Water changes
 

Is there anyone out there who never does water changes? How are your corals doing?

I stopped doing water changes 6 months ago and everything is doing great. I only add ro water to compensate for evaporation. I also over feed but have over 50 snails of different types and run chaeto in my fuge and overflow.

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Me too. I just use cheato. Corals great

Do you guys dose?

IMO water changes are essential, especially in small tanks and tanks with a lot of coral.

I think alot of crashes come from people getting lazy and complacent with how their reef is doing so they slack on water changes. Trace elements we dont dose get used up, are not being replaced, and the tank crashes.

yeah but the clams are looking ticked. chaeto removes phosphates and nitrates etc. but your corals are removing a lot of the calcium and what not, so doing WC is essential. I am running chaeto in my new tank, but still do a weekly WC only about 10% but its enough to keep everything in check.

I didn't do any for a year, everything was doing great. Undetectable nitrates and phosphates <0.05ppm. I started doing them after I had a crash from carbon, still can't get my nitrates <10ppm. Here's a pic of my tank just before the crash:
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/PB142501.jpg

A tank can be successful without water changes, there is no doubt. However to be successful it requires experience and should be left the more advanced aquarists. It's not something that should be pursued by someone less experienced looking for a easier route.

what about calcium? alkalinity? a tank without water change need to be dosed for these and trace elements.

I sometimes go a month and half without water change and my corals were doing fantastic but I dose every day and I feed my coral with vitamines and amino acids.

Why would anyone NOT do regular water changes??

Ya you would think wc would be easier to do then constent dosing iv considered no w/c but after a few weeks I get sick of daily dosing would much rather mix up some water once a week to biweekly and call her done lol

because we get good results by not doing so?

i do water changes and get massive cyano out breaks, i dont do water changes i get no alage or cyano and corals happy as clowns
i still do them, just not as often as 'recommended'

The way I see it,after trying both routes (water changes every month and going 6 months without it)I f you like your corals to grow and florish you should have a regulated water changes to simply replenish the ions removed by the inhabitants (not only your Calcium,magnesium,alkalinity)
Every situation is different as in mine I do water changes every 3 months or so simply because entire water volume in my system at the moment is over 400glns and only medium load in a 180glns display and if you know your tank and its inhabitants well some of your corals will let you know when to do a water change as in my system my neon finger leather lets me know same as some of my SPS.My 2c:biggrin:

?? How does that work lol. I had cyano n algae and i beat it off with consistent w/c. Are you not using rodi water? Sounds like your adding nutrients with ur water

Also my pistol shrimp only molts after a w/c and adding iodine seems like a waste since its sucked out of the water quite fast and again just another thing to dose

I dose tlf 2-part, iodine, and vodka.

Dosing for me is taken care of by my dosing pumps, all non-conservative elements are dosed/ measured/ adjusted, my nitrates and phosphates are 0 and 0.03ppm and I have ATO with RODI. Corals grow great, colors are solid. Question... do you think I am doing regular water changes? Do you think I need to do regular water changes? Why/why not?


FragIt Dan

All u hear is money money and more money lol i run a minimal nano setup so I have to do w/c just to save time and money on dosing n chems. Honestly though my next setup is going to have all the gear to enable me to do less w/c with less dosing hassle

My hobby pays for itself... Wanna buy some corals :) I run 4 isolated systems totaling >400g twv... daily decrease of Ca is 20ppm and dKh is 1.5 degrees. Water changes won't keep up with my dosing requirements. I started out small and grew slowly: like 22 years of growing, so money spending has been spread out and lately has been subsidized. My mom runs a nano and despite having unlimited access to all supplements and test kits, I tell her a 10% weekly water change will take care of all of her needs with, by FAR, the least amount of work. Wish it was the same for me ;).


FragIt Dan

Lol i can see that haha even with weekly w/c by the next one u would have no calc or alk and i assume other trace elements would be quite low or non existent sounds like a nightmare lol my next tank is going to be max 100g DT will be 60g prob could still get away with just w/c in my case :p

Because there septic tank can't handle that much extra water going down the drain every week or 2 :biggrin:

I have only really done maybe 4 WC on the big tank in 2 years mind you I don't have any SPS in there either.

I change 20 gallons every week in my 125 mixed reef, sounds like I am going over board compaired to everyone else.

i have a small tank i change the water once a week but my corals r beeen really healthy and growing well i like em my torch got very big and frog spawn

I think if it as if you were trapped in a closed system, say your bath tub and crapped it in every day and so did your neighbour you cant tell me there would not be things building up in there we could not test for or know about.

I have tried going with limited water changes and 40 gallons every two weeks, it looks like a different tank when i do regular water changes. The colours are way brighter, growth is noticeable better and corals are hardier when we keep up on our water changes.

I change 50g every 2 weeks in my 180. My tank is doing pretty good. IMO, changing water is the single most important thing you can do for tank maintenance. The only two reasons I can see for not changing water is A. laziness, or B. being cheap. Neither of these are good qualities for reefkeeping.

You would probably be better off doing 40g every other week. You'll dilute nutrients more with larger changes. But no, not overboard, you're taking proper care of your tank. Good for you!

Then dump it in your driveway, or your gravel pit, or run a hose to the road.

+1.......well said.....way more elements and minerals get replaced when we do a w/c then just the big three that most of us think about....

im new to reefing, and limited water changes with dosing or maximum water changes with out dosing, is that what your saying?

+1

Ohhh the humanity! how long could you breathe the same air if you were trapped in a box?:wink:

I stoped for a while but found with a 45 gallon every two weeks I had less worry and less dosing. It's a hour of my time. Well worth the reward

I change around 40 gal every 2 weeks in my tank - overkill probably but it's easy maintaince and I feel is worth it

I have a tee hooked up to my closed loop pump so I run a hose outside and open the valve- watch tv for 5-8 min shut valve and plug in a mag 9 which is on my 55 gal mixing bucket watch more tv unplug pump and done
I made it simple so it wasn't a hassle to do so I would actually do it

Don't do water changes?
 

Who here is lazy with the water changes? I haven't done one in 3 months. The first month was just laziness but since there was no changes in my water quality (I still test, dose and top off daily) I decided to keep it going as a little lazy experiment. Upon searching the web, it appears I am far from alone. Many people go months...years..without doing a water changes.

Keep in mind, I have one fish in about 50 total gallons of water. I have a sump with more LR and macro algae and everything in my tank is pretty mature (rock is about 4 years old even though the tank relatively new). I have seen some posts, where people claim they have a much higher bioload and still maintain perfectly healthy SPS colonies with zero water changes for an extended period of time.

Who else does this?

Do we really need multiple threads going at the same time for the same discussion?

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=83653

My bad, didn't look before I posted. What are the odds.

Threads merged...

That explains some of my confusion :razz:

And the rest? :lol:

genetics...:)

If there is biological reactions inside that box that are transforming carbon dioxide back to oxygen with high efficiency you could be stuck in there for an extended period of time.