No water change long term effects?

[sirreal63]

It isn't enough, especially using tap water. You are adding trace elements, which ones are being used and which ones are not being used? What happens to the ones not being used? You say 30-100 TDS but what is that TDS made up of? Randy has done several studies on water changes, this was the easy one. If you haven't read it, you should.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/

There is no valid reasons for not doing water changes, there are however many excuses for not doing them. There are no downsides to doing water changes but there are downsides to not doing them. Corals are very adaptive and can tolerate a lot, but eventually they will succumb to water that is increasingly toxic.

[karimwassef]

Originally Posted by sirreal63

Comparatively speaking, water and salt versus electricity, equipment, corals and fish, it is still the smallest dollar amount you pay unless your tank is empty of livestock, and I know yours isn't.

New tank is solar = natural light
It's geothermal = earth cooled
And depends on fresh air for gas injection = no CO2 tanks

So... I'm working on cutting my relative electricity bill down to pumps only and I use DC pumps to reduce waste there too.

I also recycle food by reducing export and feeding the algae back to my herbivores.

Still- water changes are cheap and worthwhile. I'm building an auto changer up front so it'll always get done.

[sirreal63]

Congrats on setting it up so well! It isn't the norm and I commend you on the setup.

[nashorn]

Originally Posted by sirreal63

It isn't enough, especially using tap water. You are adding trace elements, which ones are being used and which ones are not being used? What happens to the ones not being used? You say 30-100 TDS but what is that TDS made up of? Randy has done several studies on water changes, this was the easy one. If you haven't read it, you should.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/

There is no valid reasons for not doing water changes, there are however many excuses for not doing them. There are no downsides to doing water changes but there are downsides to not doing them. Corals are very adaptive and can tolerate a lot, but eventually they will succumb to water that is increasingly toxic.

Thanks
Will check it out

[sirreal63]

This is another good one to read...
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-0...ture/index.php

Here are most of Randy's articles...
http://www.masa.asn.au/masawiki/inde..._Holmes-Farley

[Timfish]

As a friend of mine said once when discussing this topic "Every animal needs fresh water"!
I've been keeping marine tanks for 30 years and there's always someone saying they've figured out how to keep the perfect balance but I haven't seen anyone keep systems as long as I have with weekly water changes. And as pointed out in some of the above posts there's always something not being said.

In my attempts to keep current with research on how reefs systems work I've realized the really critical stuff going on that benefits or harms our corals we can't test for (like organic nutrients). More specifically we can't test for benificial or harmfull DOC and we can't test for beneficial or harmful microbial populations. So sooner or later if you try going without water changes you're going to crash. I would encourage you to get Forest Rohwer's "Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas", it's an excellent introduction to the science looking at how the different types of DOC produced on reefs and their effect on the microbial populations including those pathogenic to corals. I would also encourage you to read Ken Feldman's, et al, looking at bacterial counts, DOC, GAC and skimmers on reef aquraiums (a list is in post #18 here: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...ht=skimmerless )