How to cheat on water changes?

[iamacat]

Tank was started from dry rock in October. I’ve done one 10g water change to remove diatoms from my sand at week 3. Other than that I have not done a water change on my system. I am a heavy believer in bacteria. I used a number of bottle bacs to get a good foundation. I am now onto microbacter7 dosing daily. I clean my glass once a week and that’s only because I don’t want to have coralline forming. I have been dosing All for Reef and KZ coral system plus their flatworm stop, coral booster, cyano clean, and pohls vitalizer. Feeding pellet via AFS twice a day, seaweed and Mysis/brine/other stuff every other day rotated.

filtration is also important and must fit your goals. Today I just set up my DOS for AWC of .7g a day. I am planning to increase my stocking again with that in place.

if you are looking to skip WC you will need to have a mature tank or be dosing products to manage the waste and also dosing to replenish elements necessary for many inhabitants.

 

[PeterC99]

I had a tank I deemed "successful" without doing waterchanges for YEARS. Only time fresh SW was added was replacing water that was used for acclimation or when I bag and sell coral and have to replace that water. But I am currently going through a crash where I lost 95% of my sps. But I will most likely never be doing weekly waterchanges.

So the crash had nothing to do with the lack of water changes?

 

[Dilan Patel]

So the crash had nothing to do with the lack of water changes?

nope and the icp test I ran during the crash would prove that.

 

[X-37B]

I started running a modified DSR system. A no scheduled WC system.
Tank is 20 months old now.
I have done 3 10 gallon WC's.
1 was after a fluconazole treatment. The other 2 were just random and I saw no measurable difference.
I am now on schedule to do 1-10 gallon WC every 4 months to remove anything that may accumulate that I can not see or test for.
I had this plan before starting and the only thing I changed is from running my alk at 9 to now running it at 7-7.5 for about a year now.

 

[Aclman88]

Old tank syndrome is vanquished in reefing now

the cause of old tank syndrome is compounding whole waste particles that blanket the interstitial sand grain zones and plug up the channels in live rocks- in some cases it's sheer overgrowth allowed from various invasions that plugs up the surface area on live rock combined with a thin veneer of...

www.reef2reef.com

Thought this is relevant to the no water change. Discusses how in tanks with no cleaning of sand bed or live rock could be a reason for old tank syndrome. Not really water changes per se, but it bucks idea that a tank could last forever with just good filtration, flow and dosing elements.