jmichaelh7
2500 Club Member
I’m trying to stabilize my tanks natural biodiversity. It seems like a water change would just interfere. Does anyone hold off time to time?
weekly water changes still?
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Zer0
Active Member
The point of water changes is to replenish elements that the livestock use up, or to lower nutrient levels, or remove pollutants/toxins that may have gotten in the tank for whatever reason. If you dose for those used up elements, then water changes aren’t really necessary, in theory anyways. That being said, aside from removing things from the water column, I don’t see why water changes would affect your tanks biodiversity.
Dkmoo
Valuable Member
Nice, maturing a tank is analogous to potty training a toddler, and you my friend is going with the "let them sht everywhere" method. Some had success and made maturation faster this method. The logic is to run up the nutrients to allow all forms of life a chance to explode.
Usually this cause/effect is more apparent the opposite way - tanks that have too much mechanical filtration have slower maturation periods.
However, running up the nutrient doesn't always mean better diversity - Something to look out for is that you still have to manually control the competition so that not one thing will get too far ahead and outcompete everything else. Usually in young tanks, cyano, dino, ghas can get ahead very easily - thats where the uglies comes from.
Basically you are letting the uglies come fast so that the earlier yiu get thru them, the faster yiur tank matures.
Spare time
10K Club member
Water changes do remove things living in the water column but unless you are doing very frequent and massive water changes it shouldn't be an issue. Protein skimmers do the same thing (which is why I don't use one).
Biokabe
Valuable Member
There's a reason that many of the healthiest tanks out there use automatic water change systems. So long as you're not doing massive changes all at once, water changes are among the most beneficial things that you can do for a system.
I know that it's tempting to want to try to emulate some of the successful, long-running tanks with massive biodiversity and amazing miniature ecosystems... but those systems didn't get there overnight, and they certainly didn't get there by neglecting their tanks. Biodiversity takes time to build up, and you're not going to just get there 'faster' by letting gunk build up in your system.
It is of course possible to run a tank without water changes, but those tanks also didn't get there overnight. Reefers who run without water changes are able to do so because they've found ways to duplicate the beneficial aspects of water changes. Perhaps that's a productive refugium, or coral ecosystems that use fish wastes as fast as they can be consumed, or very heavy mechanical and chemical filtration to keep toxins under control. And perhaps they dose for the trace elements that their reefs consume, manually adding in the elements that get used up.
I know that it's tempting to want to try to emulate some of the successful, long-running tanks with massive biodiversity and amazing miniature ecosystems... but those systems didn't get there overnight, and they certainly didn't get there by neglecting their tanks. Biodiversity takes time to build up, and you're not going to just get there 'faster' by letting gunk build up in your system.
It is of course possible to run a tank without water changes, but those tanks also didn't get there overnight. Reefers who run without water changes are able to do so because they've found ways to duplicate the beneficial aspects of water changes. Perhaps that's a productive refugium, or coral ecosystems that use fish wastes as fast as they can be consumed, or very heavy mechanical and chemical filtration to keep toxins under control. And perhaps they dose for the trace elements that their reefs consume, manually adding in the elements that get used up.
bobnicaragua
Valuable Member
I know some people that do minimal water changes, but they all have established grown in tanks. If that isn't your situation, I'd do the water changes.
outhouse
Valuable Member
You have to understand how fast nitrates and phosphates are building up in your tank, IF you have natural methods like a DSB or fuge or algae mat, you dont have to change water as often. keeping the balance is what takes time, learning how to stabilize your tank is not something you can pick up or read and understand, well for me I had to do it to understand. Until you learn to do this balancing act, water changes are your best friend. Even keeping the balance, sometimes water changes are great for giving you a good foundation to start from chemically speaking. The problem if you let it go to long, even in a balanced system, its a false sense of security and when your tank crashes it does so harder then normal. Staying on top of your parameters is the difference between failure and success.
Paul B
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I am not a big water change kind of guy, certainly not weekly because I feel water gets better with age up to a point. Then the things in the water build up so that even if the water may be better, the stuff in it is not.
But it won't affect biodiversity unless you change to much water as biodiversity depends on things in the water that we may not think is beneficial.
It is a balancing act in a newer tank.
But it won't affect biodiversity unless you change to much water as biodiversity depends on things in the water that we may not think is beneficial.
It is a balancing act in a newer tank.
Spare time
10K Club member
What hydrophillic molecules are you concerned about?
"Examples of hydrophilic molecules are water, salt, sugar, ethyl alcohol, ethylene glycol, glycerin, glucose, ammonia, most amino acids (e.g., glycine), some vitamins (B6, B12, Biotin, C, Niacin) and almost all inorganic compounds." (Randy's skimmer article).
Also I am curious what study you are referring to regarding hydrophilic stuff in reef tanks that promote pathogenic shifts in coral microbiomes
Timfish
Crusty Old Salt
Sugars. Here's some links:
Unseen players shape benthic competition on coral reefs - PubMed
Recent work has shown that hydrophilic and hydrophobic organic matter (OM) from algae disrupts the function of the coral holobiont and promotes the invasion of opportunistic pathogens, leading to coral morbidity and mortality. Here we refer to these dynamics as the (3)DAM [dissolved organic...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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Coral and macroalgal exudates vary in neutral sugar composition and differentially enrich reef bacterioplankton lineages - PMC
Increasing algal cover on tropical reefs worldwide may be maintained through feedbacks whereby algae outcompete coral by altering microbial activity. We hypothesized that algae and coral release compositionally distinct exudates that differentially ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Influence of coral and algal exudates on microbially mediated reef metabolism - PubMed
Benthic primary producers in tropical reef ecosystems can alter biogeochemical cycling and microbial processes in the surrounding seawater. In order to quantify these influences, we measured rates of photosynthesis, respiration, and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) exudate release by the dominant...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Excess labile carbon promotes the expression of virulence factors in coral reef bacterioplankton - The ISME Journal
Coastal pollution and algal cover are increasing on many coral reefs, resulting in higher dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations. High DOC concentrations strongly affect microbial activity in reef waters and select for copiotrophic, often potentially virulent microbial populations. High...
www.nature.com
Effects of Coral Reef Benthic Primary Producers on Dissolved Organic Carbon and Microbial Activity
Benthic primary producers in marine ecosystems may significantly alter biogeochemical cycling and microbial processes in their surrounding environment. To examine these interactions, we studied dissolved organic matter release by dominant benthic taxa and subsequent microbial remineralization in...
Indirect effects of algae on coral: algae-mediated, microbe-induced coral mortality - PubMed
Declines in coral cover are generally associated with increases in the abundance of fleshy algae. In many cases, it remains unclear whether algae are responsible, directly or indirectly, for coral death or whether they simply settle on dead coral surfaces. Here, we show that algae can indirectly...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Here's a video by University of California you might find informative also.
Spare time
10K Club member
Sugars. Here's some links:
Unseen players shape benthic competition on coral reefs - PubMed
Recent work has shown that hydrophilic and hydrophobic organic matter (OM) from algae disrupts the function of the coral holobiont and promotes the invasion of opportunistic pathogens, leading to coral morbidity and mortality. Here we refer to these dynamics as the (3)DAM [dissolved organic...
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onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Coral and macroalgal exudates vary in neutral sugar composition and differentially enrich reef bacterioplankton lineages - PMC
Increasing algal cover on tropical reefs worldwide may be maintained through feedbacks whereby algae outcompete coral by altering microbial activity. We hypothesized that algae and coral release compositionally distinct exudates that differentially ...
Influence of coral and algal exudates on microbially mediated reef metabolism - PubMed
Benthic primary producers in tropical reef ecosystems can alter biogeochemical cycling and microbial processes in the surrounding seawater. In order to quantify these influences, we measured rates of photosynthesis, respiration, and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) exudate release by the dominant...
Excess labile carbon promotes the expression of virulence factors in coral reef bacterioplankton - The ISME Journal
Coastal pollution and algal cover are increasing on many coral reefs, resulting in higher dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations. High DOC concentrations strongly affect microbial activity in reef waters and select for copiotrophic, often potentially virulent microbial populations. High...
Effects of Coral Reef Benthic Primary Producers on Dissolved Organic Carbon and Microbial Activity
Benthic primary producers in marine ecosystems may significantly alter biogeochemical cycling and microbial processes in their surrounding environment. To examine these interactions, we studied dissolved organic matter release by dominant benthic taxa and subsequent microbial remineralization in...journals.plos.org
Indirect effects of algae on coral: algae-mediated, microbe-induced coral mortality - PubMed
Declines in coral cover are generally associated with increases in the abundance of fleshy algae. In many cases, it remains unclear whether algae are responsible, directly or indirectly, for coral death or whether they simply settle on dead coral surfaces. Here, we show that algae can indirectly...
Here's a video by University of California you might find informative also.
Thank you for these links! I will read them in a but. However, I am usually cautious when comparing captive to wild behaviors as biology as home reef tanks are dramatically different than wild reefs.
