regular water changes thing of the past?? who doesnt do them who does????

[MMAX]

Used to do 20% bi-weekly on my 100 gallon and really noticed a difference in my SPS. Started dosing Prodibio and switched to 10% bi-weekly changes with the same results. I have been doing this faithfully for almost a year and the growth rates of my corals have been awesome. Before hand, I was a real lazy water changer--the only changes I did was topping up fresh water from evaporation.

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by nlreefguy

wow, really? I wasn't aware of anyone locally who was doing anything even remotely like that! I'd like to meet this guy and/or see his tank! (or girl, right? What a chauvinistic remark)

haha really fred cause you know them lol small world what lol

[reefwars]

its def not a nutrient thing for me i never see a raise in nitrates or phosphates although water changes do help with the nitrates especially when i got my tank back and they were off the chart massive water changes brought them to undetectable levels in fact i find as long as you can get them to zero its quite easy to keep them that way.

i dont have a problem with feeding and a very low bio load, i have very good porous liverock and lots of different kinds of macro algae so nitrates stay at zero and i run a phosphate reactor so thats not a problem either.

so to clarify i have no sps anymore only lps and zoas a recent crash has wiped out all my sps which if that never happened i wouldnt even think about it as sps really do prefer clean water.

after brads thoughts on the fish i probably will stick with the water changes but lets keep speculating shall we lol

with the fish and sps thing aside do you think lps and softies benefit from weekly or regular water changes or do they prefer "dirtier water" ????


what do we really know about trace elements i mean if they are that small that we cant test for them what benefit are they really adding??


im going to use " chris88" as an example and i hope he doesnt mind but he claims to not do water changes or use ro water and we all seen the pics its amazing to say the least what happens in his tank for growth so whats everyones thoughts there??


(for the record im pro water change just been thinking lately about trying it out as a test to my self i like these kind of projects and a challenge)

[Parker]

I change about 70 gallons a month on my 265,( Limited by the size of my two mixing barrels ) with the salt I'm using now I can see an improvement in the tank after the water change is competed. I would probably do it more often but my bioload is low, as more fish are added I'm likely to increase the water changes to every couple of weeks.

[kien]

To me a water change is like putting on a fresh pair of underwear. It may not be necessary but it sure does feel nice!

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by kien

To me a water change is like putting on a fresh pair of underwear. It may not be necessary but it sure does feel nice!

Hahahha! Love it!

I swear by my water changes, especially on my 40g (w/ skimmer). Typically I do 15% weekly but have been for the past few weeks doing 30% weekly (had a small cycle after the rebuild) and have noticed a pretty big difference. I have also been carbon dosing for over a month and it's helped a lot but I still do the water changes, though I find the dosing gives me a little more leeway in how frequently I do changes. I do the changes more for the general wellbeing of the tank rather than the whole trace element bunk.

I hate baths because I feel like I am stewing in my own filth... Its kinda the same for my fish and corals, so I try to do it often.

Now I'm going to go change my water and me undies! Gotta love that fresh feelin'!

[Lampshade]

I ran my tank for 6 months with no water changes when i first set it up, worked great. SPS growing like crazy, everything seemed to be balanced. Then my skimmer broke for 2 days shortly after adding some new baserock.... Hair algae explosion. I must have had a nice balance going on, but it was a teeter totter, and i broke it. So anyways, i'm back to changing water like my old system, and the colors my coral are showing are better than ever. It took close to 4 months to get the hair algae under control. I now change 15 gallons every 10 days. I was against it for so long, i don't know why. I don't have a water change station, i drag rubbermaids in from the garage, and empty my RO resivior, mix, cleanup, etc, still only takes 20 min's. I don't even know why i didn't do them originally. And 15 gallons every 10 days is only about $10 a month is salt, by far not the priciest part of my tank(stupid halide electrical bills...).

Seems like everything's happier with that bit of a refresher every little bit.

I've seen some amazing tanks that don't do water changes(One TOTM on here recently)

[chris88]

I don't do them but i used to do 20% every two weeks. I havent done them in a year now and i notice no difference in my sps or zoas. I am not saying i am not going to ever do one again, but i will let me tank tell me when something is going wrong.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by kien

To me a water change is like putting on a fresh pair of underwear. It may not be necessary but it sure does feel nice!

I do about 30%/week. Mind you my tanks only 20g.

[Reefer head]

hmm i do 50g a month on my 300g fowlr system seems to work just great for me !!!!