Could water changes become a thing of the past? i.e. tank chemistry

[X-37B]

Started my 120 as a no scheduled water change system. Went 18 months with good success. Started doing 10% every couple months with no visible change.
I do dose trace elements.
Around the 2 year mark my tank was doing well but looked off.
Did a 12g WC and even the wife asked what did I do to the tank it looks real nice now.
I do 12g's once a month to remove any buildup of unwanted things we cant test for.

Even if I was doing no WC's I would still be replacing skim at 300ml a day so 1/2g a week.

No system is truely zero WC, imo.

Even Glenn Fong who has run no WC's for years admits he will change some if things are off.

Taking frags, cleaning equipment, sumps, all ceeate a need to add some fresh water.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

How do you get around Dino and diatom invasions?

Dinos do not use silicate so that's not an issue.

Diatoms replaced the green algae on the glass each time I dosed, but I did not consider that a negative,

I show before and after dosing pictures here:

Silica In Reef Aquariums

Why would I recommend dosing silica? Largely because creatures in our tanks use it, the concentrations in our tanks (at least in mine) are below natural levels, and the sponges, mollusks, and diatoms may not be getting enough to thrive.

reefs.com

 

[Nigel35]

Water changes are good because they work 100% of the time. You don't have to test anything or try to troubleshoot what imbalance is in your chemistry. You don't have to go to the forums to ask what magic bottle you need to solve your problems. You change out the bad water for good water. Instant chemistry fix. If the tank looks bad, you change a lot quickly. There are certainly methods that produce nice tanks with dosing stuff and never doing water changes but they require a lot of testing and many things that cannot be tested for at home.

Water changes in theory would be 100% effective but they have undesired effects. Removing a healthy culture of microorganisms, addition of silicates. They do serve a purpose but that "purpose'' can be achieved through dosing.

 

[Nigel35]

Few things... first, ICP is not even close to comprehensive so please don't have a false sense of anything if getting one. Second, many have had nice tanks for months and maybe even two years with no water changes, but the ones who have had long term success work very hard and spend lots of money to not change water - don't expect a few months to be the same as a few years.

A good friend of mine has run a 400 gal sps tank just this way for the last 5 decades. No dramatic die off. Of course water changes can be a good tool to use at certain points.

 

[X-37B]

A good friend of mine has run a 400 gal sps tank just this way for the last 5 decades. No dramatic die off. Of course water changes can be a good tool to use at certain points.

An SPS tank from the 70's. I need a pic for this to be a reality.

 

[GARRIGA]

Stop doing water changes in the 80. Filtration designed in such a way as to keep nitrates under 40 ppm. Kept fish only then so that wasn't a problem. Now working on a solution to keep them under 5 ppm but I'll be happy with less than 20.

In the early 70s, I recall the clinical method. If memory serves me right it was similar to what discus breeders do today where they make 100% water changes daily or more frequently to prevent ammonia from breaking down along with heavy mechanical export. Neat trick learned from Malaysia breeders who just happen to have perfect Discus water locally. Although, provide adequate filtration and ammonia and nitrites are handled without water changes. Why shouldn't that be the norm for nitrates and phosphates?

Late 80s/early 90s saw the movement from wet dry to Berlin. Then we had porous rocks that could perform denitrification if a large volume of organics were stripped by the skimmer. More mechanical export. It worked but heavily dependent on an efficient skimmer and lots of porous rocks. Now we have porous media. I use pumice because it's cheap and can be sourced in cubic feet. Serves the same purpose except I have no intention of skimming or socks. Let nature do it's thing. Might supplement with carbon dosing. You'd think capturing detritus would provide enough of that but it seems decay takes time to release based on my experiment.

We dose just about everything, including carbon. NoPox comes dose ready so it doesn't evaporate in another jug. Calcium and alkalinity can be dosed and/or provided by a reactor. I'm doing that by using reactor media for nitrification and slowly dissolving as water acidifies. Not as efficient as a dedicated reactor. Will never replace one but that's one less costly piece of equipment that needs CO2 and bubble counters plus that CO2 might cause issues with PH. Seems we do one thing to solve an issue and create another.

Feed heavy enough and I think many trace elements become available. If not then ICP testing can correct that. More dosing. BTW, AFR simplifies that along with one solution for Alk, Calcium and Mag. Gotta love that. Haven't used it yet. Loving it anyway.

Full filtration that includes denitrification provides one final benefit of releasing calcium and magnesium along with other major and trace elements. Takes a while but as with anything that's expected. Plus denitrification adds back alkalinity lost during nitrification. I thought it was half but recently learned it's a one for one match when nitrates aren't exported. Thanks Randy and another reason not to carry buckets around.

Don't get me started on RODI. Just google Reef Builders and their approach to water replacement. Confirmed the crazy thoughts I had and now I've discovered ultraFiltration which doesn't remove major elements but can filter pathogens. Add GFO and I think I've solved another issue. Storing water. I'm not worry about nutrients in my tap as the small amount added during top off should be handled easily by a proper sized filter. Ran an experiment on that and it did. Just didn't realize I had silica and had a diatom outbreak which was resolve with PhosGuard. Temporarily bottomed my phosphates out but I feed heavy enough it didn't last long.

Nu sump, no skimmer, no nutrient export and no water changes. Life is better

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

They do serve a purpose but that "purpose'' can be achieved through dosing.

The addition portion of the purpose, yes, but not the export portion of the purpose.

 

[HB AL]

I stopped doing water changes on my tanks for about the last decade with positive results. There are things you need to do like dosing trace elements and other things that need replenishing, along with a triton test a couple times a years to see how levels are.

 

[Koigula]

Stop doing water changes in the 80. Filtration designed in such a way as to keep nitrates under 40 ppm. Kept fish only then so that wasn't a problem. Now working on a solution to keep them under 5 ppm but I'll be happy with less than 20.

In the early 70s, I recall the clinical method. If memory serves me right it was similar to what discus breeders do today where they make 100% water changes daily or more frequently to prevent ammonia from breaking down along with heavy mechanical export. Neat trick learned from Malaysia breeders who just happen to have perfect Discus water locally. Although, provide adequate filtration and ammonia and nitrites are handled without water changes. Why shouldn't that be the norm for nitrates and phosphates?

Late 80s/early 90s saw the movement from wet dry to Berlin. Then we had porous rocks that could perform denitrification if a large volume of organics were stripped by the skimmer. More mechanical export. It worked but heavily dependent on an efficient skimmer and lots of porous rocks. Now we have porous media. I use pumice because it's cheap and can be sourced in cubic feet. Serves the same purpose except I have no intention of skimming or socks. Let nature do it's thing. Might supplement with carbon dosing. You'd think capturing detritus would provide enough of that but it seems decay takes time to release based on my experiment.

We dose just about everything, including carbon. NoPox comes dose ready so it doesn't evaporate in another jug. Calcium and alkalinity can be dosed and/or provided by a reactor. I'm doing that by using reactor media for nitrification and slowly dissolving as water acidifies. Not as efficient as a dedicated reactor. Will never replace one but that's one less costly piece of equipment that needs CO2 and bubble counters plus that CO2 might cause issues with PH. Seems we do one thing to solve an issue and create another.

Feed heavy enough and I think many trace elements become available. If not then ICP testing can correct that. More dosing. BTW, AFR simplifies that along with one solution for Alk, Calcium and Mag. Gotta love that. Haven't used it yet. Loving it anyway.

Full filtration that includes denitrification provides one final benefit of releasing calcium and magnesium along with other major and trace elements. Takes a while but as with anything that's expected. Plus denitrification adds back alkalinity lost during nitrification. I thought it was half but recently learned it's a one for one match when nitrates aren't exported. Thanks Randy and another reason not to carry buckets around.

Don't get me started on RODI. Just google Reef Builders and their approach to water replacement. Confirmed the crazy thoughts I had and now I've discovered ultraFiltration which doesn't remove major elements but can filter pathogens. Add GFO and I think I've solved another issue. Storing water. I'm not worry about nutrients in my tap as the small amount added during top off should be handled easily by a proper sized filter. Ran an experiment on that and it did. Just didn't realize I had silica and had a diatom outbreak which was resolve with PhosGuard. Temporarily bottomed my phosphates out but I feed heavy enough it didn't last long.

Nu sump, no skimmer, no nutrient export and no water changes. Life is better

May we see your tank. All the filtration does is prolong water changes if you have delicate inhabitant.

 

[Nigel35]

The addition portion of the purpose, yes, but not the export portion of the purpose.

If one could control the processes by which materials enter the system wouldn't it be possible to limit the need to export?

 

[Nigel35]

May I fling out a note to everyone...

This is just a method, it isn't the method. I find it an innovative way to come to desired results.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If one could control the processes by which materials enter the system wouldn't it be possible to limit the need to export?

Can you control the production of organics by organisms? Of all sorts chemicals in foods?

 

[jda]

May I fling out a note to everyone...

This is just a method, it isn't the method. I find it an innovative way to come to desired results.

I agree with this. I would also like to point out that if you want it to be a method, you are still going to need to work and spend money. If your goal is to be lazy or cheap and do nothing, then that is not a method or the method... your tank will waste away or at least limit you to a subset of only the most forgiving creatures.

The DSR folks WORK HARD. I took a lot of time to study and understand this to see if it was for me. I respect them, their methodologies and all that I learned but It was not for me - too much work and probably more money (money was not a factor at all for me, but I can change 176 gallons of water for less than the cost of a single ICP test).

 

[GARRIGA]

May we see your tank. All the filtration does is prolong water changes if you have delicate inhabitant.

This is a test tank but the main focus is to pull water from the front through layers of media at a flow enough flow in order for nitrification to exhaust most if not all DO thereby creating an anoxic zone for heterotrophic bacteria to utilize bound oxygen to complete their process.

I don’t believe the nature of how delicate an organism is dictates the need for water changes. Nutrient control and supplying required major and minor elements along with maintaining proper water chemistry is why we are often forced to fix problems with water changes.

 

[Nigel35]

Can you control the production of organics by organisms? Of all sorts chemicals in foods?

Obviously we cannot control everything...

But what you can control is the manner in which those organisms retain there food and hence organics. The simple answer I believe is understanding what organisms exist in your tank and discovering the symbiotic relationship they and other organisms have in your tank. While we will never be able to identify the countless number of organisms like others have stated, we can have a cursory knowledge of what exists in our tank.

For example you mentioned that you dose silicates to promote the growth of sponges and diatoms in your tank. You have certain organisms and you have controlled their growth in some respect.

Say Organism A produces organics. You introduce Organism B to consume A's organics etc. etc. Take it around the wheel... While one may not be able to achieve this with perfect accuracy, it is an excellent way to reduce organic buildup and need for exportation.

 

[GARRIGA]

May we see your tank. All the filtration does is prolong water changes if you have delicate inhabitant.

Here’s another view to see how think that media is. There’s approximately 15 liters of pumice plus a bag of Reborn as a top layer to perform nitrification and assist with Alkalinity and Calcium replenishment.

Tank is fed 3-4 times daily. Five damsels. Two adult male Sailfin mollies. 14 Nassarius snails to assist with decomposing detritus. Four margaritas. Just added 1200 amphipods to assist the Nassarius. Plus an urchin who might be starving because I flipped rocks over simile to some issues with lighting that added way more base algae then I wanted.

 

[GARRIGA]

 

[Nigel35]

I agree with this. I would also like to point out that if you want it to be a method, you are still going to need to work and spend money. If your goal is to be lazy or cheap and do nothing, then that is not a method or the method... your tank will waste away or at least limit you to a subset of only the most forgiving creatures.

Listen mate... I've spent more time and money on my tanks than I would care to share. It's not a motivational scapegoat it is an effective way to achieve a goal.

 

[GARRIGA]

 

[Nigel35]

The DSR folks WORK HARD. I took a lot of time to study and understand this to see if it was for me. I respect them, their methodologies and all that I learned but It was not for me - too much work and probably more money (money was not a factor at all for me, but I can change 176 gallons of water for less than the cost of a single ICP test).

Agreed. If you want to work harder to achieve a goal go ahead. I hope to achieve excellent results in the most effective manner. Smarter not harder as they say huh?