Waterchanges might be a farce

[ZoWhat]

Thanks for the info guys. Do yall know about how much you dose per day?

I do 5ml per gallon over the course of a week in 3-4 doses. Some ppl double or triple that. thing is..... start slooooow

If you look longways down your tank and you see a "darkening" of green colored water, time to cut back.

Ultimately if you took 2-3 gals and had it in a white 5gal bucket... your water should have a nice light green tint to it.


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[ZoWhat]

Ut-oh..... the Instant Ocean guys are knocking on my front door for starting this post

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I do 5ml per gallon over the course of a week in 3-4 doses.

If you look longways down your tank and you see a "darkening" of green colored water, time to cut back.

Ultimately if you took 2-3 gals and had it in a white 5gal bucket... your water should have a nice light green tint to it.


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My 180 gets about 3gallons a week, but is loaded with nps. My 500 gets about 10 gallons a week, again, has a lot of nps as well as a lot of other things with polyps out and ready. The 75 and 40 both get about 1/4 gallon a week. My sons 14 bio cube gets 14 ounces a week. The pulsing Xenia in that tank can clear the little bit of water that is in there very quickly.

Basically a slight, like very slight green tint to the water, as @skimjim mentioned. Too much green, cut it back.

 

[Reef.]

Is it fair to compare water changes to dosing with phyto?

Or claiming water changes aren’t needed yet dose some of the elements a water change could be replacing?

Replacing a water change with some other method of removing/adding nutrients/elements is not really proving w/c are unnecessary but that there is an alternative to achieve a similar result.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Is it fair to compare water changes to dosing with phyto?

Or claiming water changes aren’t needed yet dose some of the elements a water change could be replacing?

Replacing a water change with some other method of removing/adding nutrients/elements is not really proving w/c are unnecessary but that there is an alternative to achieve a similar result.

I think it can be compared to water changes. As we say in the south, there are a lot of ways to skin a cat.

I have seen tanks that look awesome with the typical setups and scheduled water changes, so that method obviously works.

I think the basis of what @skimjim was getting to is this may be another option to look into and not that they are unnecessary. It could also have added benefits versus just water changes as an option, but we have to discuss those to see.

 

[stanleo]

I am religious about doing a 20 gallon water change every two weeks but I don't do it for nutrient control. I think my skimmer and refugium handles that. I do it to replenish trace elements like iodine and strontium, things I don't test for.

 

[Aqua Man]

Mercer of Montana is great phyto.

I was changing 4 gallons in my 20 gallon weekly. Was trying to win a Battle with algae. Wound up with Dino cause I stripped the tank of the good stuff. Now I’m doing 2-4 gallons every 2 or 3 weeks. No skimmer.

What’s hard to learn is exactly when a water change is needed or not. saying change X amount every X is not always correct.

So yeah, I agree. Took awhile to figure it out though!

 

[LegendaryCG]

Well, I firmly belive the nutrition uptake varies on the coral you have. I have a mixed reef and a dirtier one at that. My soft corals are ****FLOURISHING**** (is that a word?) my acros and montis are also doing well but probably not as good as if I went lower nutrient. I also have some undesirable algae but it's all a balancing act. By having multiple varieties they can each consume what they need which is different and balances the system. Thats my theory anyway. I do do a 1 gallon water change once a day on a 70 gallon system.

 

[Tiki Reef Joshua]

Most successful long term tanks I’ve seen do weekly/bi-weekly changes at minimum and practice good detritus control. I’ve seen many long term tanks crash that try to add in things and take a hands off approach. Not saying either way is better, but I follow my own eyes and what I’ve seen. Weekly 10% or bi weekly depending on alk/Calk/po4 etc..... I keep my tank super clean. Not knocking a different approach at all, but long term success from what I have seen personally is usually paired with people who do water changes regularly.

 

[najer]

Non unless required, I do dose stuff though!

 

[forestsofkelp]

Personally I think water changes are not necessary, but the thinking behind them obviously is.

Water changes grew out of the origin of reef keeping, back before there were good protein skimmers, dosing pumps, accurate tests, and good understanding of reef chemistry.

Why perform a water change? to replace trace minerals/nutrients, and remove detritus/ waste. A long time ago, this was the only way to accurately do this and maintain what, at the time, was considered a healthy tank. There was no amazon or internet to learn/discuss reef chemistry. No doser pumps, apexes etc. Your only option was frequent, nonspecific corrections. In the last 30 or so years, reef knowledge/tech has advanced rapidly.

While the WC method is still effective (and one I have used for years) I think it mainly benefits smaller tanks where accurate dosing is difficult, small amounts of waste can have a big effect, and 10g water change is no big deal. With larger tanks, scale, space and resources can become an issue.

These days nearly all major nutrients/minerals can be measured and automatically or easily dosed, with chemicals that can arrive at your door (even overnight). Chemistry knowledge issues can be resolved within a day or two. Waste can be removed/prevented with skimmers, sand ripping, and Berlin methods. Detritus can be removed with power filters, filter socks, strong powerheads,etc etc.

Basically what I am trying to say is the tried and true water change is a blunt instrument for what can be done in a more exacting way today. I have my own opinions on what is better.

I can do water changes in my smaller residence on anything up to 60g. If I ever want to keep my 180g dream build, I need to go without water changes...I dont have a fish room, I cant store/make that much water, and I personally believe freshwater is a resource I need to conserve (well...as much as possible owning a luxury like a decorative reef tank). 180g of top off consumption probably be what my 20 or 60g would use in water changes. No water changes means no salt spills or mixing. And I have nowhere to easily dump large amounts of seawater (toilet is far away). No water changes will let me do more with the same space/water.

 

[forestsofkelp]

Forgot the method lol.

dosing pump on the 500 with a 10 gallon tank to hold it. My 180 and 90 are sort of diy and drip. They also culture as well. Once they get low, I pump water into them to fill them back up, a dosing pump kicks on to provide some food for them and it just keeps repeating. I have lost a few cultures here and there doing that, but I have my main cultures in my fish room as back ups.

If you feed a lot, I suggest culturing your own with a good starter to begin with. Here is a good read and culturing is super easy.

Culture your own Phytoplankton | Melev's Reef

www.melevsreef.com

hmm so do you culture in one tank only, and drip that directly into your DT? I have been interested in phyto culturing, but have unable to find a method that doesnt require weekly culture swaps/reinnoculation.

 

[swiss1939]

Personally I think water changes are not necessary, but the thinking behind them obviously is.

Water changes grew out of the origin of reef keeping, back before there were good protein skimmers, dosing pumps, accurate tests, and good understanding of reef chemistry.

Why perform a water change? to replace trace minerals/nutrients, and remove detritus/ waste. A long time ago, this was the only way to accurately do this and maintain what, at the time, was considered a healthy tank. There was no amazon or internet to learn/discuss reef chemistry. No doser pumps, apexes etc. Your only option was frequent, nonspecific corrections. In the last 30 or so years, reef knowledge/tech has advanced rapidly.

While the WC method is still effective (and one I have used for years) I think it mainly benefits smaller tanks where accurate dosing is difficult, small amounts of waste can have a big effect, and 10g water change is no big deal. With larger tanks, scale, space and resources can become an issue.

These days nearly all major nutrients/minerals can be measured and automatically or easily dosed, with chemicals that can arrive at your door (even overnight). Chemistry knowledge issues can be resolved within a day or two. Waste can be removed/prevented with skimmers, sand ripping, and Berlin methods. Detritus can be removed with power filters, filter socks, strong powerheads,etc etc.

Basically what I am trying to say is the tried and true water change is a blunt instrument for what can be done in a more exacting way today. I have my own opinions on what is better.

I can do water changes in my smaller residence on anything up to 60g. If I ever want to keep my 180g dream build, I need to go without water changes...I dont have a fish room, I cant store/make that much water, and I personally believe freshwater is a resource I need to conserve (well...as much as possible owning a luxury like a decorative reef tank). 180g of top off consumption probably be what my 20 or 60g would use in water changes. No water changes means no salt spills or mixing. And I have nowhere to easily dump large amounts of seawater (toilet is far away). No water changes will let me do more with the same space/water.

Agreed! Neither are wrong.. just choose your preferred husbandry method. Personally, living in an apartment, I am not comfortable with constantly making and changing water. The opportunities to forget and overflow RODI bucket and or spill when doing the WC is just too much risk for me. I know there are float switches for RODI units, but i have yet to get mine to work properly. Plus I felt I was spending too much time every week making both fresh and salt water and juggling containers. Dosing to replenish elements and to remove nutrients alongside with regular testing is drastically less time per week for me. And much less stressful! Added benefit, I would eventually have to dose to maintain elements anyways, so if I could combine the wc and the replenishment dosing into one.. why wouldn't I? I also feel for me I understand why I'm doing things and see a level of precision that I just felt wasn't as clear or direct with WC.

Summary... find what works with your time and space needs and stick with it!

EDIT: My water maintenance tasks now are drastically simpler and less time. I make one 5 gal container of RODI every week and a half for tunze ATO and just swap the 5 gal container when it gets low. I also keep one 5 gal container of mixed sw on hand for any random needs like when I remove smaller amounts of sw from DT for acclimating fish/coral, then just add it back by the cup as needed to keep salinity stable. So at most I'm making two 5 gal containers of water every other week with only one 5 gal sw mix a month at most. And everything is stored in sealable 5 gal containers that are easy to carry around and prevent any spills.

 

[stingeragent]

Not sure.... try reaching out to them:

Their website seems to be dead also.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

hmm so do you culture in one tank only, and drip that directly into your DT? I have been interested in phyto culturing, but have unable to find a method that doesnt require weekly culture swaps/reinnoculation.

This is hard to explain.

I culture in my fish room for most of it. The 2 tanks that culturing going on with them is not in them. I have ATO containers I repurposed for dosing and culturing. When they get low, a pump kicks on and does not stop until the second float switch is tripped. This adds new water to the container. Then a dosing pump adds a set amount of fertilizer to the container. Being as the container has its own light, the phoyto now has food and grows again. This process repeats until my culture crashes in that container. It was more of an experiment, but actually works well. Notice I said culture crashes. In this situation it is not as controlled as I would like it to be. Temp under the stand varies a bit and affects it. Light gets unplugged on accident lol. Temperature under the stand has been my biggest fight doing this.

 

[blasterman]

So, we're still making the same claims that water changes replenish trace elements when many of us are using salt mixes that don't add trace elements. The term "trace element" itself doesn't have any regulation either. Some salt mixes consider magnesium a trace element. I worked in the pharma industry for 5 years and claims are being made here that the FDA doesn't regulate with heart medicine.

You do water changes to export nutrients because the male egos here can't admit their tanks are over stocked. I still claim and will always claim that if you're doing water changes to keep nitrate down you need a different hobby.

I can understand doing water changes to export DOC's because even the best skimmers can't export all of those. A $30 ozone generator I bought off Ebay eliminates DOCs in my tank in a few hours of use run every couple of weeks. My corals hate water changes and the best tanks I've seen rarely do them.

 

[ZoWhat]

Time out. OP Poster here....

I titled my post incorrectly as many are taking it to mean ALL waterchanges are a joke and one should never do a WC.

I too admitted somewhere in the post I do about 3-4 big WCs a year. 180g DT 100g sump.

About 3 times a year I completely drain the sump to the point I ShopVac
it dry. I then add all new saltwater using Fritz RPM.

I was simply laying out thst I don't think weekly, bimonthly, monthly WCs are needed in my case...

....and maybe the word "farce " meaning a laughable joke doinf smthg foolishly is TOO STRONG of a word used here.

I was NOT trolling either. Just pointing out that maybe....just maybe, regularly scheduled WCs are really not necessary.

I'm liking hearing both sides though.

I'm proud everyone has made their point without coming across as "I-right-and-You-are-soooo-wrong" attitudes.


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[X-37B]

I run bare bottom.
Detrius builds up in one place.
For detrius removal, once a month I remove it with a hose that drains into my sock.
Then I change the sock.
I run a modified EZ method with a carx.
Po4 runs around .02 and no3 <5.

 

[Tiki Reef Joshua]

I’m seeing a lot of, “it’s inconvenient for me, therefore it’s wrong or unnecessary.” I’m not sure this is the correct approach. Find out what is your honest assessment of how to control your reef and build your infrastructure to that. Size your tank appropriately to what you can manage. Maybe I’m misinterpreting though. A no water change method I’m sure can work if researched well etc.... I just think a justification in the name of convenience is a bad road to go down for the long term. I could never run a tank with a sand bed and not siphon out the detritus personally. I will say there are methods to do that using a sock in the sump, but still.... for sure there are successfully people who don’t WC. They are all over the internet, I just don’t know any personally.

 

[swiss1939]

I didn't see anyone saying it was inconvenient. I saw many people with various valid justifications for going without regularly, and each has explained their willingness to deal with the replacement of elements and removal of excess nutrients in various ways, which in and of itself shows that these people are not doing it blindly but researching how to do it in ways that will work.