Who Doesn't Do Water Changes

[lisafoster]

Cut back on your feeding way to much. ditch the bioballs nitrate factory . Get a good skimmer do the water changes. If you don't want to mix saltwater buy it premixed thats what I do. I have topped off with tap water for 1 1/2 years not a speck of algae in my tank . I have tried to go the no water change route but all the coral looks better when I do it. Lps coral can live with higher nitrates but the fish's health will suffer from too high. I do not feed any of my lps.

[InsaneClownFish]

Even I do water changes.

[outy]

Originally Posted by AndyH5512

Outy, it seems like you may know a person or two from this thread who is setting a tank up for a year or two. LOL.

everyone confuses long term success and short term, its been that way since I started. I made all these mistakes and lived it for for almost 15 years now. Thats why i have a bit of passion towards helping people not make the mistakes I have.

I did no ro/di for years until it came down to the fact I had to. My tap water comes in at 17-27 PPM which is extremely clean water and not many water supplies come close, the sad fact is you could have less numbers then mine and the water could be worse do to higher parts of silica in the water. No matter how you cut it RO/DI is a nessesity for this hobby.

I have done the no water changes for close to 7 years, the longest run was like i said 4 years with 3 being the sweet spot i should have started taking care of buisness.

theres no guessing here and I run LPS tanks, there is no way I could have kept SPS and pulled of the stunts I have.

heres my 100g tank at the very end of 4 years needing love [i now have no cyano and HA is almost gone]



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[travis32]

O.k. I disagree On Ro/DI water being necessary. I have a friend that's been into reef tanks since '99. And has used RO water the entire time (No DI) and he has advised me to not worry about RODI water. It's overkill. I'm not saying any one person is right or wrong..

I agree that RODI water will increase the potential for a tank and decrease the chances of things going south quickly. I totally agree it eliminates uncertainties. After all, if water has 25 TDS, we don't know if that 25 TDS is sediment or Copper. So, I agree, RODI eliminates the uncertainties.

With that said, a water softner / RO filtration system combination should eliminate a majority if not all heavy metals from the water. Leaving nasty things like phosphates as possible pollutants of a tank.

Either heavy macro or additional filtration to remove phosphates and carbon to remove anything else is probably a necessity. With that all said. I believe water changes can be done with RO water and the tank be successful and full of life and longevity. Tap water? I agree, Tap water should just be avoided. It has the most risk of pollutants getting into the tank as cities change their treatment plans, so too may water have additional polutants, fleuride, and other chemicals that could be detrimental to a reef. Can it be done. I'm sure people have done it for years. The chances of success for more than 1 year? Hard to say.. Depends on what's in the tap water.

As far as water changes, I read an article on water changes from Randy Holmes-Farley. There are 2 major reasons to do water changes. If you're not doing this or have other methods to do this, then water changes may not be necessary:

1. To remove waste / excess nutrients from the tank.

2. To add minerals essential to a coral reef. (alk, ca, magnesium, strontium, ph buffers, etc, etc).

To oversimplify: To take something out and / or to add something to the existing water.

If there's otherways of doing these two things, then, theoretically water changes aren't needed as much. The person I bought my live rock from hadn't done a single water change for a over a year. The corals and fish were doing good.

He had a huge refugium full of macro algae, and he ran a skimmer. (Huge being 50g +... I have a 14g sump , so 50g sump would be huge to me. :P )

I think it best to do water changes, just a matter of how often... And that depends on a ton of variables.

[Scma]

I would just like to add that I have been using my tapwater for 4 years in my mixed reef tank and I have never had any problems, although I never recommended it to anyone.

[joe143]

I've had my 55g up for 6 months now. I do about a 5-10 gallon water change every month. However, I get quite a bit of evaporation so i'm putting in around a gallon of new water every week. I use a skimmer and distilled water. Cyno is almost all gone and corals/fish are happy campers.

[csmfish]

Just want to point out.....

Evaporation and water replacement due to evaporation do nothing for a "water change". This does nothing to take out nasty stuff in the water, it only changes the salinity of the nasty water.

[Skinnysloth]

Originally Posted by outy

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So, which hobby is more expensive, the helis or the reef tank?

[mdb_talon]

Personally I am a big fan of those who support no water changes or very minimal water changes. I often get buy their tanks/equipments a year or two down the road at fraction of new cost off of craigslist after it crashes and they quit the hobby in frustration !

[serpentman]

IMO, not doing water changes is like not flushing the toilet. It works for a while but sooner or later a problem or two arises

[RotaryGeek]

Originally Posted by joe143

I've had my 55g up for 6 months now. I do about a 5-10 gallon water change every month. However, I get quite a bit of evaporation so i'm putting in around a gallon of new water every week. I use a skimmer and distilled water. Cyno is almost all gone and corals/fish are happy campers.

Dude a gallon a week is nothing. Im doing a gallon a day in my 46 bowfront. I used to not do any water changes and i thought everything was doing great, but them I had to do one, and after that everything lookes so great, literally like 2 days afterward all my algae was gone, and all my corals were huge. I started doing them weekly now, and haven't looked back. Oh i do use tap water, but only till i can afford to buy an rodi unit.

[outy]

Originally Posted by Skinnysloth

So, which hobby is more expensive, the helis or the reef tank?

helis are lol until you add electricity cost to that tank for 14 years then its no contest reefing drinks the money out lol

[dlh5150]

I have spent the last year and a half focusing on my two young kids (3 and under) instead of my tank. During that time, I would do a 15G water change about every 6 months. I didn't lose anything (I guess the most sensitive inhabitant would be a bubble tip anemone). I would experience more algae than I would like and had pretty aggressive algae growth on the tank glass - seemed like I had to clean it every few days. I have now re-committed to doing my 15G changes again every two weeks. I have a 120G tank and I too run the eco system, but supplement with a Remora skimmer (designed for 75G use). Hope this helps...

[Gary Majchrzak]

if you don't want to do water changes .... don't!

SOMETHING has to survive, right?

[pitmindi]

I am hiring someone to do a monthly water change of about 25% (to the top of my corals). However, it will not include syphoning near the sandbed, so I dont know how much help it can be, since the debris wont be syphoned out. It seems to me that all a water change will accomplish is decreasing my pod population as they are removed with the water. I cant disturb the area of the DSB or I will kill the critters that make the dsb function, so the syphon will be kept on the top half of the tank. As of now I am still using tap water. Someday I might switch to a RODI unit, but it seems wasteful. I do have macro caulerpa in my refuge and some red hair algae, that I like, in my display tank, plus another red macro, (rubbery and starts with a "g") plus a green macro algae that came on a coral and is growing faster than the coral. I wont get a protein skimmer since the LFS that I bought my setup from said that a skimmer will remove the elements that are needed for the ecosystem to work. The LFS also said they have the same system with many more fish and they dont do any maintainence and it is perfect. They also suggested no water changes since that also gets rid of the nutrients needed for the macro in the refugium. I am trying the eco-system modified since I use a dsb and the inventor suggests bb. I am just wondering who else uses a more natural way with a macro refugium, a dsb, and no significant water changes or protein skimmer.

[teesquare]

The LFS also said they have the same system with many more fish and they dont do any maintainence and it is perfect. They also suggested no water changes since that also gets rid of the nutrients needed for the macro in the refugium. I am trying the eco-system modified since I use a dsb and the inventor suggests bb. I am just wondering who else uses a more natural way with a macro refugium, a dsb, and no significant water changes or protein skimmer.

Well...if you REALLY like a LOT of algae...just follow the advice of your LFS
Soon enough - you will have PLENTY of algae!

T

[Gary Majchrzak]

Originally Posted by pitmindi

According to the LFS where I bought the tank, this type of system does not need water changes, and in fact frequent water changes would be detrimental. That is the only reason that I got into saltwater tanks. I knew that I didn't want to perform saltwater changes. I have freshwater tanks and enjoy the water changes for those tanks, with is easy with a python and tap water, but a to change saltwater is very time consuming. I tried it once...and that was enough for me!

Originally Posted by pitmindi

I am hiring someone to do a monthly water change of about 25% (to the top of my corals).

regardless of who's doing the water changes they're a good thing IF DONE PROPERLY. A protein skimmer can somewhat lessen the need for water changes. Both water changes and skimming can help improve upon the "natural" (miracle mud?) methods of reef aquarium filtration IME/IMO.

[teesquare]

Every few years (over the span of the close to 30 I have been a fish geek anyway) someone markets a method that eliminates or almost eliminates water changes.
And - just as fast as they came....they go - these methods I mean.....
The point is, there is no panacea. There is no method of magically causing all of the accumulate wastes to leave the tank without changing some water. And do some cleaning as well, it will really pay dividends for preventing bad algae outbreaks..
Refugiums, sand beds, de-nitrifiers and the like all work to a degree, but none of them - nor the combination of them has ever been able to completely substitute for the vastly complex nutrient sinks of the ocean and lagoons, sand flats, mangroves etc. I say this not because I was skeptical of all the "new technologies" mentioned above (and others not mentioned), but because I too hoped, and was willing to buy into anything that would make reef keeping "push-button easy".

I think you are in for severe dissapointment if you got into saltwater on the whim of "no water changes" - *if* you want a tank that does not end up looking like a swamp complete with flowing green mops of algaes.

As I have said before about keeping aquaria: There is no solution to pollution like dilution.
Change some water - and watch your fish and corals smile at you.

[chris88]

Tap water here for 3 years in sps reef with no problem. You are putting much worse in the water when you feed. Good quality de cholr tap water is fine and i have never had any issues with any algae. Yes ro is better but so is feeding less. Dose a carbon source with a skimmer and problem solved. If you want pictures i will post to finally prove the nay sayers about tap water.

[Gary Majchrzak]

Originally Posted by chris88

Tap water here for 3 years in sps reef with no problem. You are putting much worse in the water when you feed.

nah.

If you feed your corals (aquarium) properly it's a good thing.
Municipal water sources put things (chloramines) in tap water to kill organisms. It's the accumulation of TDS over time that will eventually cause stress to your SPS. (Dissolved solids don't evaporate).

Like I already posted- don't do water changes.
SOMETHING will survive. In the meantime you might want to take pix and post them. Photographs provide fond memories.

[Garage1217]

Originally Posted by chris88

Tap water here for 3 years in sps reef with no problem. You are putting much worse in the water when you feed. Good quality de cholr tap water is fine and i have never had any issues with any algae. Yes ro is better but so is feeding less. Dose a carbon source with a skimmer and problem solved. If you want pictures i will post to finally prove the nay sayers about tap water.

Be careful as it works in your area, but not others. I would be willing to bet a steak dinner I could crash your tank with a gallon or two of tap water from my area

Also as I stated before. A no water change / or micro water change system that is super healthy is easily obtainable, but the reefer has to know what he is doing and understand his tanks ecosystem, waste removal system, what to feed / qty's of food & overall biology. Like I said, 2 years now with only adding salt because the sg slowly drops because of skimmer cleanings. I do not care to post my methods as noobs or newer reefers may try to duplicate the methods and may or may not succeed. For those that have figured it out with year(s) of success, congrats

[Gary Majchrzak]

like Garage posted, the quality of tap varies greatly across the continent.

Desert southwest USA has tap that's notoriously high in TDS.
Not only that... but tap can vary within each municipality from day to day without you knowing. Better safe than sorry.

[jer77]

I have had no problems in the past with keeping anemones and rarely doing water changes. Rarely means about twice a year or less. I only kept hardy fish, but I most definitely overfed. I began using tap water, but did eventually switch to RO/DI. I credit the tank's stability to a small Euro-Reef CS-80 and most importantly the DSB. DSB's can be quite underrated. They aren't the prettiest filters, but boy are they easy.

[nemo808]

i do NSW changes every week or two, it depends on my mood hehe, but i have a few friends that never do water changes at all, they just add tap water and dose supplements without measuring and they're tanks are doing fine

[teesquare]

O.K. - I will confess.....now that Garage and Gary have opned the door I have kept some systems that had only very rare and very small water changes.
But I hate to even mention them to someone that is new to the hobby. It is a precarious balance, hat really requires a lot of experience to be successful.

So -while I agree with their posts for sure- I am discouraging you from trying it....until you are completely confident that you understand enough of the variousmethods and mechanisms that can be used in such a system......and then be prepared for some ups and downs, until you have tweaked it to suit your aquarium. We lose a lot of hobbyists to frustration. I think many try to "run before they walk" to use an old expression. The fundamentals in the hobby will help you become more observant of how various things impact your particular system, and keeping notes will enhance the learning experience in conjunction with regular water testing.

Careful.......but have fun! And - best of luck at reefkeeping!
T