Are water changes over rated?

[Troylee]

I haven't performed a water change in nine months, so I prepared a 5-gallon bucket to exchange water and check for any noticeable or significant change in my corals.

Would you guys like to see what is left after 9 months in my 50G system?

Should see significant pe if you have any acros!

 

[schooncw]

I haven't performed a water change in nine months, so I prepared a 5-gallon bucket to exchange water and check for any noticeable or significant change in my corals.

Would you guys like to see what is left after 9 months in my 50G system?

Yes

 

[Superlightman]

Water changes are the one single thing most proven by time.
Yes you can get away without water changes in certain systems like LPS and softies, and sometimes SPS if you spend way too much on bottles.
But water changes are not only to replenish traces, which they do, but if you never take gunk off the aquarium you will get serious buildup of things deteriorating and your water gets fowl. When you WC you get detritus and contaminants out and replenish with nice clean water. How is that overrated? Have you ever kept a tank for 20 years without WC? I haven't and probably nobody has, there is a reason why. Even people with goldfish in a bowl understand this simple thing "water get dirty, need to change it". Yes you can run carbon and dose all triton, moonshiners or whatever bottles but it will never be the same as good clean water.

That are just old theories, where did you get that sps tanks can not run without water change? They are hundred, if not tousands of tanks that run this way and sometimes even better and more stable without water change. Here in Europe many tank , runs on Triton, DSR, ATI,All for Reef.. and other methods without water changes. Some tanks running over 10 years like this. Just check the Tanks from Glenn from DSR best exemple. Myself I gave up water changer, after each water change my tank went just worse, probably because Water here is very hard and despite very good filtration I could never reach 0 PPM .