Too many water changes?

Waters · Aug 29, 2016

I have been maintaining my SPS 105G tank over a year now by doing weekly 15 gallon water changes. I have not missed a single one yet. My nitrates and phosphates have always been near 0 with my ALK being close to 10. Most of the SPS have always been understandable pale in color. I have tried feeding heavier with no luck. Rather than dose to elevate my nitrates, would switching to every other week water changes help or hurt my situation? My tank has always been extremely stable...I am afraid to throw off that balance. The coral does seem to respond to the water changes by the addition of trace elements I assume (although it could be in my head lol).

saltyfilmfolks · Aug 29, 2016

Yea slowing down in the WC will help build detectable nutrient levels. Are you running GFO and nitrate reducers?

donnievaz · Aug 29, 2016

I would stick with weekly and drop the change volume down to 10 gallons. That may preserve more of the stability.

saltyphish · Aug 29, 2016

I'm assuming from your post you do not have to dose? Instead you maintain your levels through W.C. only? If that is the case and if you stop doing the water changes make sure you moniter your ALk, Mag and Cal. Don't know what your usage is in your tank but can't be too high if your maintaining just with water changes. That would be my main concern. Otherwise should help. People dose nitrates with no problems in case you wanted to try that instead and stick with your W.C. regimen. I like to stick with what works personally.

Waters · Aug 30, 2016

Thanks to all the replies. I am dosing ALK and Ca via Apex Dos. I am also running Carbon and GFO in separate reactors. I have never had any recordable Nitrates from the beginning....I was blessed with really good live rock from the start. The main reason for the water changes was to give me a chance to clean the substrate (less than an inch thick) and replenish trace elements. I have a big fear of algae (had to shut down a tank due to algae many years ago when I did everything wrong) which is why I am reluctant to stop running the GFO. I guess I should be stopping the GFO and reducing the water changes for a while to see what happens? I definitely do not have an algae issue now but the tank is not algae free either.

Brew12 · Aug 30, 2016

Waters said:
I guess I should be stopping the GFO and reducing the water changes for a while to see what happens?

If nothing good in this hobby happens quickly you may want to think about doing one change or the other and seeing how your tank reacts. If you still don't see the improvement you want then try adding the other change to it. It doesn't sound like you are in a situation that would call for rapid adjustments at this point.

Just a thought....

Randy Holmes-Farley · Aug 30, 2016

I'd probably look to feed more or dose something like amino acids to help feed the system.

Waters · Aug 30, 2016

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
I'd probably look to feed more or dose something like amino acids to help feed the system.

I have been feeding Reef Chili or Reef Roids several times a week...hasn't affected the nitrates at all but I do get good polyp extension on the SPS.

Waters · Aug 30, 2016

Brew12 said:
If nothing good in this hobby happens quickly you may want to think about doing one change or the other and seeing how your tank reacts. If you still don't see the improvement you want then try adding the other change to it. It doesn't sound like you are in a situation that would call for rapid adjustments at this point.

Just a thought....

Good point...I agree. Everything appears to be in decent health other than the pale colors. Maybe I will just try going to a twice a month water change and keep everything else as is for now.

najer · Aug 30, 2016

Waters said:
Good point...I agree. Everything appears to be in decent health other than the pale colors. Maybe I will just try going to a twice a month water change and keep everything else as is for now.

My last waterchange was about 5 months ago, I don't do triton or such like I just run my tank differently.
Especially as your kh is at 10 then going to bi weekly waterchanges will be fine in my opinion, let us know how things go.

Jimbo · Aug 30, 2016

I'd definitely try removing the GFO if your colors are pale. Give it a shot, you can always add it back if PO4 starts to rise.

drama1993 · Aug 30, 2016

Has anyone checked this out? 'ive been using it for 6mo +/- and it does seem to help with coloration and growth.
http://reefprostore.com/reef-pro-complete-ab.html

GoJimmy · Aug 30, 2016

Waters said:
Good point...I agree. Everything appears to be in decent health other than the pale colors. Maybe I will just try going to a twice a month water change and keep everything else as is for now.

I have a 29 gal biocube sps dominated for about 9 months. I had the same experience. First time around, riddled with algae and water quality issues. This time, I started the tank with a bigger skimmer, gfo reactor. I had no detectable nitrates or phosphates and my corals were pale. I still do weekly water cages and dose kalk through my ATO. I have tremendous colors starting in my sps corals now since I started dosing Seachem Nitrogen about a month or 2 ago. I still feed well, change my floss twice weekly my nitrates are stable at 1.5ppm

Fercho · Aug 30, 2016

I was just in your situation less than a month ago. I have sps corals. The acros would pale within a week or two from purchase. Some encrusting montis did too.
Overall corals (exept acros) looked ok but not happy. Poor polyp extension.
Came to find out i was stripping my water from NO3.
PO4 was barely detectable.
After reading and searching for an answer i ran across this thread here in r2r:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/help-my-sps-are-paling-and-i-dont-know-what-to-do.210035/

It talks about carefully dosing nitrates back into the system. I am currently dosing NO3 with positive results.
I recomend you read the whole thread. It has good info that will lead you to the right path.

Neptune1707 · Aug 30, 2016

Interesting feed....I just posted this on my Facebook Red Sea max page this morning: So my Max 500 been up and running since January. Live rock & fish transferred from old 90g setup. Currently all water parameters seem spot on. My zoos, colt coral, chalice, frogspawn, coral mushrooms are alive and open, just not seeing any growth. My zoos have a small footer starting to grow with 3 polyps but that's about it. Any thoughts on growth. Or I'm a just an inpatient reef keeper? LOL

My tank is pretty clean Nitrate, Phosphate at 0. Is it possible my tank is "to clean". Just started to notice a little bit of algae on a couple of rocks but nothing of to much concern. I'm so confused at this point, because I was committed to have a lot of fish and work at keeping nitrates and phosphates at 0 so that I could also keep coral. Maybe this is old school thinking. Back when I got in the hobby it seems like you either had nutrient high fish only tanks, or extremely pristine water for keeping corals with hardly any fish. Now the more blogs I read...reef keepers are talking about adding more nutrient for their corals to thrive. So did I miss something in "reef school"....or is there a happy medium

Currently adding 2 part A/B calcium, Red Sea NoPoX, Red Sea A/B reef nutrition and that's all. Doing a 35g water change about every 3 weeks on 135g system. Any thoughts?????

Ken Williams · Aug 30, 2016

What is the longest you can get away with not doing a W.C. I do mine twice a month

Brew12 · Aug 30, 2016

Ken Williams said:
What is the longest you can get away with not doing a W.C. I do mine twice a month

I've seen some members on here say they don't do water changes. Not recommending that route, just saying....

saltyfilmfolks · Aug 30, 2016

Ken Williams said:
What is the longest you can get away with not doing a W.C. I do mine twice a month

to be responsible, look at all of the parameters and dose trace elements. it depends on bio load.

mrtian97 · Aug 30, 2016

Do you feed with any amino? I use Red sea reef energy twice a week (suggested is daily but I don't want to overdo it)

dgrigor02 · Aug 30, 2016

Do you run LEDs ? I started getting pastel colors instead of changing anything chemistry wise or add more food, I just reduce my lighting peak intensity about 10% ( I left the duration the same ), saved a little electricity and the corals got a little darker. Just throwing that out there as a possible option.