- If you haven't watched Part One yet, check that out.
This is Part Two.
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A big old howdy-howdy
to all of my fellow and future hobbyists out there.
My name is Matthew.
I am your BRS beginner guru,
and this is episode 40, Part B,
where we are gonna dive
into the rest of the maintenance tasks
for new saltwater aquariums.
So if you missed the first part, check it out.
Episode 40, Part A.
We do all of the daily and semi-weekly tasks there.
So, without any further ado,
let's get going with all of those weekly maintenance tasks.
Weekly task number one is water testing.
In brand-new tanks that have yet to be cycled,
I test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate,
as well as phosphate and the salinity.
But once the tank has settled in,
I usually don't test for ammonia or nitrite every week.
If you're curious to know
why I test for certain things and not for other things,
stay tuned for next episode, Episode 41,
because we are going to go crazy into depth
about water testing.
Weekly chore number two
is feeding your corals and your anemones.
I actually rarely feed my anemones,
because I figure they can collect...
(Matthew coughing)
It's the worst when you breathe wrong.
While overfeeding your corals
can certainly gunk up your tank,
doing an at-least-once-a-week feeding of your corals
can really help them grow quicker
and up the coloration big-time.
You can either broadcast feed your tank
or target feed your tank.
Broadcast feeding is a fancy way of just saying,
pouring the food into the tank
and just letting it swirl around,
while target feeding, on the other hand,
is where you put it into some sort of plunger
and feed the polyps directly.
Usually that results in a little bit less waste.
It just takes more effort.
Let's be real here, anemones and corals,
at least the photosynthetic types,
which are the only types I recommend for beginners,
get probably somewhere around 90 percent.
I don't know where we get 90 percent,
but I've heard it so many times now.
But let's just say that photosynthetic corals and anemones
receive the majority of the food they need
from the light source.
So you probably don't even need to feed them once a week,
but if you feed them with a really good coral food,
you could make them grow a lot faster
and you could make their colors pop that much more.
So why wouldn't you feed them, right?
Weekly task number three
is just to visually inspect your equipment.
And I mean the equipment you can't easily see.
So check out your pumps, your auto-top-off units,
your wave-makers, your heaters.
Just make sure they're in good working order.
There's not a snail
or some sort of detritus or algae blocking the inlet.
And then you're probably gonna have to pull them out
once every six months to give them a deep clean,
but at least weekly,
make sure they're in good operating order.
Weekly task number four
is cleaning your protein skimmer cup.
This is disgusting. My family hates it.
They can smell it a mile away when I lift it off,
and I run to the kitchen sink.
They're like, oh! What is that?
And I'm like, it's a whole bunch of fish poop,
and gosh knows what else, but I clean it out every week.
But if you can do it a little bit more than once a week,
it's probably a good idea,
because if you are new to this hobby,
for some reason,
protein skimmers will just decide to overflow at some point.
And then all of that gunk will just end up
back in your tank.
So until you know your protein skimmer well,
empty it out at least once a week.
For me, my protein skimmer is most likely to bubble over
when I either feed the tank a certain kind of food
or I change out my filter sock.
I actually have my protein skimmer set on a wifi timer
for five hours.
So every time I change my filter sock
or add a certain kind of food
that I know will make it bubble over,
I just click the timer,
and it turns off and back on after five hours.
For cleaning the cup, just use some hot water.
You don't have to immaculately clean it every time.
You don't necessarily have to get in there
with a paper towel and wipe all of that gunk out every week.
But if you just use some hot water,
spray it down,
you can usually get a good portion of that off.
Task number five, dust your lights.
I don't really think you need instructions on how to dust,
but clean them off, especially the fan areas.
That way it keeps your lights plenty cool.
And for any of you true beginners out there,
just use a cloth.
You can add a little water to the cloth.
Don't use anything like Endust or Pledge,
because that stuff can make its way into your tank
and screw up your water chemistry.
Weekly task number six is to wipe down the outside
and the rim of your tank.
I personally don't use anything special.
I just use a rag and some water.
And if nobody's looking,
sometimes there's a hard-to-get spot
I'll actually spit on it and scrub it down,
if I'm too lazy to go to the sink.
It works just fine, and it keeps it looking nicely.
But you could take your cleaning to the next level
and buy an aquarium-safe cleaning product.
I think Tunze and API both sell versions of this.
Certainly don't use any sort of chemical
like a Windex or a foam cleaner on or near your tank.
'Cause aerosols can do crazy bad things
to the water chemistry.
So stick with water or an aquarium-safe cleaning product.
Weekly task number seven is a water change.
I spent an entire video on this,
trying to convince you that a weekly water change
is hands-down, 100 percent,
the best preventative maintenance
you can do for any new tank,
especially if you're a beginner.
So if you haven't watched that episode,
I believe it's Episode 25,
we'll put a link down below, so you can check it out.
I personally do a 10- to 15-percent water change
every week on all of my tanks,
even the tanks that have been around for a long time.
Not only does it help
remove things like nitrates and phosphates
and detritus and fish poop
that I gravel vacuum out,
but I also know it's adding back in
major, minor, and trace elements.
So, why not?
Weekly task number eight
is to change out your activated carbon
if you're running it.
I don't personally run activated carbon all the time,
but I add it in when it the tank starts smelling
or it gets a little discolored,
but you can absolutely run activated carbon all the time.
And because of how it works,
through a process called adsorption,
activated carbon can get clogged really quickly,
so it is best to be changed out every week
for optimal performance.
And now for those semi-monthly or every-other-week tasks,
starting out with gravel vacuuming the sand bed.
Don't go crazy here,
but use the gravel vac as a part of your water change
and gently clean the top portion
of some part of the sand bed.
You don't have to do the sand bed entirely every time.
Just do a small portion.
If you need a refresher
or haven't yet watched Episode 25 about water changes,
check it out,
because we go into a lot more detail
about how to gravel vac your substrate.
Every-other-week task number two is clean salt creep.
You don't need to do anything fancy here.
Just use a toothbrush or even your finger.
Dip it in water and scrape that salt creep
back into your tank.
The thing about salt creep is,
when it starts creeping,
it starts creeping more and more and more.
And eventually you end up with piles of salt
on the back of your tank or on the floor.
So it's much easier to just clean that salt creep
every other week, and it prevents a lot of problems.
Every-other-week task number three is to make RO/DI water.
If you haven't yet bought an RO/DI filter
because it's too overwhelming, just do it.
Get it out of the way. Pull that Band Aid off.
We've made videos about RO/DI filters,
and it will save you so much money in the long run.
But if you don't have an RO/DI filter, no big deal.
Your every-other-week task
is going to be to purchase distilled water
or RO/DI water from your local fish store.
And the fourth and final task
that you need to do every other week
is to clean your rear filtration chamber.
How I do this is, I turn off all of the pumps,
and I use a handheld algae scraper
to scrape everything down.
Then I just use my gravel vac
and remove the water from the rear filtration chamber,
so I pull out all of that gunk.
You probably don't have to do it every other week,
but you will get algae growth in there,
and you will get detritus build-up.
So it becomes kind of a nutrient trap.
And over time it really does start to smell.
So it's better to clean it up every other week.
That way you avoid any problems down the road.
And our final category are monthly tasks.
And really, I only have one task for you to do
every single month.
And that is to change your chemical media.
First, let me say that we don't recommend
using chemical media except for carbon,
but we don't recommend using chemical media
unless you need to use it.
And that's especially true
for granular ferric oxide, or GFO,
because if you use it incorrectly or too much,
you can cause a lot of problems in your tank.
So for a lot more information all about chemical media
rewatch Episode 22 in the series.
But there are times when I need to use
a small amount of GFO.
Currently my phosphate levels
are just a little bit out of whack
in both my clownfish harem tank and my reef tank.
So I have used a small amount of GFO
in a BRS reactor to bring those levels down.
And what I've noticed is that GFO
starts to run out of its efficacious power
somewhere around a month.
But the only way you're gonna really know
when your GFO stops working
is watching your phosphate levels slowly rise.
That will be the indication that it's time
to put in new GFO.
Well, that's it, everybody.
I'm not gonna go into your semi-annual and annual tasks,
because that will be later down the road.
I'm just trying to get you started
with those maintenance tasks
you're gonna have to do right away
after setting up your brand-new saltwater aquarium.
I have tried to mention a lot of the products
that I personally use,
and we will put links to those down below
if you want more information
or are ready to buy some of them.
And stay tuned for next episode, Episode 41A and 41B,
because we are gonna take a deep dive,
and I know I say "deep dive" a lot,
but we're gonna talk about water testing
probably in a way you've never heard of before,
which will tell you exactly
what to test, when to test, and what those results mean.
So stay tuned for next episode.
And as always, everybody, thanks for watching.
Happy reefing! Be well!
We'll see you next time.
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