Never testing or dosing tank ?

[Reesj]

Where I'm at its hard to find test kits cheap and even harder to get anything to correct, if something is off.

Say If you do, 10% water change every other week, Can you get by without doing any dosing or testing your water ? (Except for salinity ofc)

I'm hoping to put up a mixed reef although mostly LPS and was thinking, what would happen if you do not dose anything?

If some element like Alk or Cal runs low, will it just slow down the growth or can it also kill corals ??

So far I have only tested for nitrates in 3 months of tank running and all seems fine with low nitrates .

 

[Alex C]

I’m not sure it would be recommended but personally I have a RedSea Reefer 525XL 138 gallon mixed reef and I haven’t been dosing or testing for nearly a year now. No issues. But my luck could run out I suppose at any time.

 

[muzikalmatt]

I don't think I would ever recommend not testing your water if you can help it, but I suppose you could make it work if you're consistent with your husbandry and monitor your tank closely. If you're going that route I would increase your water change schedule to 10% weekly rather than every other week. However, depending on the amount of LPS in your tank and their growth rate, your tank's alkalinity consumption could absolutely outpace your water change schedule. In general I don't think low alkalinity levels will kill most LPS corals except for more sensitive species like alveopora, goniopora and maybe elegance corals. They definitely won't be happy with depleted levels, but they won't die overnight like some SPS might.

 

[Larry L]

It's certainly possible to maintain a tank using only regular water changes, but I think you might need to change more than 10% every other week (unless maybe you were doing all softies). A lot just depends on the size of your bioload and the types of corals and how fast the corals deplete the calcium and alkalinity.

You could just test immediately after a water change, and then again just before the next water change, and see if the levels still look ok or not, and that would give you an idea if you had to change either more or less water or more or less often. Most salt mixes will mix up with plenty enough calcium and alkalinity to give you a good range even as it gets depleted.

 

[Reefs and Geeks]

My alk drops about 1 DKH/day without dosing (mixed reef). If I were to go a week without dosing anything, my alk could likely drop very low and cause dramatic pH swings. Really depends on your stocking level, but when doing a 10% water change, you'll only ever get 10% closer to ideal parameters. So if you tank was say 7dkh, and you do a 10% water change with 10dkh water, you'll only go up to about 7.3dkh. same with other elements as well. If you are lightly stocked, it can be done, but a well stocked tank with any stony coral, including LPS, would need an unrealistic water change schedule to keep up.

 

[BeejReef]

Is shipping from the main retailers not an option OP?

IMHO, you may already be running on borrowed time just testing nitrate.
Water changes are great for maintaining stability, but it's a huge assumption to accept that your salt and water will always be perfect. A worn-out RODI filter or a bad batch of salt will be totally undetectable.

When you encounter a problem and are forced to test, you'll have nothing to compare your numbers to.

I can relate to money being a concern. The hobby can be crazy expensive. I really believe that it's almost unavoidable that you'll find yourself in a spot where you either need to rush and buy a lot of expensive tests and attempt emergency fixes, or watch what you've spent so much money on die off. Ounce of prevention, pound of cure kinda thing.

 

[WVNed]

I think you could do it with a FOWLR and water changes but I don't think you can keep corals long term flying blind.

 

[Mortie31]

Stony corals will all consume ALK, Ca and Mg at rates depending on how many and how big and healthy they are. Water changes may or may not keep up with this, and only testing will tell you, or the corals showing I’ll health or dying. Possibly the easiest and cheapest is to use Kalkwasser, but your still going to have to buy some test kits, no way around it and given the ever increasing price of LPS I wouldn’t be looking to cut costs that way..

 

[C. Eymann]

Many of my old clients had mostly LPS/softies and a 10-15% w/c once a week was enough to maintain close to NSW levels, grated it all depends on demand as well as salt you are using.

If using a salt with elevated levels like red sea coral pro, and committing to at least 10% a week, You will probably at least keep the levels acceptable. Not ideal, esp for a tank with large demand, but most Lps will tolerate a swing in alk/cal just fine.

 

[Sump Crab]

I don't test or dose. Just change my water and check salinity every so often. Tank seems healthy enough have fish older than my marriage (10 years).

 

[Halal Hotdog]

What part of the world are you in? I imagine if you don't have access to test kits, access to most corals will also be limited. Realistic expectations is key. In the 80's-90's we couldn't keep many corals alive, and the ones that were alive never thrived. What changed is we better understand the needs of the corals. Back than lighting was garbage, but that wasn't the only factor. People had tanks running with nitrates 100+ppm and phosphates off the charts. Copper was an in take treatment for 'white spot'. This isn't an environment most corals will be able to thrive in. Without testing I would recommend staying with easy corals and doing larger water changes (changes 25% weekly). Problem is you will never know what your nitrates and phosphates will be, so softies will definitely be your friends.

 

[Mortie31]

I don't test or dose. Just change my water and check salinity every so often. Tank seems healthy enough have fish older than my marriage (10 years).

What corals do you keep?

 

[Doctorgori]

I’ve gotten lazy and skipped testing dosing and water changes for months only to kill my tank later by doing any or all three later ... but a few thousand dollars later I’ve learned my lesson

 

[tehmadreefer]

My nicest reef tank I had, I didnt dose or test...

My current tank when I dose even small amounts of alk and cal, crap starts stn'ing. I'm bout to go back to that. Makes ya wonder...

Here it is with colonies and mini colonies.

 

[Sump Crab]

What corals do you keep?

Hammers, frogspawn, duncans, trumpets, acans, echinata, cyphaestra, galaxea, zoas, shrooms, clove polyps, gorgonian, green leather, Kenya trees, ricordea, palys.

Just about everything I can think of. No SPS ever as I don't want to dose. Using red sea blue bucket.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Where I'm at its hard to find test kits cheap and even harder to get anything to correct, if something is off.

Say If you do, 10% water change every other week, Can you get by without doing any dosing or testing your water ? (Except for salinity ofc)

I'm hoping to put up a mixed reef although mostly LPS and was thinking, what would happen if you do not dose anything?

If some element like Alk or Cal runs low, will it just slow down the growth or can it also kill corals ??

So far I have only tested for nitrates in 3 months of tank running and all seems fine with low nitrates .

I'm at the point. I Guage perimeters by my corals growth. I'm into NPS softies. A challenge similar to LPS and SPS. Dendronephthya, carnation corals. Scleronephthya too.
Forgot, very small WC, top off as needed with RODI.
Only adjust saltilinity


1 of 33 carnation corals, dendronephthya sp.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

Bump it up to 10% once a week and be careful not to over feed, run carbon and phosguard every few weeks and you’ll be fine. Testing specific gravity though is one you can’t skip. Need to maintain it at 1.026.

 

[Reesj]

Many of my old clients had mostly LPS/softies and a 10-15% w/c once a week was enough to maintain close to NSW levels, grated it all depends on demand as well as salt you are using.

If using a salt with elevated levels like red sea coral pro, and committing to at least 10% a week, You will probably at least keep the levels acceptable. Not ideal, esp for a tank with large demand, but most Lps will tolerate a swing in alk/cal just fine.

I use read sea salt 2kg packs for sps systems, although my salinity at 1.024. Main reason being that Sri Lankan waters runs at low salinity and everything in my tank comes locally.

 

[chefjpaul]

Many regiments.

Always remember that we are keeping water not animals.

Visual is always the first "test" when you get to learn your tank and it's mood swings. I personally don't test a lot, with the exception of KH.
I do send in ICP more than the majority, as I find it fascinating to learn consumption on all levels and affects on the ecosystem.

Regarding the original question, IMO- yes definitely achievable, dependent upon the goal.
Even in my LPS dominated, I still have to dose, not much, but it keeps stability between WC.

Everything consumes something.

 

[Fishurama]

As most have said it all depends on stocking. You will have to dose alk, which isn't hard with brands like
seachem reef builder. Its done by table spoons(the easy way) per gallons twice a week. It even stabilizes your PH. Water changes you are looking closer to 20-25 percent, weekly(depending on tank size)
I test once a month or if I think I have elevated levels/stressed coral based on the eye test. I have a goniopora which is considered a "harder to keep" LPS and ive had it going for a year this way(among other softies) So yes it is do able, even for harder LPS corals, but you have to do weekly water changes and keep it constant and not get lazy which is the hardest part. I wouldn't wait and do bi-weekly.

You will need reef builder or something for alk, i like this as its cheap, works, and stabilzes PH for 6 bucks... Depending on how many LPS you may have to dose Cal/mag but it all depends on stocking, alk you will though no matter what.

reef builder amazon link