Water changes if parameters are in check

[lonewonderer]

Hello fellow reefers. I have a quick question. I recently built a 60 gallon shallow reef tank and was wondering what is the longest time i can go without water change? Tank has been running for about 3 months now and water parameters are in par. Not being lazy just wondering. I was just thinking 10% wc per week is too much if the phos and nitrates are undetectable.

List of equipment I use
60 gallon shallow reef tank
15% sps, 50% lps, 35% softies
10 small fishes
1/2” sand bed 60 pounds LR
Trigger sapphire 26
Marine pure blocks
Trigger Reservoir
Radion xr30 gen3 pro
2 hipagero supplementary lights for softies
Clear water scrubber CW200
Nyos 160
Hydor Seltz D return pump 2400 gph
Maxspect icecap 3k
Apex EL with feeder, wxm
UV sterilizer
Jbj ATO
300w titanium heater
Aqua medic dosing pump evo4 “offline atm”

Water parameters
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate undetectable
Phos undetectable
Cal 420
Alk 8
Mag 1300
Ph 8.1

 

[Flippers4pups]

Hello fellow reefers. I have a quick question. I recently built a 60 gallon shallow reef tank and was wondering what is the longest time i can go without water change? Tank has been running for about 3 months now and water parameters are in par. Not being lazy just wondering. I was just thinking 10% wc per week is too much if the phos and nitrates are undetectable.

List of equipment I use
60 gallon shallow reef tank
15% sps, 50% lps, 35% softies
10 small fishes
1/2” sand bed 60 pounds LR
Trigger sapphire 26
Marine pure blocks
Trigger Reservoir
Radion xr30 gen3 pro
2 hipagero supplementary lights for softies
Clear water scrubber CW200
Nyos 160
Hydor Seltz D return pump 2400 gph
Maxspect icecap 3k
Apex EL with feeder, wxm
UV sterilizer
Jbj ATO
300w titanium heater
Aqua medic dosing pump evo4 “offline atm”

Water parameters
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate undetectable
Phos undetectable
Cal 420
Alk 8
Mag 1300
Ph 8.1

Just wondering if your dosing anything, since your nutrient limited.

You can definitely skip water changes if your pramameters are in check, but depending on how many corals you have, dosing elements and or amino acids will be necessary .

 

[Crabs McJones]

Are you supplimenting major, minor and trace elements? Part of the reason for water changes is to not only remove unwanted nutrients, but to add needed nutrients back into the tank

 

[lonewonderer]

I have not yet but i have my doser and the suppliments ready. Is there a time frame when to add suppliments? I know about the alk, mag and cal. Thanks guys

 

[Flippers4pups]

Are you supplimenting major, minor and trace elements? Part of the reason for water changes is to not only remove unwanted nutrients, but to add needed nutrients back into the tank

Also, sometimes water changes can’t remove enough waste and not enough to replace all needed elements. Thus, dosing.

 

[lonewonderer]

Just wondering if your dosing anything, since your nutrient limited.

You can definitely skip water changes if your pramameters are in check, but depending on how many corals you have, dosing elements and or amino acids will be necessary .

Nothing yet at the moment but i have the stuff with me. Just need to know when to add those.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Also, sometimes water changes can’t remove enough waste and not enough to replace all needed elements. Thus, dosing.

Yup, and either reactors or refugiums or scrubbers for nutrient export

 

[Flippers4pups]

Nothing yet at the moment but i have the stuff with me. Just need to know when to add those.

If you were doing weekly water changes, then dosing once weekly usually works. Of course, since you have a doser, you can spread that out over a week’s time.

 

[lonewonderer]

If you were doing weekly water changes, then dosing once weekly usually works.

I was thinking about doing it twice a month and doing wc every 5 weeks. Hopefully that works.

 

[Flippers4pups]

I was thinking about doing it twice a month and doing wc every 5 weeks. Hopefully that works.

As @Crabs Mcjones stated, if you have a solid nutrient export method and have dosing down, hypothetically you can stop doing water changes.

Me, I’m going towards once a month 20% water changes. That’s me right now and that may change going forward.

 

[Flippers4pups]

I don’t have my nutrient export down pat yet. I’m looking into either a DIY or converting a phosban reactor over to a sulfur de-nitrate reactor.

Sulfur reactor -nitrates
GFO reactor - phosphate
GAC reactor - DOC’s
Chaeto in refugium- everything else

Dose elements once a week. Everything looks good (polyp extension and color and growth)
No more water changes.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hello fellow reefers. I have a quick question. I recently built a 60 gallon shallow reef tank and was wondering what is the longest time i can go without water change? Tank has been running for about 3 months now and water parameters are in par. Not being lazy just wondering. I was just thinking 10% wc per week is too much if the phos and nitrates are undetectable.

While it is fine to try to run a reef tank with no water changes, and many folks do, nutrient reduction is, IMO, not the primary reason to do water changes.

Here's my rational from my water change article:

Water Changes in Reef Aquaria by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

Conclusion

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.

 

[lonewonderer]

Thanks so much for the input randy and the guys! You are the best!!! Happy saturday everyone!