I suck at water changes, is supplimenting enough?

NewEnglishMutt · Oct 24, 2014

I'm probably the worst at doing water changes, and my wife refuses to do more than sprinkle a little fish food into the display... I'm active duty Navy, and so I'm gone a lot. So I suppliment calcium, magnesium, and an essencial elements blend into my tank every few weeks. I have Tangs, clowns, and a few others, along with annenomes and soft corals. Never had a single issue as long as everything is running, only lost fish once when my sump return pump died overnight, that was pretty tramatic on my fish, but I prettymuch never do a waterchange. Am I setting myself up for epic failure? This is my first reef tank, been set up and populated for probably 3 months now, 135g with a 25 gallon Fuge and sump, with crazy macro growth and tons, and i mean tons, of amphipods and copepods. 2x oversize skimmer, skimmer runs on same cycle as my lights. I'm planning on getting a dosing system in the near future so that I don't have to sit and measure everything out and dose all at once every few weeks. Plus when I'm deployed for long periods of time it will make my wife's life easier. But yeah... that's what I do, and I have an ATO so my salinity doesnt fluctuate often.

NewEnglishMutt · Oct 24, 2014

My last tank was a 120g with a 20g sump, no fuge, no skimmer. I had it for about 2 years and never had a problem, and I never did a water change... ever...

NewEnglishMutt · Oct 24, 2014

I have a canister filter running on my current tank too, from what I have been reading lately I'm not even sure how beneficial it is...

mattvisocky2003 · Oct 24, 2014

I have honestly run fish, mushrooms, and zoos for about a year before without water changes. Soft corals are a little more forgiving, but I had limited numbers in the tank.

gemini9 · Oct 24, 2014

How can you export nitrates without water changes?

mattvisocky2003 · Oct 24, 2014

Fuge

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NewEnglishMutt · Oct 24, 2014

I have an amazing fuge, my nitrates are always 0

Squamosa · Oct 27, 2014

I stopped doing water changes 5 months ago and my tank has never looked or grown better than it is now

I keep predominantly SPS corals.

The system utilizes live rock, carbon dosing and macro algae to get rid of NO3, not expensive water changes.

debdp · Oct 28, 2014

And here I'm feeling super, super guilty because I haven't done a water change in one of my tanks for two weeks. This sort of makes me feel a little better...just a little.

Reefing Madness · Oct 28, 2014

gemini9 said:
How can you export nitrates without water changes?

Carbon Dosing (aka Vodka Dosing)

Big Wave · Oct 28, 2014

I do water changes when my tanks ask for them. My softies will start to look sad; my sps cube will get little green tuffs along the silicone.

My philosophy is that water changes are mostly about getting detritus out rather than changing a certain percentage of water. When I scoop the poop, the algae stays away.

IotaElwyn · Oct 28, 2014

I run 92 gallons with a fuge and change my water more out of guilt then necessity. If you are not overloading and everything keeps checking out, no need to complicate it.I have had great luck with natural nitrate reducers as well. Just my 2 cents.

Lionfish Lair · Oct 28, 2014

The genesis water changer.... cause I'm lazy like that.

gemini9 · Oct 28, 2014

Actually, now that it's mentioned, I have heard you mention dosing as a nitrate reducer. Brain fart. Deb, I just did a wc last night!

And scrubbed algae off my glass! And even rearranged a rock or two! And changed filter media! Wiped down outside of tank! *Feeling super satisfied*

gemini9 · Oct 28, 2014

Big Wave said:
I do water changes when my tanks ask for them. My softies will start to look sad; my sps cube will get little green tuffs along the silicone.

My philosophy is that water changes are mostly about getting detritus out rather than changing a certain percentage of water. When I scoop the poop, the algae stays away.

lol scoop the poop....

Mrchong156 · Oct 28, 2014

Wow sounds like I need to kick my habit of water changes!

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 28, 2014

Mrchong156 said:
Wow sounds like I need to kick my habit of water changes!

Maybe. Some folks do it.

But there are reasons to do water changes that neither relate to exporting nutrients nor bringing in trace elements.

Here's the conclusion at the end of my water change article:

Water changes are a good way to help control certain processes that serve to drive reef aquarium water away from its starting purity. Some things build up in certain situations (organics, certain metals, sodium, chloride, nitrate, phosphate, sulfate, etc.), and some things become depleted (calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, strontium, silica, etc.). Water changes can serve to help correct these imbalances, and in some cases may be the best way to deal with them. Water changes of 15-30% per month (whether carried out once a month, daily or continuously) have been shown in the graphs above to be useful in moderating the drift of these different seawater components from starting levels. For most reef aquaria, I recommend such changes as good aquarium husbandry. In general, the more the better, if carried out appropriately, and if the new salt water is of appropriate quality.

Calcium and alkalinity, being rapidly depleted in most reef aquaria, are not well controlled, or even significantly impacted by such small water changes. In order to maintain them with no other supplements, changes on the order of 30-50% PER DAY would be required. Nevertheless, that option may still be a good choice for very small aquaria, especially if the changes are slow and automatic.

from:

Water Changes in Reef Aquaria by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

vlangel · Oct 28, 2014

I too am a die hard advocate for WCs. I had aquariums since the 70s and have learned that nothing gives your tank stability and longevity like faithful WCs, and add a little activated carbon to polish the water and you are good to go....for a long time!

Mikesmith34 · Oct 28, 2014

I'll go with the PHd from Harvard over the lazy way. It's for animals to thrive not just stay alive. Do you clean your house? I would think the answer is yes for a number of reasons

zwulfke · Oct 28, 2014

The only thing that I look at is the fact I have a ATO hooked up and I know from adding my 90 total volume loser about a 1/8 or more gallon a day. So in fact through evaporation I am adding new water to the tank. Wouldn't my Red Sea additives and adding salt so often to keep my salinity up be a water change. So why would a 20% a month be needed if I am constantly adding water?