Why are some people anti-waterchanges?

[jda]

WWC, UC and Tidal Gardens are not coral farms... they are small scale coral importers and fraggers. They all do water changes since they have to replace all of the water that they ship corals and fish in. Just the LFS that I worked at in college had this be several hundreds of gallons a week.

I cannot remember if ORA uses ocean water, or not. I knew at one point, but I have lost that memory... and it could have changed anyway.

 

[Genvid]

Thank you for the kind words. I guess no one has nominated my tank LOL. Here's my build thread if you want to see more: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/m...gallon-custom-miracles-aquarium-build.715455/

You may be correct that most people who don't do regular WC are being lazy which is why I stated that I'm only speaking for myself. I also agree that WC are the easiest way to maintain good water quality as it is definitely more complicated to use a method such as Reef Moonshiners (although it's very easy once you have read the hand book and have the proper tools).

I read your build thread, you have a really amazing tank, if a person reads the build thread, it means he is interested in something. I believe that you are 100% worthy of the “reef of the month” nomination

 

[MartinM]

Are you serious? How did you come to a conclusion I can't take care of my animals? Seriously **** of here with that nonsense. I frankly spend more dosing trace elements to maintain parameters than just changing water with salt weekly.

I look at the simple fact that I choose to limit water changes due to significantly higher unit of water cost in my area and practicing real conservation as I live in a coastal city/state with REAL, consistent drought issues. Now dealing with higher salt cost to boot and higher rodi maintenance cost as my tds hovers between 320-375ppm thus no matter what I'm burning media at a fair quicker rate than most.

I also run gac, skim and roller filters on ALL my tanks thus a LOT of nasties are stripped from the water.

More than one way to skin a cat and I can care less about how others do things but I ain't gonna bash your methods so don't bash mine.

End game my fish are doing just fine doing what I'm doing.

Go troll elsewhere.

I didn’t mean to trigger you! For perspective, if I were to post on a cat keepers forum that I have a cat, but cannot afford to feed it, then I think it would be reasonable to construe that I should not be keeping a cat. This seem to be the gist of your post, but perhaps I misunderstood.

 

[MartinM]

WWC, UC and Tidal Gardens are not coral farms... they are small scale coral importers and fraggers. They all do water changes since they have to replace all of the water that they ship corals and fish in. Just the LFS that I worked at in college had this be several hundreds of gallons a week.

I cannot remember if ORA uses ocean water, or not. I knew at one point, but I have lost that memory... and it could have changed anyway.

Correct. They are very good at marketing themselves as such, however, and true large scale operations do not have consumer facing presences, so hobbyists don’t have a basis for comparison.

 

[ReeferMadness01]

I’m too lazy to make salt. Plus with my job I never know what hours I’ll be working. Haven’t done a water change in a year and haven’t had any major die offs, as a matter of fact this is the best it’s ever looked

 

[fishkat]

With Moonshiners, Triton, etc. the goal is a self-sufficient system. But how can that be when there are immeasurable DOCs, toxins, etc. that are not being removed and left to build-up overtime? Why do we ignore common sense in hopes of avoiding waterchanges?

Why is it with FW hobbyists they are more religious about their waterchanges, while SW [some not all] hobbyists are looking for ways to avoid them?

Isn't it cheaper and better overall to do waterchanges and play it safe rather than risk stunting, algae problems, coral die offs, etc.?


This isn't meant to offend, just to open a discussion on this issue as it is concerning.

IMO the repliers are mixing SW hobbiest parameters. Some are pure FO, some are FOWLR, some are FOWLR+some easy corals, and some are REEF only. Also tank size makes a difference. A 100g or > is more stable than a smaller sized one. Also a refugium or a sump and or a skimner make a difference. Different types of aquarists will have different results with or without water changes depending on their set-ups. In general I think water changes make sense for smaller sized tanks.
fishkat

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

I didn’t mean to trigger you! For perspective, if I were to post on a cat keepers forum that I have a cat, but cannot afford to feed it, then I think it would be reasonable to construe that I should not be keeping a cat. This seem to be the gist of your post, but perhaps I misunderstood.

To somehow suggest my original post was indicating that I can not afford the hobby is beyond preposterous. I choose not to abide by the industry standard of 10% weekly w/c for a variety of reasons which I posted up. Lack of salt, lack of ability to pay for the hobby wasn't one of them. You put that out there not me. Thus I took genuine offense to it and IMHO rightfully so. I never said I don't do water changes, I just choose not to do as the 'masses' do.

 

[Flame2hawk]

The water stability is targeted at coral husbandry, fish are much more forgiving regarding loose parameters, ime.

What you list is mostly true, but many reefers here have great success with no water changes.

Actually I would suggest that if you have an ample fish stocked tank, water changes are more important to export all th poop and excess nutrients. My guess is that a reef only tank with little or no fish, could go longer between water changes or no changes at all by having a good doser that allows for replenishment and stability. Just my guess as I have a very large FOWLR and am building another and fish just dont act or look the same without water changes. Their health is also clearly impacted if i go longer than 3 weeks w/o water changes.

 

[DCR]

I think the idea of literally no water changes is almost certainly unsustainable over the long term. You are constantly adding some compounds in the form of food or other additives that likely have little or no mechanisms for removal such as heavy metals and some organics. At some point they are likely to reach toxic concentrations. As has been pointed out, nearly everyone is changing some amount of water through skimming, sump cleaning etc. The real question is how much water change is actually needed - whether deliberate or inadvertent.

 

[Barncat]

I change out a gallon a week; I use Seachem Vibrant Sea for my salt which is only $35 a box. I've had my tank running since July and I've barely used any of my original box!

 

[FreshSaltyGuy]

With Moonshiners, Triton, etc. the goal is a self-sufficient system. But how can that be when there are immeasurable DOCs, toxins, etc. that are not being removed and left to build-up overtime? Why do we ignore common sense in hopes of avoiding waterchanges?

Why is it with FW hobbyists they are more religious about their waterchanges, while SW [some not all] hobbyists are looking for ways to avoid them?

Isn't it cheaper and better overall to do waterchanges and play it safe rather than risk stunting, algae problems, coral die offs, etc.?


This isn't meant to offend, just to open a discussion on this issue as it is concerning.

The real question should be what is needed in our tanks to make it as close to nature as possible. Everything in the ocean is there for a purpose and that includes removing toxins. I don't think people are "anti-water changes" I believe it's striving to find that natural balance in a tank that helps it self sustain.

 

[FreshSaltyGuy]

Stability, first and foremost.
Secondly, If you have everything balanced, water changes are unnecessary.
Freshwater keepers are stuck with water changing because they can’t utilise Carbon dosing to consume NO3 & PO4 as it requires a protein skimmer to remove the bacterial flocculation…

I have to disagree with you. I ran a 55 gal Walstad planted tank for over 8 years without a single water change. I would top the tank off with fresh tap water from my kitchen sink. Had a bout 12 fish in it, tons of plants, tons of shrimp, snails etc to do all the clean up. Besides topping off the only thing I ever had to worry about was trimming some plants every few weeks and feeding the fish. Never ran a skimmer, or any type of dosing. Just a simple job filter and that was it. I honestly believe many have convinced a lot of people in this hobby that water changes are the only way to make $$ instead of trying to figure out how nature does it.

 

[Raul-7]

I have to disagree with you. I ran a 55 gal Walstad planted tank for over 8 years without a single water change. I would top the tank off with fresh tap water from my kitchen sink. Had a bout 12 fish in it, tons of plants, tons of shrimp, snails etc to do all the clean up. Besides topping off the only thing I ever had to worry about was trimming some plants every few weeks and feeding the fish. Never ran a skimmer, or any type of dosing. Just a simple job filter and that was it. I honestly believe many have convinced a lot of people in this hobby that water changes are the only way to make $$ instead of trying to figure out how nature does it.

This is still erroneous. I know Diana Walstad's method, but it works on the premise a light bioload and she still did waterchanges albeit less regularly than weekly.

I sure as hell wouldn't keep juvenile Discus in a Walstad aquarium and assume they would grow normally without stunting.

Moreover, nature is a large body of water with millions of gallons of water with multiple layers of filtration. And there are continuous waterchanges like you find in a river, stream, etc. The water is rarely static like it is in our aquariums.

 

[707Nick]

Size of w/c and salt cost have risen as of late. Smaller tanks aren't a issue, with just pure water changes but with over 200g of water in my case, 25 gal a week of water changes eventually adds up.

With 200 gallons of water I would imagine you have thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of livestock. What does it really cost for a gallon of salt water a dollar? Honestly the only thing that has held me back from doing biweekly or weekly water changes is laziness. I’ve been doing water changes about every 10 days approximately 10 to 15%. My tank is never been happier. To add that I also want to say that I have switched over from using reef crystals to tropic Marin salt. I like the idea that it is created in a laboratory versus harvested in dried out once again, going for that consistency that we are all striving for.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

The exact same is true with water changes just at a different rate.

No, not really. If what we changes are being done stuff can only accumulate to a certain point. Might that level be toxic as well? Perhaps. However, the risk is way lower that you’ll run in to issues.

 

[LadyMac]

Stability, first and foremost.
Secondly, If you have everything balanced, water changes are unnecessary.
Freshwater keepers are stuck with water changing because they can’t utilise Carbon dosing to consume NO3 & PO4 as it requires a protein skimmer to remove the bacterial flocculation…

We have other ways to combat the excess. Many of us will understock and overplant. We rely on the bacteria in the filter to convert and the plants to consume. There’s several styles of planted tanks that can be done with no waterchanges.

That being said it can be difficult to find that balance and if you’re too lazy to work towards it at first then disaster can fall.

It’s common for plant keepers to dose nitrates and phosphates because some plants are hangry.

 

[Icryhard]

In 18+ years and thousands and thousands of threads I’ve never once seen someone have issues because they performed routine water changes from what I recall.

Bad batches of salt are so rare I don’t even factor them into the equation.

I once ran a 7.5G tank on nothing but 100% weekly water changes with a good salt. Tank flourished for more than a year before we moved and I transferred it to a 24g tank.

I actually have seen them. Right here on R2R. People changing too much water and stripping it all from nutrients for example. You say you did 100% water changes, that’s good for you.

I know people who haven’t done water changes and would dose trace and other elements because it was cheaper overall. Not sure which toxins would be in the water aside from corals maybe fighting, but this too can be neutralized to some extent. I myself do a 2% water change for example every 5 days. Everything works just fine.

 

[Icryhard]

I’m too lazy to make salt. Plus with my job I never know what hours I’ll be working. Haven’t done a water change in a year and haven’t had any major die offs, as a matter of fact this is the best it’s ever looked

How do you dose trace elements?

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

With 200 gallons of water I would imagine you have thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of livestock. What does it really cost for a gallon of salt water a dollar? Honestly the only thing that has held me back from doing biweekly or weekly water changes is laziness. I’ve been doing water changes about every 10 days approximately 10 to 15%. My tank is never been happier. To add that I also want to say that I have switched over from using reef crystals to tropic Marin salt. I like the idea that it is created in a laboratory versus harvested in dried out once again, going for that consistency that we are all striving for.

I expanded my thoughts on why I don't do 'regular' changes in a earlier post. I stand by what I said.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Everything in the ocean is there for a purpose

It is? Whose purpose?

I would have said everything in the ocean is there by accident due to the nature of the earth's composition and the various cycles that have arisen, and life has found a way to live in it.