Water changes?

[ballenreef]

I currently have a 58 mized reef with probably 10g in the sump. Not too many corals only bc the only good husbandry traits I have is water changes. I never check parameters but salinity every once in a while. Im just being honest and dont need to be flamed for it. Everything in the tank is doing well. The few corals I have are growing and looking healthy.
Im posting because I want to add more corals such as sps and possibly a clam down the road. I dont want to check parameters or dose the tank. Water changes are too easy! Currently I do 6-7g water changes weekly which is approximately 10%. My question is if I were to add more corals, how often and how much water should I change? I use IO salt.

[brandon429]

if you are going to do it like that you need to reverse your trend. Instead of doing the minimum, overdo the water changes and exceed that minimum greatly, since there is no amount of water changes that are harmful to a system as long as you pour back in very slowly, and match temp and sg.

I think you should test for calcium and alk and magnesium, these clams and sps are so expensive to lose to trial and error. But yes, if you changed huge amounts of water often enough to offset loss (what you need to test for) then it can be done on water changes alone, Ive seen it done time and time again but they tested to know what their ion demand was relative to the intervals of water change.

[Dholmblad]

I have really only tested for ph and alk. My tank is newer(9mo) and I am just starting to add corals. I am going to start testing cal and mg soon to ensure they are at the correct levels. But so far everything is looking good

[Waterobert]

Just water changes!If only this hobby was that easy!
That was my plan, just change water a lot. Well each time you change water it stresses your SPS corals. So you have to make sure that you test your new water and it is close to the water in your tank. You can't trust salt manufacturers that they will make good salt no mater how many PRO labels they put on their product. One day you will change water and next day your best SPS will look bad, you will change more water since something is not right in your tank. Next day your best SPS will be dead a only then you will test your PRO salt to find out that alkalinity is only 4.5 dKH instead of 8dKH like natural water has.

[ballenreef]

Im to lazy to test.. Maybe I should look around for a a used monitoring system! I dont mind doing water changes, but I hate testing.... Then I would only need to test every so often to make sure the probs are accurate. I could even take it to lfs to test for me...