water changes

Luka · Dec 7, 2015

I have a 15 gallon tank I do 5 gallons every week

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 7, 2015

merlberg said:
Wow i have no idea wht those are lol.. I will look them up now tho n is it a plus to do in a fowlr tank? N why please?

You may not need much if you have adequate nutrient export. In a FOWLR, the concern aside from nitrate and phosphate, IMO would be maintaining alkalinity and calcium (and maybe magnesium) for coralline algae growth. That is probably best achieved through dosing than water changes. Coralline is the purple/pink stuff that coats rocks and looks better than green algae coating them:

Figure 1. Coralline algae can be a significant user of calcium and alkalinity in many aquaria. It also incorporates a lot of magnesium (1-5% by weight in the skeleton), compared to many corals, and so can skew the demand toward less calcium. This example was taken by Chris Holmes in his reef aquarium.
which is from:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-12/rhf/

malira · Dec 7, 2015

I have an 10g IM FUSION and can tell when I need to do a water change by my acans and lobo. They begin to contract around day 3 or 4. When I do a WC they inflate and get real happy. Now that I've been on a schedule of 4 gallon WC every 4 to 5 days my zoas have taken off and my Kelly green SPS has come back strong.

kimba · Dec 7, 2015

This was interesting to see how everyone else does it.

I use to do 10% every week for yrs. Tank was awesome. Then life got crazy and I did like 2 changes a yr. Corals got mad, hair algae grew every where, tank was terrible.

Now I do 10% every week. Tank looks awesome.

ncfishguy · Dec 7, 2015

kimba said:
This was interesting to see how everyone else does it.

I use to do 10% every week for yrs. Tank was awesome. Then life got crazy and I did like 2 changes a yr. Corals got mad, hair algae grew every where, tank was terrible.

Now I do 10% every week. Tank looks awesome.

How big is your tank

kimba · Dec 7, 2015

12 gal

ermartin · Dec 7, 2015

30% once a month sometimes sooner sometimes later... mostly let my tank's tell me when they might need a change

beaslbob · Dec 7, 2015

domination2580 said:
So how do you remove phosphates and nitrates?

I don't.
I use macro algae to recycle phosphates, nitrates, and co2 into fish food and oxygen.

beaslbob · Dec 7, 2015

domination2580 said:
So if I were to dose alkalinity and calcium, and had macro algae to eat my nitrates and phosphates, I shouldn't have to do a lot of water changes

yes

domination2580 · Dec 7, 2015

Would there be anything else I would have to do?

beaslbob · Dec 7, 2015

domination2580 said:
Would there be anything else I would have to do?

you might have to protect the macro algae from fish and cleaner crews. I used 1/4" square plastic grid (egg crate) used as light diffusers in dropped ceilinge to partition the back 2-3 to form a refugium. then add lights behind the tank pointing forward. Nitrates dropped to 0 in three weeks. pods and macros thrived and my tangs enjoyed grazing on the macros that poked through the grid.

domination2580 · Dec 7, 2015

I will be having a sump with refugium and ill have two other tanks specificity for macro

beaslbob · Dec 7, 2015

domination2580 said:
I will be having a sump with refugium and ill have two other tanks specificity for macro

I say go for it. Don't be surprised if during initial startup you get a 3-4 week or so 20ppm or so nitrate spike. With little to no ammonia/nitrite spikes. that just happens when the tank has lotsa plant life.

domination2580 · Dec 7, 2015

AquamanE · Dec 7, 2015

Ive been reading Holmes-Farley's articles for years and have never gone wrong. I always paid particular attention to his WC article where he not only describes WC, but graphs it out. It speaks vlumes that answer the OP question. Those that claim "no what changes, tank is a year old", IMHO respond again in a few years.

However, ive never liked carrying buckets. So im doing this now for past 2 years with great success:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/automatic-water-changes-it-doesnt-get-any-better-then-this.141619/

pciscott · Dec 7, 2015

Genesis Renew for 3 months now 12 gallons per day on a 600 gallon system and it is doing very well. I add bags of instant ocean salt to my bin once or twice a week and clean the glass. May back it down a bit, but it is flourishing and I do not want to change a thing. I went with Renew system over dosing pump because I could do 100 in a hour if I needed to. Very nice system with many built in failsafes. The water gets changed 1 gallon at a time every 2 hours. I use IO salt in 200 gallon boxes and have my top off bin marked for each bag to make things easy. I always found that things do better with regular water changes and when you get lazy things decline.

BradB · Dec 7, 2015

People are surprised when I say I don't do water changes, but I go through 600 gallons worth of salt a year in about a 400 gallon system. Most of this is heavy skimming, but also acclimating new livestock, trading corals, even spills.

Bruce Burnett · Dec 8, 2015

I do almost none, except to make up what is lost through skimmer and changing media in carbon and gfo reactors. I use an over sized skimmer for waste export. Calcium reactor with aragonite media to keep trace elements, calcium and alkalinity in line. I use a recirculating pellet reactor for keeping nitrates low. I hate water changes as much as I hate losing a coral or fish

Bruce Burnett · Dec 8, 2015

beaslbob said:
+1

have ran a mixed reef tank for up to nine years and FW planted system for up to 9 years also with no water changes. Nitrates and phosphates unmeasureable. FW tank 10g had a more or less stable population of 30 live bearers for years.

my .02

When I had my fresh water with mostly African Cichlids I never did water changes but I did use a diatom filter with carbon powder to clean tank and stir up the gravel in a 90 gallon tank. Doing bare bottom on my current 240 gallon reef tank, hate water changes.

Pete polyp · Dec 8, 2015

From my experience after about 3 months of no water changes colors are kinda faded and growth isn't as good. After about 5 months colors are pretty dull and there really isn't a change with the slower growth. After resuming water changes everything bounced back after a couple months. The only reason I change water is for the trace elements that have been depleted. Can you get away without changing the water and keep your reef alive? Yes. Will it live up to the potential it has without them? No.