I can’t tell you how much I needed this episode. I am a habitual “overdoer” and on top of that I’m a sucker for sales pitches. I have a cabinet full of snake oils and supplements. I constantly have to talk myself out of dumping stuff into my tank. It never fails though and eventually I cave… My tank is rarely flourishes as a result. After watching you guys today I locked everything away and gave the key to my wife. Thanks again for the advice guys!
I love you guys so much this is the video I needed. I after all these years of having a gorgeous reef tank and being super successful growing coral on an insanely tight budget. and honestly feeling a lot of pride for what I can accomplish on that budget i’ve started to let the fact that I don’t have a Trident or a GHL or anything by EcoTech get to me and make me feel like I can never hit that next level of success without such tools. All my reefer buddies have em and I probably never will. I’ll be the first to say my tank just destroy’s theirs and I spend 3 times the attention to my tank but not being able to justify spending moneys on cool toys gets me down occasionally. I got it good though, beautiful wife, 2 kids, dog, cats, own my home we eat and live nice, I love my life and would not change a thing but 1 income WITH a coral addiction and a side addiction to technology is tough. I use my tank for a learning experience for my kids and It has always been worth it! Hell my daughter is graduating HS this year and got accepted into the college she wanted and will go for biology and Marine Biology. Thanks for this vid it’s is nice to hear someone reassure me that none of it is needed and if you can’t master the skills without then you never will with. I would still love a hydros or Neptune controller though.
I've been reefing now for 29 years and have always done it either with DIY or with as little money as possible. I've never considered myself egotistical, but i've learned everything I could about the hobby and would consider myself successful. You can be highly successful with very little.
Same here. I hear the gadgets and equipment and products talk. I’ve never walked up to anyones tank looking for equipment before looking at the corals.
@@Slick_Reefing seems to me a lot of people are more interested in the gadgets and tech and setting up their “control room” than the actual art of simply raising corals. Plus I don’t want a bunch of cords and crap going all over the place.
@Dharma Bum Yes it’s always been strange to me when a company designs and produces products without such ‘critical thinking’ design aspects implemented as Mark described. It reminds me of the truth, that it’s often the case.: Those with the most confidence (who start companies, make public videos etc) are the people with less intelligence…while those with most intelligence are too filled with doubt. (Don’t start companies, or have video channels…become salespeople or…politicians;) In a way…It’s related the problems of our whole world! 🌎 LoL. Cheers
Keep it up man. If you listen to all these you will most definitely up your reefing game by quite a lot. I still frequently listen to all these old eps, still get new info each time
Mark!!!! I know this show isn't coming back without Jake but please host a forum on reef 2 reef or reefbuilders or something, where like minded people can continue these types of information 🔥🔥🔥
Keep it simple Stupid is just so truthful. I could not see me NOT doing water changes on my tanks weekly. It gives me time to spend with something I enjoy. Friday night turkey baste the sand in my Nano's and in my 75 stir all the open areas just before the storm mode comes on. Then crank up the flow and let the crap get bubbled up and blown around to hit the filter-pads all night. Saturday get in and plug in the Fluval 107 and vacuum the sumps then do a true water change of old water out then new water in. It is like a house or a car, keep it clean and maintained you will not have near the problems short and long term.
We stay in shadows because the men in this hobby don't believe we can reef. We are changing this. I got on board of a big group in our area. First woman on board...things are changing Boys for the better.
I don't think most people really think about it to be honest. Sure there are going to be a small number of dummies that actually care that you're a girl, but you can work around that. You'll come across difficult personalities regardless of your genetalia.
I have to say. Even for someone as myself been in the hobby for 4 years, some of these RU-vidrs make it very overwhelming. You start to question your own processes, and when really all I am trying to do is keep it simple.
Speaking about plumbing. Check into sweep 90s. I have a pool business in California. We are required to use sweeps rather than your standard hard 90s. Each fitting will give you 50% more flow. It's something that I think most people don't know about but can greatly increase the flow in your system
Most aquarium builders go to big box stores for parts, and they rarely ever stock sweep 90’s in 1”-2” range (in PVC). Spears manufactures them for sure but they have to be special ordered.
On your rant about using 45s and 22.5s for plumbing. If you do flow calculations and pump calculations, 45s are actually more restrictive than using a single 90 in most cases. There are exceptions, like using rolling 45s is much better than a 90, but not many fellas seem to know, or use rolling 45s.
Love the reef therapy sessions and the topics discussed. I have been in the hobby keeping a marine tank since 1978. reefing shortly after the marine tank. Seen all the fads, technological advances etc. some good. Some questionable. I have a new build underway (80gal shallow) and keeping it simple. I caught myself considering trendy items I didn’t really need. I kept thinking how simple the past was without bells and whistles. These reef therapy sessions have helped me get back to the basics. I’d rather keep my sump simple and look like whats under the hood of a car from the mid 50’s. Not much there, but the basics to make it work. I’d rather have the display look like a Bently. Gagets and equipment are not my thing. A Good skimmer, return pump, heater, gravity fed ato and a couple of dosing pumps is all I need. I still use my Kent 3 stage maxxima rodi unit i got as a Christmas gift years ago. Only change i made was from 24 gpd to 100. I don’t need that much water in a day, but in a pinch I can make it up if needed. I’m not hard plumbing my sump, but using flexible hose instead. It’s not trendy, but it works and gets the job done. Thanks for these sessions. They have helped me get back to basics.
I think a lot of the viewership that drives the content comes from people new(er) to the hobby. Say 0 to 12 months or so. Those people are really focused on gear because they are just getting everything set up and shopping around for new stuff to add. I've seen this issue with a lot of hobby type channels on yt. The creators get stuck having to talk about the same stuff constantly, answering the same questions and re-making the same videos because of the constant churn of the new people coming in. It's a bummer, but there is an audience for more advanced topics. You are proof of that!
I'm not a gear head and the amount of STUFF is just overwhelming. I just want something that works, without a hundred points of possible failure, and focus more on the animals and their habitat in the tank. I didn't get into the hobby for the next $5000 overpriced tech toy. I got into it because I cared about specific animals that I wanted to own, get to know, and care for. I do frequent small water changes just so I can get in there and clean up algae and what not.
I know people might bash me but I use tap water since day 1 for fresh saltwater mix and top off. I just add seachem safe and that's it. 70 gallon mixed reef tank here with 30% sps. anyway, Bell is up. Next episode my ice cold beer is ready.
Agreed. It's interesting how you counter pointed to Wesley's Reef, easily one of the best youtube reefs, and tech heavy. It seems that the european tanks in general, and german tanks specifically tend towards higher tech/more automation. I'm sure this ties into cultural differences with respect to attention to detail. My dad, who's Swiss, got me into the hobby many years ago and I could see this in his reefing philosophy, which I'd like to believe has passed on to me. The excitement over new gear and the instant gratification that goes with it, is often fleeting and explains why so many come in and out of the hobby. For me, I enjoy the incremantal improvements (generally) in my tank, and the fine tuning of gear over time to achieve results. This keeps me engaged with my tank. See you at Reef Stock.
Really enjoy listening to you guys. Always makes me think. Although you remind me of the two grumpy old guys from the muppets 🤣 Keep up the great show.
Nice, got a shout out for the drain line sizing. Have a question regarding algae scrubbers. I'm setting up a new 80 gallon and got CW-50 for $60. Been debating installing it for the first year or so, but I have been dealing with bottomed out nitrate and phosphate for 2 years now on other tanks. Thoughts? My thought process is to try and keep the uglies isolated to the scrubber
Enjoy listening in on these two chat Reefs . Also, shared in Mark’s noticeable frustration on not being able to speak freely without Jake’s “corrections” Man…I certainly wouldn’t have the same amount of patience with Jake. The guy needs to chill out.
Ensuring that someone is speaking about a subject correctly and using correct terminology is not a bad thing. Not doing so is how bad information and misinformation gets perpetuated.
Jake, you need to accept that the hobby is not what it was 20 years ago. 20y ago you had like 1000 reefers with a low probability of success because only the ones that could look at their tank all day long and persevere (learn) would be successful. These days there are 100.000s reefers because technology allows you to be successful even if you do not have the time to look at your tank all day long, test every day, etc etc. What technology has allowed is for the hobby to open up to 100x more people that would not be able to keep a reef tank. And that is a GOOD thing.
Ha ha ha. I love listening to you guys basically due to the controversy that you spin into every theme. Following that line of thought, having a skimmer waste container physically connected to a sump must be one of the worst ideas ever 😃! You will just end up with a horrid stench compartment that you can never take out to clean. For most of us with spouses and tanks in living areas that would be the end of it 😂
Great. Hey I’m not sure why your skimmate locker/container would smell though(?) I have one and it’s essentially sealed. The only odor that’s noticed for me…actually comes from the skimmer itself, from the air output holes in the skimmer’s lid. Easily fixed by adding bag if carbon (or using Ozone) Cheers
I’m one of those that had gotten caught up in the high priced gear stuff because I’ve followed the online You tube community of Reefers, but because I was looking and learning the hobby this way, and I’m not sure if this has helped in the health of the coral or not
Hey reef therapy guys! I have a question related to the sand bed. I’m wanting to take out some of the sand that I have in my 8 gal nano reef tank. I have way too much sand for such a small tank. I believe having a thin layer of sand will help me better maintain parameters in the tank. Just wondering if there were any major risks with taking out a large quantity of sand as it might tinker with stability. Have only had the tank for 3 months. Thanks!
For that size nano, I would just put the rocks and coral in a bucket, and the fish in another bucket and then take out the sand. Refill with some fresh salt water and some clean old from the buckets you housed the fish and corals in. And then put everything back. The only thing I'd watch out for is your ca/alk consumption going down for a bit. The reason you might see reduced alk consumption is because corals are gonna need a minute to settle in again and you removed a bacterial sink in that sand which also consumes some carbonates. I bring this up, because I've seen people get a spike in alk by dosing the same amount after removing a sand bed.
Hi, very instructive as always. Keep things simple. Can you guys send us the video about the chirugical reefer, the man who was doing 5 gallon water change, I would like to see it if possible thanks guys keep reefing
Overall I agreed with a lot of their gripes/observations for sure…but they couldn’t be more off base regarding the ease and redundancy for Bean Animal style overflows. The second drain trickles thereby keeping the water level from slowly fluctuating over time like what happens with Herbie style. With Bean style having a the dedicated Emergency that’s IMO is far easier/safer than either not having one or rigging a float sensor to monitor or control a disaster. But all this said…if your overflows weir has narrow teeth and lid..no snail or fish will ever clog a drain.
I agree with you wholeheartedly regarding the ease of dialing in a Bean Animal by letting some trickle into the secondary. I just wonder if we could do the same with the Herbie, and just rely on float switch for that super rare occasion that both drains would clog.... Especially if your overflow is covered. Again just thinking out loud. I hate plumbing tanks, so 3 drains feels a bit much to me. But peace of mind is is a valuable thing.
@8:00 ish you compre drivers. I love Meanwell but you can not hold up a bare pcb and then hold up an encapsulated pcb and state how much better one is over the other. Really? Look this is something you might find inside an Apex. Yes a pcb belongs inside of an enclosure.
Sorry, it was just a joke, as the range hood light driver resembled the part that burned out in my EB832. And the driver for my range hood has burned out twice in 2.5 years. I trust the Meanwell brand, that's all. If you open up the newer EB832's, you can see Neptune revised the design and replaced the bare AC-to-DC converter that had no-name caps with a Meanwell brand(which ironically is enclosed on it's own).
Mark- I know what you’re talking about that bothers you about some of the certain IG personalities of a certain gender… we all know what really sells. It’s not always quality reefing content… of course many times it is!
There are 3 power chords jfor ust one T5 fixture :) Return pump, skimmer, 3' 'wavemakers', 2 heaters. 1 roller matt. 2 led bars. 13 fkn outlets as a basic lol its ridiculous really. Ddnt Tesla.. (the real Tesla not that billionaire muppet) invent wireless electricity a hundred years ago? :)
Jake can you please stop chewing gum while doing the podcast? The chewing noise is unbearable, I've not been able to listen to the last few episodes as it really spoils it.
@@SteHughes90 lol comparing someone like Jake with a normal reefer who might have crazy bad source water. Starting with good water is the foundation of a successful reef.
@@rrrreefer9721 I don't disagree with you but calling Jake out for saying you don't need RO water when he's proven that to be true is really silly dude.
@@SteHughes90 please read my original comment again. I'm saying his 1 anecdotal experience from a master reefer is questionable advice. Most wouldn't have his success and especially without starting with clean water. That's just a fact.
@@rrrreefer9721 your argument is just as anecdotal. People can just request a free report (key word FREE) from their local water treatment plant to see what’s and it before paying $200+ for a unit. It’s even cheaper nowadays to send a sample of your tapwater for ICP. One of the major problems with this hobby is that people say you “need” this or you “need” that without any evidence to support the alleged necessity.
