water changes
 

I keep reading about water changes and I have not changed water in a year. all I do is add water using drip method with caluim milk ,iodine and trace elements and iIhave not had a death or problem since stopping the water changes. I have added 50 lbs of live rock from jl and never got a spike. ph added monthly why the need for water changes?
darren

The point of water changes is to dilute excess nutrients and/or toxins, and to replenish trace elements that are consumed by the organisms or otherwise removed from the system. Kinda like a dose of fresh air for your critters.

I have to admit, I never used to do regular water changes (actually hardly ever did 'em at all), but I've been doing so for the past several months & I do see a positive difference with my corals especially. However, my tanks are heavily loaded & fed, so removal of excess nutrients may be more important for my tanks than for others with lightly stocked, underfed tanks with heavy filtration/skimming.

Re: water changes
 

you will soon, it may not be a single problem but may rather appear as a series of nascences. I did the same thing you are doing when I started and it was about the year to 1.5 year mark the problems started showing up.

Steve

reply
 

By the way, welcome to the board Dewy. :biggrin: What size tank do you have? What kinds of fish, inverts and corals are you keeping? I too don't really have a regualar water change schedule. I tend to only change the water when needed, but that is still at least once a month.

Water changes give you a chance to siphon off detritus buildup and just the act of doing them keeps you more involved with your reef tank.
Theoretically, you could "get by" without water changes, but in addition to the above mentioned benefits by others, do you want your reef tank to just "get by", or do you want do make it the best that it can be?
:smile:

Mitch

Save yourself the future grief and start doing water changes. I've tried going a long time without water changes in the past and the end result wasn't nice at all. You end up with a buildup of things that don't belong and are depleted of things that should be in your water.

Plus the chance of getting an ionic imbalance which is a pain in the butt, because then you have a fun time trying to get your alk, pH and calcium to stabilize. The long and short of it is that in my opinion, you will be left with a tank full of water that barely resembles ocean water.

The price of salt is inexpensive and it just takes a bit of effort to do a water change, but in the long run the tank will be better for it. Once your tank takes a dive because of water change neglect it can take quite a while to reverse things and get the tank looking like it used to. Some may disagree, but that has been my experience.
Bill

I change a small amount of water in all my tanks every sun. It's the only time i allow myself to put my hands in the tank. So all the glass gets cleaned with a razer, any algae pulled, rocks moved to better positions. By the time I'm done the tanks look awesome and everything looks so much happier it's the best day of the week :biggrin:

Every week? That's awsome. I do a 15% change every two weeks and I believe that a properly mixed water change is the single most important key to a healthy tank - ironically it is also the least expensive thing you can do. Now if I could just get my seaclone skimmer to perform :razz: !

- Chad

what I have found works for me is a 20% once a month. I don't have the time to do it ever weekend as it is a two day ordeal.. one of these days I will have to make an automated water change set up hehe.

Steve