SPS without extras

underwaterdan · Oct 30, 2015

I was wondering if I can maintain healthy SPS corals with simply regular water changes and good lighting ... Skipping the dosing and other extras. My tank is healthy now and laps are doing fine with just that and some kalkwasher...

AllSignsPointToFish · Oct 30, 2015

Probably not if you have a lot of fast-growing colonies. From what I read, they can rapidly deplete the alkalinity and calcium in the water. You would probably have to do water changes daily (or very frequently), and each time you changed the water it would be, by definition, a perturbation to water chemistry.

Besides, that's a LOT of salt and DI water to burn through. Just my two cents. I'm sure other opinions will vary.

ReefMadScientist · Oct 30, 2015

You can maintain a healthy SPS tank with just water changes for the short term, depending on the salt you use and their elemental values. BUT Once your SPS start to take off and grow, you will no longer be able to maintain the parameter levels necessary to keep them alive with just water changes. Dosing is part of the cycle of life. There are other options such as calcium reactors, etc. etc. but eventually you will have to explore other areas to keep the tank stable.

So the short answer is yes for short term, but long term no.

favites · Oct 30, 2015

Agree with posters above will need some ALK/CA dosing if plan to manage a SPS population longterm, unless you had an extravagant water changing system that would replace a good percentage on daily basis....

Just curious, why specifically do you ask?

Mark

reefwiser · Oct 30, 2015

The answer is No. Water changes will not keep a stable alkalinity level in the tank which SPS need to thrive in your aquarium.

Rpujol85 · Oct 30, 2015

Please don't listen to this stuff! You can most definitely keep SPS without specialized dosing, Ca reactors, etc.

I'm sure there are thousands of people on this forum (like me) that keep SPS in their tank without any fancy equipment. Heck, I don't even run my skimmer all of the time.

I'm not saying you are going to be able to have an "SPS Dominant" tank or super fast growth, but if you maintain good husbandry practices decent parameters you should have no problem keeping most SPS happy.

-Logzor · Oct 30, 2015

Rpujol85 said:
Please don't listen to this stuff! You can most definitely keep SPS without specialized dosing, Ca reactors, etc.

I'm sure there are thousands of people on this forum (like me) that keep SPS in their tank without any fancy equipment. Heck, I don't even run my skimmer all of the time.

I'm not saying you are going to be able to have an "SPS Dominant" tank or super fast growth, but if you maintain good husbandry practices decent parameters you should have no problem keeping most SPS happy.

I'm sure this is true, in cases where stony corals are not growing rapidly.

Specialized dosing is basically mixing up some baking soda and adding it to your reef a few times a week. Compare this to doing massive water changes as a method to maintain parameters.

Initially you don't require dosing but you will quickly find out that as your corals grow they will consume more alkalinity than can be maintained with normal water changes.

A good solution is adding kalk to top-off water, this can sustain quite a bit of growth.

The problem with a non-dosing approach is that things will look fine until you reach the tipping point, then your corals begin to RTN and you have no good method in place to save them.

ReefMadScientist · Oct 30, 2015

Rpujol85 said:
Please don't listen to this stuff! You can most definitely keep SPS without specialized dosing, Ca reactors, etc.

I'm sure there are thousands of people on this forum (like me) that keep SPS in their tank without any fancy equipment. Heck, I don't even run my skimmer all of the time.

I'm not saying you are going to be able to have an "SPS Dominant" tank or super fast growth, but if you maintain good husbandry practices decent parameters you should have no problem keeping most SPS happy.

I am in a good mood today so I won't go negative. Just want to say I respect your opinion.

acolotto · Oct 30, 2015

Yes very easily attainable. I do weekly water changes and do not dose anything, Tanks is going on 6 yrs and never dosed anything. 90 gallon with weekly 10 gallon water changes. Every so often i do dose Kalkwasser through my ato but thats simple. My SPS do not RTN, do not have nutrient problems, and growth is great. I do not run gfo, biopellets, carbon. Just a skimmer and water changes

Frag tank is ran this way also, no issues and by coral collection id say is 98% acros

ReefMadScientist · Oct 30, 2015

acolotto said:
Yes very easily attainable. I do weekly water changes and do not dose anything, Tanks is going on 6 yrs and never dosed anything. 90 gallon with weekly 10 gallon water changes. Every so often i do dose Kalkwasser through my ato but thats simple. My SPS do not RTN, do not have nutrient problems, and growth is great. I do not run gfo, biopellets, carbon. Just a skimmer and water changes

Kalk definitelty helps keep things stable. I misread that part of the OP's question.

As for your Kalk dosing, it is just as simple as two-part for me. Sure, you have to invest in a $80-$200 dollar doser, but mixing your own elements to dose Kh and Ca is just as simple and cost effective.

acolotto · Oct 30, 2015

ReefMadScientist said:
Hey you cheated!!! He said just water changes lol.

As for your Kalk dosing, it is just as simple as two-part for me. Sure, you have to invest in a $80-$200 dollar doser, but mixing your own elements to dose Kh and Ca is just as simple and cost effective.

lol i do not do kalk all the time, but probably do at least one 5 gallon jug with kalk in it a month, seems to help with growth, and its literally adding a powder to my ato. I have been doing weekly water changes for years now every Sunday, I'm used to it, feels weird if i skip a weekend lol. And yes its very easy to keep stable parameters with water changes. I do not get ALK swings like suggested above, i use reef crystals since day 1. Parameters dont change and for sps the weekly WCs help me maintain a ULNS and attain great colors.

Only thing is i make 15 gallons of saltwater a week (5 gallons for frag tank) and anywhere from 10 to 20 gallons of top off water, so after a little bit the amount I spend on DI resin and salt probably could of bought a whole 2 part system. What im trying to say either way you are going to spend the money, so make a decision if you will be able to maintain a weekly WC schedule or if you prefer to dose and maybe do a WC once a month.

MOPAR · Oct 30, 2015

It can be done, but I would say majority of people end up having to dose something. The variables for each tank are different so the calcium and alkalinity consumption will vary. The same amount of sps in a small tank will lower calcium and alkalinity much faster than that amount of sps in a larger tank. I have tried not dosing and just doing waterchanges to maintain parameters, but in the end I had to dose not only because of the coral consumption, but parameter in salt mixes can vary.

I say there is no definitive answer to your question because like I said each tank is different. Do what works for you and your tank. Also once you get dosing down its easy and will be a more efficent method of keeping parameters in check. Just my 2 cents

erk · Oct 30, 2015

I tried once to do this. Just sustain on water changes alone. But once the SPS took off, I couldn't keep up with once a week WCs. I went to twice weekly WCs and that was OK, but still didn't meet demand. I ended up crashing the tank because I forgot to change out my RO/DI filters. I was using so much water and exhausting the RO/DI filters quicker than anticipated. Salt consumption was costly. Now I just manually dose ESV Alk, Ca, and Mg and it is far cheaper. Costs only 12 bucks per 500ml bottle refill. I dose 5ml of Alk/Ca and 10ml of Mg a day. 100 days of dosing for Alk/Ca and 50 days for Mg. Comes to ~150 bucks a year in supplements. Bucket of Brightwell's NeoMarine is ~80 bucks at my LFS. One bucket prepares 150 gal of water. I do 5 gal WCs, so 30 WCs per bucket. Once a week gives me 30 weeks which is good. But to try and survive on WCs alone, I'm looking at 10-15 weeks per bucket. That means 320 bucks a year if I do 2 WCs a week. Versus 160 bucks at once a week WCs. That is 310 bucks a year for salt and supplements or 320 bucks for just WCs. Add in all the time spent mixing water and lugging it around, you get tired pretty dang quick. So, that's my reasoning for dosing supplements. I'm dosing by hand now, but plan to use auto dosing once I can setup the 40B with 55 gal sump. Currently using a 27 gal black storage container with 6500K lights over it. Corals might not be super colorful, but dang they grow fast.

AllSignsPointToFish · Oct 30, 2015

I suppose the rate of coralline algae growth can also affect calcium and alkalinity levels, possibly significantly in smaller aquariums.

Bryman · Nov 1, 2015

Long term no. My 90g was using 1.1 Dkh Alk per day when my colonies got going. Basically everything would be dead in 2 days without doses at that time.

larangcon · Nov 2, 2015

Simplicity is everyone's goal, in my opinion water changes will not meet the demand as the corals grow. You will need at a minimum at least a 2 part dosing. There's a thread here about a guy recording his water changes, not sure if he is still doing it.

DanConnor · Nov 3, 2015

Right- a tank full of growing sps will simply use more calcium than water changes can supply. If it's a very small tank I suppose you could do a 50% water change every day, but that's hardly easier than dosing.

If you have a bit of coral, kalk in your top off will work. More than that you need to dose. Really big tanks with a lot of coral a calcium reactor is easier, although some people dose those too.

ThePriceSeliger · Nov 3, 2015

I agree with most of the posts on here. I run a very simple system, but I dose 130mL Alk and Ca throughout the day. If I didn't, I wouldn't be able to have an SPS dominate tank.

Derek Hill · Nov 3, 2015

Bryman said:
Long term no. My 90g was using 1.1 Dkh Alk per day when my colonies got going. Basically everything would be dead in 2 days without doses at that time.

This. My 93 cube uses almost 1.5-2 dkh daily, and if I run out of alk...I just simply do a 20% water change, but make sure to grab alk the next day. There is no way in hell I could pull it off long term.