook up Alexa to the tank and code it to do all tasks such as "feed the tank" or "turn off pumps", "Alexa, let there be light" etc. I have seen that a few times and it's really cool.

 

[RuuToo]

When I read tweakers itch I was expecting a completely different thread...

always something more to tinker with! Do you have a fully automated feeding system.

I just ordered the plank from Avast. That was the last thing I had on my list.

 

[zalick]

I just ordered the plank from Avast. That was the last thing I had on my list.

I’m ordering that today too. Awesome product.

 

[homer1475]

When I read tweakers itch I was expecting a completely different thread...

I was thinking the same thing. lol

I'm a tinkerer(is that a word?) too. My system is completely setup with nothing to tinker with. Just bought a 3d printer so I can have more things to tinker with.

 

[o2manyfish]

First up, I hope all that work isn't for a 3.5g table top tank.

I've toured aquariums around the world and always get asked my opinion as to, 'What would you do to make my tank better?' And the first thing I look at is the tank itself. What do you see in the tank? If you can see any equipment then that's the first place to start your tinkering. Figure out how to hide everything so that your aquarium appears to only be fish, corals and rock.... and not a display for everything BRS had on sale for Black Friday.

You said you had a grow out tank, so I hope that means that your beautiful display tank doesn't have frag racks mounted all over the front of that --- that get's me everytime I see it --- Beautiful tank with algae covered rack stuck front and center.

But take the time to hide everything else. Pumps inside rocks, plumbing hidden behind rocks, gluing rocks to pipes that drop into the tank - and then putting corals onto those rocks.

If you want a tinker project - take the time to make everything out of sight except your livestock.

And if you have already done all that, and every single one of your plugs and outlets has a label on it, and you took the time to acetone clean all your plumbing so there are no stickers or bar codes visible... Then you can always build your own aquarium controller from scratch -- That's the tinker project I'm on right now - Ever Expandable Siemens PLC with infinite inputs and outputs.


Dave B

 

[RuuToo]

You could hook up Alexa to the tank and code it to do all tasks such as "feed the tank" or "turn off pumps", "Alexa, let there be light" etc. I have seen that a few times and it's really cool.

I do software development for a living. The reef tank is supposed to be my quiet place *away* from the code. I have thought about doing some iOS app Dev *maybe* since it’s different enough from my day job, but it would take a while for me to ramp up. My apex is also pretty good at doing that stuff already (minus the voice control obviously)

 

[mdb_talon]

I have been there in the past and a couple times i have ended up selling the whole setup and starting over. Not saying it makes much sense, but it makes me happy

My enjoyment really comes more from the process and growing coral. Of course i enjoy staring at my tank also, but once its truly settled in and looking top notch with frags that grew into colonies and nothing to do but trim some growth on occassion i just feel like starting over

 

[RuuToo]

First up, I hope all that work isn't for a 3.5g table top tank.

I've toured aquariums around the world and always get asked my opinion as to, 'What would you do to make my tank better?' And the first thing I look at is the tank itself. What do you see in the tank? If you can see any equipment then that's the first place to start your tinkering. Figure out how to hide everything so that your aquarium appears to only be fish, corals and rock.... and not a display for everything BRS had on sale for Black Friday.

You said you had a grow out tank, so I hope that means that your beautiful display tank doesn't have frag racks mounted all over the front of that --- that get's me everytime I see it --- Beautiful tank with algae covered rack stuck front and center.

But take the time to hide everything else. Pumps inside rocks, plumbing hidden behind rocks, gluing rocks to pipes that drop into the tank - and then putting corals onto those rocks.

If you want a tinker project - take the time to make everything out of sight except your livestock.

And if you have already done all that, and every single one of your plugs and outlets has a label on it, and you took the time to acetone clean all your plumbing so there are no stickers or bar codes visible... Then you can always build your own aquarium controller from scratch -- That's the tinker project I'm on right now - Ever Expandable Siemens PLC with infinite inputs and outputs.


Dave B

Honestly? I don’t really have much of a problem of stuff in the tank. Stuff *under* the tank is an absolute mess, but my gyres are almost invisible, I did my own tiny low profile overflow and I’m not sure I’d change a lot there.

The main tank is a 125 gallon on a custom stand with a granite wrap around that I absolutely would never do another tank without. Underneath is a trigger sump, a hex grow out tank (fits a single kessil nicely) and a clearwater turf scrubber. On the left is my 5 gallon coral quarantini that is fed from the auto water change drain for 50% daily water changes. On either side are decorative equipment boards that hide at least some of the chaos

Its all a bit chaotic and nailed together, but it fits my personality nicely.

As for frag racks, I only have one. I had a small green birds nest that started to stn so I fragged it and kept them close to their original location to recover - they are looking good enough to start moving now

 

[Sam816]

I go on forums and give advice to ppl

 

[takitaj]

When I start to feel the ich I sign in to BRS and start browsing through my order history. ;Jawdrop That usually cures it....for a little while.

 

[Thrashed]

You could hook up Alexa to the tank and code it to do all tasks such as "feed the tank" or "turn off pumps", "Alexa, let there be light" etc. I have seen that a few times and it's really cool.

I upgraded my full system over the past few months to run only on Alexa as my controller and I love it. It was a bit costly starting up but now it's all voice activated and I can control everything from my phone even if I'm not home. Well worth the money compared to any other controller

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Be careful where you ask this, answers will vary!!!