water changes

[Mappelbaum37]

Do you do water changes on your tank? I just saw a video of this guy with a 150g tank and its thriving, tons of fish, acros, lps, softies. From what I understood, he said hes got a top off system with a good skimmer and a bunch of other equipment, but mentioned nothing of water changes. He did say that he adds aminia acid. I do 10g water changes weekly on my 75. I dont have a sump so I remove/add water straight to the tank. Is there an easier way to do this in the future.. Can a tank be maintained without water changes? Do sumps have any effect on it?


Thanks

[Flavum]

you can maintain a tank without waterchanges sure. theres a couple threads around here of peoples tanks who never or hardley every do water changes. honestly I would think this might work on a softy or Lps tank but sps is a differnt story. I just recently in about the past couple months stopped doing water changes weekly and took my skimmer off my 40 breeder. All my Lps have gotten bigger but ina about a couple weeks time the sps were lookign pretty ragid, I took them out pretty quick.

[Mappelbaum37]

thanks for your input flavum... i might be upgrading to an agressive FOWLR later on and having that with my 75 reef and the water changes and everything might get a little out of hand. I think I might want to try having either a top off system or just top off manually.


Thanks

[Mappelbaum37]

Any other ways you guys can think of for maintaining a tank like this?


Thanks

[crvz]

What other equipment do you have on the tank? If you have some other means of mechanical filtration (skimmer, for example), water changes are somewhat less important,but I wouldnt ever recommend losing them all together.

[reidcrandall]

I don't do water changes so much to get rid of pollutants as to replenish trace elements in a steady fashion. I try to keep my supplements to a minimum, and I feel that replacing elements with water changes using the same salt will keep he params in the tank in better balance.

That being said, I cen see how a tank can be maintained without water changes.

It is my feeling that what time and effort you save in water changes will be balanced on the other side with other activities that you need to perform to keep the tank clean and in balance. On that front, I see it as six of one, a half dozen of the other.

[Mappelbaum37]

thanks for the responses.

Like I said before, on my 75g reef w/ fish i do 10g water change weekly, change the quick filter weekly, and clean skimmer (bh 300f) weekly. Monthly, I change the chemi pure in the filter and the water in the filter, and the phosban in the phosban reactor.

The reason I ask about the importance of water changes is because if I already do all this work for my 75, I dont know if I would be able to do double this maintenance to maintain another tank. And as I said above, I saw this video of this guy who has a calcium reactor, great skimmer, the whole 9 yards of equipment, but he doesnt do water changes. when asked about maintenance he said he has a top off system that replenishes the water (approx. 2 gallons a day), and he adds aminia acid (whatever that is)...

So if i were to start another tank, I would put as much care and effort as i have my 75g reef, except these water changes really do some damage on the clock.. they kill a lot of time...Hopefully I would be able to maintain this tank with just as much if not more equipment, but a little less on the water changes. Maybe bi-weekly might even work.. But these once a weeks are killers.

Thanks guys...

[Reef'in Colorado]

For 2 years I had a 125g with ~100lb LR, 20g sump w/ calurpa for nutrient export & skimmer & DSB in both and ran a ton of carbon. The tank had only moderate flow and was illumenated by 8 96wt PC bulbs. I kept several fish, many different softies, LPS, a few SPS (mostly montiporas) and rose anemones. I dosed supplemental minerals/elements and amino acids, but only did 1 20g water change.

I had the tank for 2 years until the back pane of glass cracked I started wth 1 rose anemone and it split many times and the clones did the same. I calculated that 1 turned into 17 over this time after all the splits...I had 11 in my tank at most after trading and selling. My fish, SPS, LPS and softies all thrived. All of my chemistry checked out A+. At the time I worked at a LFS so I was able to monitor my water quality closely, and for free

I'm sure some will bash this type of husbandry, but the health of the system & inhabitants spoke for itself. After that 125g broke on me I replaced it with an Oceanic 135g and have been maintaining this tank in the same way for ~5 years now. There are many people on this forum maintaining healthy systems in different ways with differing opinions. Take the info and advise from everybody here and form your own opinions...don't let anybody tell you that you must do something in a certain way.

If you want to try and minimize water changes you'll want to add a sump to increase system capacity. Add a light to the sump so you can grow calurpa to harvest for nutrient export, and make sure you have a quality simmer. I would also recommend adding a chamber for a DSB of at least 4in and add fresh carbon ~4-5 weeks. Add different clean up critters to the tank & sump to fill specific niches, and stock your tank with a lot of thought. Always remember that more food = more waste to be broken down...so feed sparingly (this is where careful fish selection comes into play).

[reidcrandall]

Originally posted by Mappelbaum37
So if i were to start another tank, I would put as much care and effort as i have my 75g reef, except these water changes really do some damage on the clock.. they kill a lot of time...Hopefully I would be able to maintain this tank with just as much if not more equipment, but a little less on the water changes. Maybe bi-weekly might even work.. But these once a weeks are killers.

I'm with you there, it can take a lot of time to do the weekly changes. That's why I am going to plumb my new setup to make changes as easy as possible. My new system will be in my basement, and I am going to have a T valve in the return line from the sump that can be switched to pump straight into my basement ejector pump, but it can also be plumbed to send water directly to any drain line in the house. I will also have a mix tank with salt water that I can refill via gravity. Water changes should only take 20-30 min a week once all is set up. It will be a little bit more work up front, but in the long run, I'll save a ton of time.

[conjuay]

[i]Always remember that more food = more waste to be broken down...so feed sparingly [/B]

This is why I'm doing a 1/4 water change right now!

I must stop overfeeding...
I must stop overfeeding...
I must stop overfeeding...
I must stop overfeeding...

[Mappelbaum37]

Thanks for all that great advice guys. Out of curiosity, how does a DSB in the fuge contribute to the health of the tank? Also, what is amino acid?

About the fish and feeding... I had planned on making it an aggressive FOWLR :/

This is how I think I would go about starting my tank:

125-150 AGA display aquarium
sump (not quite sure how a sump works) (glass dividers, sections, carbon placement etc.)
get a very good quality skimmer (octopus' seem popular)
chaeto, DSB, chemi-pure/carbon
approx. 150 lbs live rock in display tank

weekly top offs

Did I miss anything??

Thanks a ton