Good reef aquariums without water changes?

[Des Callaghan]

I wonder if any members of this board do not undertake regular water changes but manage to keep reasonable good reef aquariums for a prolonged period? If so, I'd be very interested to know what methods you use for removing undesirable compounds from your system and what additives you use. Thanks very much in advance. All the best, Des

[fishamajiggle]

i think it is mostly allot of skimming and not to have the compounds in the first place. look at all of the bare bottom sps guys. i think their philosophy is not to have ANY detritus in their tanks and no sand for p04 sinks. and hardly any fish. it is a choice you have to be very committed to. I personally used to have bare bottom and i switched to sand because I am lazy. but that causes me to do more frequent water changes.

[hgbarwick]

you are going to have to do water changes even with the best of skimmers. Maybe not weekly but thier is no way around it.

[marinelife]

In the book Reef Secrets (I think that is the book) they recommend 10% a year

[smcnally]

Originally posted by hgbarwick
you are going to have to do water changes even with the best of skimmers. Maybe not weekly but thier is no way around it.

Although I recommend doing water changes, I know of people that never do them. A guy I know went 4 years without doing water changes, and his fish and corals still lived. They didn't thrive, but they were doing "fine". I think the moral thing to do is at least change some water monthly. If you want your tank to thrive, I would recommend at least bi-weekly water changes.

[sir_dudeguy]

i think it is mostly allot of skimming and not to have the compounds in the first place. look at all of the bare bottom sps guys. i think their philosophy is not to have ANY detritus in their tanks and no sand for p04 sinks. and hardly any fish. it is a choice you have to be very committed to. I personally used to have bare bottom and i switched to sand because I am lazy. but that causes me to do more frequent water changes.

well what about all those other things like calcium, mag, etc??? Keeping a reef isnt just about getting rid of crap in the tank which causes nitrates...you've also got to keep all the elements that the corals USE in the right ranges.

you are going to have to do water changes even with the best of skimmers. Maybe not weekly but thier is no way around it.

Maybe...but again...look at what the corals actually USE. They're gonna be using up stuff like calcium and whatnot. So in theory, yes you could go without doing water changes. You could "simply" just add in the additives (calcium etc..) at a rate that counter acts the rate they're being used up by the corals. And this is all of course taking into account that you can keep the nitrates and stuff down in the first place.

So if you can consistantly keep nitrates down, and consistently keep adding back all the additives that the corals are using out of the salt, then you can go with no water changes. Because what else is the salt adding (besides salt ) that gets used up? Just the stuff used by corals.

That all being said...i still prefer water changes Just not many of them. I do about once a month because my tank stays perfectly fine for that long. As of now i've only got softies so they hardly use anything at all and all the levels stay perfectly fine for that long...so i see no reason to do a water change if theres nothing that needs it.

However I will be getting some lps corals pretty soon, at which point i probably WILL have to do more water changes because they'll be using a bunch of calcium.

Overall, imo yes you can go waterchangeless...but its sure gonna cost you a heck of a lot more. Think of all the additives you'd have to be adding year round just to keep the levels right. And thats considering that you have perfect amonia nitrite and nitrates/phosphates.

[rcypert]

Alright water changes can be completely eliminated if you can accomplish all tasks that they fulfill by other means. water changes are only done for two reasons. One is the reduction of accumulated wastes in the water, the other is for replenishment of minerals and elements depleted by the livestock in tank. I use three forms of waste removal, a refugium, a skimmer way overrated for my tank, and acitvated carbon. I also dose a large variety of supplements, such as mag, three forms of calcium, trace elements, strontium, two different buffers for alk and ph stability. I never do water changes and i have a moderate fish load 2 tangs 3 wrasses dragonet blenny
cardinal basslet 3 clowns, in a 75 gallon tank with a 20 long as sump/fuge. and huge coral load every nook has something or other in it. you just have to be diligent on your testing of every aspect of the water and be ready to do that water change if anything is out of wack after a year or two youll get the hang of it. oh and tons of flow so detritus doesnt settle in your main tank.

[sir_dudeguy]

haha thats pretty much exactly what i said lol. The only real reason i dont go completely waterchangeless like you is that it would cost way too much for me to have to keep buying all those additives. But i totally agree on that the skimmer needs to be way overrated, and that you need to always test.

be ready to do that water change if anything is out of wack

VERY true. Never go waterchangeless and not have any salt to mix up in an emergency.

[chrisstie]

I know this is only half on topic, and maybe my feelings will change when i get my 55 up and running but I have a 12g nano.. and water changes to me are a really good excuse to spend time bonding with my tank

Like a mother hen checking on each and every little critter, pulling out some algae here or dusting off detritus there.. to me its like grooming my cat .. just something i do because i love my animals

I don't think i could ever risk going water changeless.. except maybe if i had like, a huge tank like at sea world or disney where its so fraking large that.. all the stuff you'd do a change for become diluted hehe

[nmprisons]

I enjoy water changes. It is a chance for me to say, well it is stressful in there right now anyway, might was well move some stuff around.

[sir_dudeguy]

or dusting off detritus there.. to me its like grooming my cat

imo stuff settling (detritus) would be due to lack of flow.

nmprisons...its not the greatest to move stuff around a lot either. That makes it even worse for the corals. And what do you mean by "its stressfull in there right now anyways?" Do you mean that the corals were stressed out prior to doing the water change? Or do you mean they're stressed out DUE to the water change (ie...lowering the water level and whatnot...)?

[Amphiprion]

IMO, there is no replacement for water changes. I know many people (very experienced aquarists) who shared the 'no waterchange' philosophy. I kept telling him that he will eventually run into a problem. He added all necessary calcifying minerals (bicarbonates, calcium, magnesium, etc) as well as trace elements. His equipment was good--a large skimmer, plenty of carbon, good water movement, etc. Basically, this seemed to work well for about 8 years. Then, things mysteriously began to die. He tried all of his other 'proven' remedies, such as carbon and adding more trace elements, which just made things worse. Finally, he broke down, doing a substantial water change and voila! Things recovered almost immediately. While not empirical, this is good practical evidence that the longer that water stays in our aquaria, the less like seawater it becomes. No matter how many trace elements you add to make up for losses, some will inevitably build up (as well as those that are depleted), along with metabolites that cannot be removed by any other means. Eventually, these things cause the problems that he experienced. Yes you can go without water changes for a long time. Is it good for everthing? Probably not. They can cope up to a certain point, then things begin to fail as the animals reach their biological limits. A tank cannot go forever without water changes. I don't know why people detest them so much, seeing as how they are technically the cheapest alternative to solving problems in our tanks. Working at pet store, you won't believe how much money people will spend to avoid doing water changes (a $10 water change vs. a $500 skimmer, $20 phosban, the list goes on). Just do your water changes with some sort of regularity (be it every week or every few months). You will be glad you did.

[blstravler]

I don't do them all of the time but I do agree you don't have to do them every week, maybe every couple of months or once a year. But they do give benefit.

[jdieck]

Originally posted by Amphiprion
IMO, there is no replacement for water changes.

I think it has to do with things that accumulate and there are no good methods to remove.
Even the purest of the supplements contain impurities, metals that will accumulate in the water, in addition refractory organics which are neither skimmable not able to bound to purifying resins keep on building up so in my opinion eventually water changes will be required no matter what.

[smstrick20]

IMO the importance of water changes depends greatly on the size tank and the specs of your setup and livestock. Having spent the majority of my hobby experience keeping larger exotic cichlids (generally messy eaters) and always reading about reef keeping Ive seen opinions go both ways.

I myself only perform water changes about once a month to once every 3 months, in both my fresh and reef tanks, mainly b/c i keep larger tanks and am a believer that you can never have enough filtration, and circulation. I do perform weekly testing if not more on all my setups to ensure everything is running properly and to remove and clean filter socks and pads, and check carbon and what not, but i really enjoy these activities.

As said about i think you can go without water changes if you are willing to add the additional suppliments and provide sufficient filtration and skimming. With a larger skimmer, fuge-stocked with macros and some mangroves, and a sump i think you could easily get the same if not better results. Plus in my experience with the higher lighting systems you burn off plenty of water anyway and so topping off also replaces alot of water.

[HippieSmell]

I don't do "water changes", but I skim wet and replace about 5 gallons of salt water a week in my topoff. So far everything is relatively happy.

[AqCons]

I have a 45 bowfront with a Ecosystem filter and a mag 7 (or maybe a 5). Nothing else - no skimmer, no other powerheads. I also have a shallow sandbed. I haven't done a water change since our fire over 1.5 years ago. I have GSP, Trumpet/Candy coral, mushrooms, zoos, yellow polyps, ricordia, leather, frogspawn, and even a very small SPS (not sure which one I was given). I also have 2 tank raised Banggai, tank raised maroon clown, tank raised orchid dottyback, 6 line wrasse. Feed 3 x week. I haven't dosed anything in 1.5 years and haven't tested. All corals are growing and I have coraline almost covering all panels of glass. My only problem I have recently discovered are flatworms. So I am going to have to start doing water changes. I hope I don't mess anything up.

This is the tank I put corals into when they're not doing well in my other tanks. I have a 180 that I do regular water changes on, test, dose, etc. and the trumpets don't want to live in that tank, so I take them out and put them in my little 45 and they practically come back to life and grow even bigger.

[jdieck]

Originally posted by HippieSmell
I don't do "water changes", but I skim wet and replace about 5 gallons of salt water a week in my topoff. So far everything is relatively happy.

Just as a side note, replacing evaporated water is not the same as replacing salt water. Evaporated water is like distilled water that carries no pollutants with it so they just concentrate in the tank.
On the other hand skimming wet and replacing skimmate water does the trick.

[Paul B]

I don't have a water change schedule but it comes to about 20% every two or three months. I would like to change more if I had the time but all seems to be well and it has been three decades.
Paul

[smstrick20]

yeah, id say if its been going for 3 decades you must be doing something right,hehe

[maginter]

So how would replacing water from evaporation be catagorized???

[Charlie97L]

i have a 58, up since february, stuff is thriving, and i've only done like 3 water changes in that period... all about 10 gallons.

i do skim wet, though, and replace the water when the salinity goes down. as long as you stay on top of the basic stufff (alk/ca, pos, etc.) i think that can work. it also depends on what you're stocking too. a lot of sps, i think you NEED it, to help replace what's sucked out of the water.

i think water changes are a 2 sided coin. do big ones too often, and the tank doesn't stabalize. i'm building a 90 right now, and i plan on doing one every two weeks, probably about 7-8 gallons. we'll see how that goes. i know people who do like a 20% every week, and i just think that's too much.

let the animals be, and adapt to captivity. i'm tinkering with my params to get it better for sps... i have a few colonies that are doing great, but i think they can be better. my lps and softies expand a great deal, and are vibrant colors.

it's all about monitoring your water, and adjusting as need be.

[maginter]

[JamesJR]

My friend had never done them in over three years and his 125 tank did okay. What was interesting was that some corals had completely dominated the tank and it was difficult for him to add anything and have it establish itself. He had more xenia in that tank than any other tank have ever seen to this day, lots of xoos and shrooms also.
But if you saw this tank, the lack of waterchanges and maintenance was obvious. The water was pretty yellow in color and bubble algae and hair algae were was taking over. I think that overall, some level of water changes are just good, basic aquarium practice. In my tanks, they always seemed to look their best after a waterchange. I can give you any real convincing or compelling evidence for this but I do it myself and it makes me feel better about the tank. That is why I do it. It give me peace of mind.

[JamesJR]

I meant to type that I can't give any compelling reason.. Sorry