How much time do you spend on your own tank?

[kwirky]

Wondering how much time everyone else spends on their tank. Also wondering how some people ballance the rest of their life with the hobby?

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Daily would be a difficult number to break down. Weekly, I'd say 3 hours.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Well, in terms of fish-related stuff, I made about 9 phone calls & received about 7 in the last 24 hours (total about 3+ hours). I spent another half hour packing up some fw plants to ship to Northern BC & a light to ship to PR. I am now on my way to the post office and to Greyhound to send off the packages. I also spent much too much time surfing the fish-sites.

In terms of fish maintenance, usually spend a few hours a week mostly feeding, cleaning the glass, moving or fragging corals, cleaning out the skimmer collection cup (5 min. every 4 days), and topping up.

I also spend several hours every week visiting LFS.

Yeah, I'd say I'm obsessed:redface:

Anthony

[robzilla]

according to my wife, too much time!! lol!!

[christyf5]

2-3 hours on weekends doing regular maintenance (water changes, testing, tweaking, renailing frags down because my wrasse has rooted underneath). Sometimes an extra hour fixing stuff I buggered up during the regular maintenance (ie frags, rockslides etc):razz:

[justinl]

lol i think im a little too obsessed... i spend at least 2 hours per day (more if im not working) on my tanks. that's not including my work at the aquarium.

[Phanman]

about 2hrs each day, lol.

[digital-audiophile]

Maybe 1/2 an hour a day topping off, feeding, cleaning the glass inside and out, water changes etc.

[Pier Pressure]

We spend about fifteen minutes per day feeding, and about two to three hours on the weekend on water changes and cleaning.

Now if you want to count staring into the tanks just checking things out, well, at least two hours per day!

[untamed]

My old tank was at about 1 hour per week, and 1 minute per day for feeding.

Now...I've got the new tank and typical new tank problems (multiplied by 500 gallons)...so I'm easily 1 hour per day, plus 6+ hours on the weekend.

There is a lot of good designing in the new tank that should make my tasks much easier and quicker than the old tank...eventually.

[Chin_Lee]

I sacrifice sleep to maintain my tanks. usually about 1 hour per day and 3-4 on the weekends or when I need to do a water change.

[michika]

My time has increased with a smaller tank. I used to spend 5 minutes per day feeding, and about 1 hours on weekends when I had the 230g. Now I spend about 20 minutes a day, and 2 hours on weekends.

[danny zubot]

About 3-5 hours per week for me. Depending on how busy I am with Life. This winter I'm sure that will double though.

[Canadbis]

I spend about 4-5 hours a week.
Depends on the week, I offset my tanks, do half one weekend other half following weekend.

[Chaloupa]

I spend an hour or so a day just scraping glass, picking up fallen frags, blowing off rock, topping up (our house is dreadfully hot) feeding and making up new food, and weekends a few hours doing water changes etc

How to balance life with reefing? Hmmm it just works out, I have 2 kids (15yr old and 3yr old) full time job and husband plus 5 of my own tanks, 2 at my Moms and 1 at work....My husband is a big help though with maintenance and is supportive of my addiction errr... hobby! I think it keeps my stress level down (which in turn makes his life MUCH easier!):lol:

[bv_reefer]

20 minutes in the morning feeding the fish and inverts,an hour a week doing simple testing, an hour a day just simply nit-picking at detritus and cleaning up and vaccuming the sand,20 minute feeding them in the evening and an hour or two in the evening just watching them before the halides go off, in other words...alot lol:lol:

[niloc16]

i spend an hour a week on water changes, couple minutes a day on feeding and quick glance over equipment and parameters on the profilux. on my days off at least an hour or so gazing into the glass and making grease marks on the glass from my forehead wondering if stuff has grown and whether i can frag it yet. when i designed this tank i tried to think of everything possible to make it low time maintenance. i wanted to spend the majority of my time enjoying it and fragging and so far things have worked out. i just wish there was an easy way to scrape coralline and i would be set

[i have crabs]

under a hour everyday plus a few hours over the weekend. but times that by 6 tanks

[Tyson]

i spend some ware around 3 to 4 hours a week on my tank, checking water quality, feeding, water changes,doseing and just plain staring.

[Tom R]

Collin

There is away to scrape Coraline from glass. I use to spend an hour or more with a long handle scraper. I learned how to frag as the long handle scraper usually broke chunks off my favorite coals. Then Chin Lee told me about this scraper attachment and now it takes me about 5 minutes to scrape my 125G and my 180G.

Tom R

http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/store_pages/tlist/cleaning/misc_magnets.php?category_ID=223

[Dale]

I feel kinda bad saying this but I spend about 2Hr's a month on my SW and less than that on my FW system (excluding DIYprojects) :biggrin:

[sick lid]

weekdays-
1 hour in the mornings to feed fish, vacuum larvae and fry tanks, feed rotifers.
1 1/4 hours in the evening to feed fish, vacuum larvae and fry tanks, feed rotifers, and harvest phytoplankton.
1 hour per night on average for maintenance.

weekends- same schedule with an additional 2 hours per day spent on maintenance.

so in total, I spend around 25 hours per week
I don't know why I am going to be putting in more tanks

Larry

[Redrover]

Sunday's: 2hrs..water change..wipe down cabinets...clean sump
Week Day's: once a day feeding [ 2 min. ]...clean all glass [ am ] scrape back wall glass PM [ hand scrapper ]...don't like coraline...clean skimmer every second day...tinkering time per week about 2 / 3 hrs.
Add 20 min's per week to attach sock to overflow pipe and remove two days later,clean so it's ready for next water change.
I am a retiree so I have all kinds of spare time, say what..." Yike "

[TeknoPunk]

I put in about 4-8 hours a week... really depends on how tired I am after work.

[banditpowdercoat]

1-2 hrs a week on my FW tank., feeding and cleaning. Havnt got the SW up yet so.

[Slipstream]

Bout 3 hours But ya shoulda put a poll, woulda been easier.

[BC564]

daily feeding and glass cleaning, water top up...... 15min.

sundays is water change day....I do a 20 litre change every week instead of a bigger change once per month. Suck up the dietrius and stuff...clean skimmer approx. once per week....so about 1 hour

Total time about just under 3 hours a week.

[mseepman]

About 20 minutes a day feeding and general cleaning. Then about 1 1/2 - 2 hrs on weekend doing more in-depth maintenance.

[Lydia]

2 FW tanks (15 years old), 1 SW tank (5 months old), total about 3-4 hours a week maintenance, including feeding times 2 or 3 times a day each tank. Plus many, many hours of staring at the tanks, especially the new SW!

Don't watch t.v. - watch laptop & aquarium ;)

Lydia

[jasond]

Just my one 60 gallon. I probably spend an avg of 20-30 min a day, some days less, some more. I like to keep the glass as clean as possible, so I spend a fair bit of time with that.

I find I can always find something to do. If I have an hour to kill, not a problem!