Possible to never do water changes?

[PeterEde]

Thanks I'll have a read. I make my own saltwater so I always have water on hand.

If you have critters/bacteria to eat detritus and disturb the sand and enough flow to pick it up and dump over the return

 

[QuinnLee512]

My tank is almost 11 months old. I've changed my sand for coarser and since have not vacuumed my bottom.
I have a sand sifter goby and cerith snails that seem to be doing a great job in keeping my bottom clean.
My only WC in recent times has been 15% to reduce No3. Now stable around 25ppm. Dosing Reef essentials.

You keep your nitrates at 25ppm? I'm aiming for around 10. My tank is overstocked. I didn't realize how fast my foxface and pretty much every fish would grow. I'm trying to get my foxface out. That should help with the nitrate and my zoa loss.

 

[PeterEde]

You keep your nitrates at 25ppm? I'm aiming for around 10. My tank is overstocked. I didn't realize how fast my foxface and pretty much every fish would grow. I'm trying to get my foxface out. That should help with the nitrate and my zoa loss.

No I am working my way down from 60ppm. Am now at 24 and going for 10-15.

Just watched MACNA

 

[PeterEde]

You keep your nitrates at 25ppm? I'm aiming for around 10. My tank is overstocked. I didn't realize how fast my foxface and pretty much every fish would grow. I'm trying to get my foxface out. That should help with the nitrate and my zoa loss.

Take out the foxface and watch algae bloom
I had one and took it out and macro algae went nuts. I put another small one in with a sea hair. Not sure which had the biggest impact but my macro is gone
I am dosing NOPOX for NO3. I was dosing as per the bottle for months and no change. Then reefers here advised increasing NOPOX (bottle says nothing about increasing) but now at 6ml per day and NO3 is heading down.

 

[QuinnLee512]

Take out the foxface and watch algae bloom
I had one and took it out and macro algae went nuts. I put another small one in with a sea hair. Not sure which had the biggest impact but my macro is gone
I am dosing NOPOX for NO3. I was dosing as per the bottle for months and no change. Then reefers here advised increasing NOPOX (bottle says nothing about increasing) but now at 6ml per day and NO3 is heading down.

I have 2 tangs, blenny, and turbo snails for algae control.

 

[PeterEde]

I have 2 tangs, blenny, and turbo snails for algae control.

I put a sailfin in my tank after the Foxface. got Ich and died in weeks. Thankfully I managed to not infect other fish. Lost nothing else

 

[Jay'sReefBugs]

Never....? I would say unlikely as at some point you will need to correct some type of issue . You can get pretty close tho I only do around 1 water change a year .

 

[Timfish]

Haven6 seen a better way to get rid of the DOC that builds up in a system.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

Haven6 seen a better way to get rid of the DOC that builds up in a system.

How do you know that you have a DOC buildup?

 

[I never finish anythi]

My goal is never having to do water changes. :⁠-⁠) Even having to vacuum the sand bed is a pain lol

Have plenty of critters to clean and move the sand bed around. You will need to use a dosing program like triton or reef moonshiners. And your nutrients obviously need to be controlled. It’s possible. Plenty of people do it. Few do it well though.

Might as well just change the water

 

[Timfish]

How do you know that you have a DOC buildup?

If you have anything living in your system count on it.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

If you have anything living in your system count on it.

So there's no negative effects then?

 

[Timfish]

So there's no negative effects then?

Just the opposite. This paper found not only algae DOC but dosing coral DOC stimulated bacterial blooms in coral microbiomes/holobionts and caused bleaching and death when dosing nitrogen and phosphorus didn't.

I realize this is a data bomb but here's some links: Don't feel like you need to learn all this at once, I've been diggin up papers for 15 years and more and more papers are being published every year and if anything am getting farther behind. Most important thing I woudl say is do your water changes.

"Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" This video compliments Rohwer's book of the same title (Paper back is ~$20, Kindle is ~$10),
both deal with the conflicting roles of the different types of DOC in reef ecosystems. While there is overlap bewteen his book
and the video both have information not covered by the other and together give a broader view of the complex relationships found
in reef ecosystems

Changing Seas - Mysterious Microbes

Microbial view of Coral Decline

Nitrogen cycling in hte coral holobiont

BActeria and Sponges

Maintenance of Coral Reef Health (refferences at the end)

Optical Feedback Loop in Colorful Coral Bleaching

DNA Sequencing and the Reef Tank Microbiome

Richard Ross What's up with phosphate"

15 Answers

 

[bushdoc]

I've had my tank running for almost a year now. I'm trying not to have to do water changes. However I've been running into high nitrate and phosphate issues. I've started vacuuming the sand bed to try and get the nitrates down. I have to essentially do a water change when vacuuming the sand bed. So was wondering if it's possible to never do a water change when there's a sandbed capturing detritus?

I am not a big fan of weekly or monthly regular water changes, but there are two other issues with NO Water changes: If you are using Two Part additives to correct Ca and dKH, you are slowly changing composition of your "sea" water and it becomes mostly a brine solution. That would happen after very long time. You are also not providing micro elements ( unless you adding them). In Europe Balling method is much more popular than in US and it is designed to overcome problem of Two Part Additives by providing extra elements and correcting imbalances. It is too complicated for me, so I do 20% water changes every 2-3 months or so.

 

[olonmv]

I made one of these for my nano tank and it works really well. Took my nitrates down from 36ppm to single digits. I can maintain any number I want via dosing and flow. Give it a read, it may be what you’re wanting to do.
Edit: I have only mechanical filtration(floss). No skimmer no sump and run an evo 13.5 for reference. It’s a really cheap easy DIY.

Poor Man's Nutrients Control - Donovan's Nitrate Destroyer

Hello fellow reefers!. I have been in the hobby for more than 3 years, the first 2 years was tough. Cyno, diatom, nuisance algae, high NO3 (120ppm at one time) and ich/velvet. I have tried several nutrient control method (poor man, so most of it were DIY project). GFO, water fall scrubber...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[pixelhustler]

I started experimenting a couple of years ago and fully committed to no (major) WCs a bit over a year ago. Crunched numbers and it turns out salt was my biggest expense of time and money. It has helped me bring stability to my system as I control Alk/Ca/Mg/PO4/Nitrate artificially rather than depending on WCs. I think the main challenges are maintaining trace elements, removing contaminants and keeping water clarity (yellowing).

I do vacuum the sand every month and a half or so and top off with 5 gallons give or take.

I handle nutrient control via a Sulfur Denitrator and a DIY Lanthanum Chloride reactor for phosphate. Currently running near 0 PO4 and 15pmm nitrate (by choice). A big Denitrator has the ability to bottom out your nitrates if you want to run ULNS.

I also run Cuprisorb permanently in case something were to leach heavy metals or I forget to change my DI resin. Contaminants not getting diluted is probably the main danger of no WC.

I used to do ICP every 12 months or so but now I’m going to do them every 6-8 months. I use those to roughly calculate trace elements dosing.

That said, if I had the space I’d probably stick to daily 1% auto water changes but I don’t have a back room for water tanks and mixing station at the moment. I’ll probably do a major (30-40%) WC at the end of the year just to freshen things up.