Is the recommended water change percentage outdated now that we have better filtration?

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I’ll check it out for sure. I started this tank with a fuge as it was hyped so much, but I had to ditch it. My tank is just too sterile. I would never imagined that we would need to add nitrate and phosphate to a tank. It’s just crazy to me.
 

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That’s what gets me thinking….with all the technology out there shouldn’t it be more widely accepted that water is becoming a bit more scarce and keeping water changes to minimum, if it could be done with great success, become the norm?
You have to count the water used in the manufacturing of the high-tech nutrient export methods needed to run a no-water-change tank. People often forget how much water is used in manufacturing. Two example are jeans and plastic water bottles. The manufacturing of a single pair of jeans requires 1800 gallons of water, and about twice as much water is used creating a plastic water bottle than is contained in the water bottle. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more advanced instruments used in reef-keeping require very large amounts of water to be manufactured (e.g. think about the water used in the mining of the metals used in some of these instruments).
 
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You have to count the water used in the manufacturing of the high-tech nutrient export methods needed to run a no-water-change tank. People often forget how much water is used in manufacturing. Two example are jeans and plastic water bottles. The manufacturing of a single pair of jeans requires 1800 gallons of water, and about twice as much water is used creating a plastic water bottle than is contained in the water bottle. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more advanced instruments used in reef-keeping require very large amounts of water to be manufactured (e.g. think about the water used in the mining of the metals used in some of these instruments).
Hopefully it’s recycled like most car washes, manufacturing plants, etc. I have no control over that aspect of the equation.
 

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That’s where I think I’m heading. Im just curious to see if this will be where the hobby goes as a whole. Especially with the water restrictions coming down the pipeline from the drought. I just keep seeing the water change questions on the forum and the answers have been the same from the beginning of time.
Drought? What drought?

We've had a years worth of rain in the first 3 months of this year.
Everything's flooded.

Maybe next year we swap, and you get the floods.

I'm still undecided on water changes - been doing them in one tank or another for almost 50 years, and old habits....
 

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The whole idea of x percentage is just a convenient way to get people to clean their tank imo. There is no way that every tank is in equilibrium with an exact amount of waste production and element reduction that a x% water changes will take care of one or both in all tanks. I recommend water changes for people who don't understand fully what they are importing and exporting outside of nitrate and phosphate and some skeletal elements. It's not very efficient, costs a lot of money, can be messy, and creates stress within the fish.
 
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Drought? What drought?

We've had a years worth of rain in the first 3 months of this year.
Everything's flooded.

Maybe next year we swap, and you get the floods.

I'm still undecided on water changes - been doing them in one tank or another for almost 50 years, and old habits....
Being dense I often forget the whole “world wide” aspect of the web! Old habits for sure. When I first started in the hobby I was in California. The local fish store had a huge tank of ocean water that was delivered to the store weekly. They just sucked it out of the ocean. It was dirt cheap, and most the time, if it was only a few five gallon jugs needed they would just give it to you. Shortly before I moved out of California they were already incentivizing you to remove water thirsty landscaping like grass. They were limiting what days you could water your lawn. If your sprinklers ran on the wrong day (say after a power outage and your timer lost the date) or the sprinklers hit the gutter, you’d get a hefty fine. Then they started to track usage and send you reminders that you were using too much water. I always got those notices telling me I was using way more than my neighbors. It was a three bedroom house, with just me, two dogs, a 75 gallon reef, and low demand native landscaping. I worked 18 hours a day (away from home). Most my neighbors had 4 or more people in the house, pets, grass front and back. I always thought it was a racket. Where I’m at now, they’re talking about banning real grass very soon. Plus they have calculated how much water each house should be using and will be charging extra for going over, they actually want you to use 10% less than you did last year. Again, I’m in a three bedroom with two dogs, a 200 gallon reef, and mostly low demand native plants (I do have a small patch of grass for the dogs) and I’m way over the recommended allowance. So this is partially as I see the writing on the wall, and partially as I’ve heard a few, not many, great success stories of no/low water change tanks. I’m just wondering when the hobby as a whole will accept it and start recommending things other than constant water changes.
 

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I’m team no water change , I just add kalk to my top off water and add MG every other day according to dosage, and add trace elements every other day. I actually need to add nitrate as I keep getting a 0-5 reading.
 

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How much do fuges or effective algae scrubbers cost to run these days and what’s the purchase cost of the equipment? How about the cost of dosing pumps and additives? How much testing do folks do at an ICP facility, and cost?
Fuge cost 0$ really , just need a cheap light and 5$ of chaeto lol - no dosing pumps , I just use caps of bottle - haven’t sent in an icp test as I don’t have a reason to currently. Chaeto below is two weeks of growth , I am currently dosing nitrate as it’s too effective and will not be removing chaeto for awhile , people don’t even want this for free near me
 

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How much do fuges or effective algae scrubbers cost to run these days and what’s the purchase cost of the equipment? How about the cost of dosing pumps and additives? How much testing do folks do at an ICP facility, and cost?
I get it, it’s not cheap. My case for example, I’m using a DOS for auto water changes now. Thats two heads that could be used for something else. I have a DOS already for calcuim, alkalinity, tropic marin part c, magnesium, nitrate, and phosphate. That’s a lot of dosing heads. I’m also manually adding several elements as needed and have tropic marin a and k added to calcium and alkalinity. Salt pricing as with everything has been going up, water restrictions coming down the pipeline, etc. That’s doing the tried and true water changes. I already have a fuge and light but am not using it as my system is just too sterile. I need all the nutrients I can get at this point. I’m guessing it wouldn’t be cheaper, but I doubt it would cost me much more. Now, if you’re starting from scratch that’s another story. It would most likely be cost prohibitive. I personally think I’m just wasting water by changing 1% a day while I’m dosing all kinds of stuff to keep things in check. I’m certain I could cut my water change schedule without any negative affects. I’m just thinking maybe the whole standard 10-20% water change method is becoming outdated.
 

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How much do fuges or effective algae scrubbers cost to run these days and what’s the purchase cost of the equipment? How about the cost of dosing pumps and additives? How much testing do folks do at an ICP facility, and cost?

Is that supposed to argue against less water changes? If so, it's still cheaper. You also don't need dosing pumps. Additives are cheaper than replacing elements eith salt. Refugiums are not expensive at all. Icp doesn't need to be done often but ranges from 20-60
 
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Is that supposed to argue against less water changes? If so, it's still cheaper. You also don't need dosing pumps. Additives are cheaper than replacing elements eith salt. Refugiums are not expensive at all. Icp doesn't need to be done often but ranges from 20-60
This exactly. I’m really trying to get at whether the water change value we’ve relied on is based off old data and outdated. What if you really only need to change 5% on a monthly basis and have the same outcome? What if you don’t need systematic water changes and only in certain instances and can still achieve the same results? Plus its really not a cost thing so much as can it be done successfully over the long haul?
 

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Is that supposed to argue against less water changes? If so, it's still cheaper. You also don't need dosing pumps. Additives are cheaper than replacing elements eith salt. Refugiums are not expensive at all. Icp doesn't need to be done often but ranges from 20-60
Nope, not an argument, I was in the no water change camp 10 years ago, just proved cheaper to do waterchanges in a small tank.
 
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Nope, not an argument, I was in the no water change camp 10 years ago, just proved cheaper to do waterchanges in a small tank.
Yeah, pico or nano tanks I would imagine to be extremely difficult if not impossible to manage without water changes. The volume stability just isn’t there. I totally understand that. I think this probably would only apply to maybe 40 gallon plus tanks. Another point for it’s not one size fits all.
 

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My bad I misunderstood :)


Yeah I 10000% agree it's far easier in small tanks to do the water changes
Pic of my old tank, didn’t have ICP test back then, or dosing pumps, just relied on what foods we were adding and a BEEFY algae scrubber. Can’t remember how long I did no waterchanges but it was a while;
 

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I really have no idea how people get so much export of nutrients without carbon dosing or a well run refugium. My nitrates are notoriously present despite even doing weekly 20% water changes, nitrate reactor did not work for me.

refugium worked for 6 weeks then just stopped growing. My tank is fine now but i am doing a ton of water changes to keep nitrates below 10 ppm, phosphate about 0.2ppm.

Bioload is moderate to high but only 10 fish in 150 gallon volume system.

i think carbon dosing would be my last resort to minimize water changes. I just have been frustrated with refugium. Chaeto doesn’t die but wont grow anymore. I know you can over shoot the mark and kill all your corals with dosing so a bit weary.

thoughts?
 
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I really have no idea how people get so much export of nutrients without carbon dosing or a well run refugium. My nitrates are notoriously present despite even doing weekly 20% water changes, nitrate reactor did not work for me.

refugium worked for 6 weeks then just stopped growing. My tank is fine now but i am doing a ton of water changes to keep nitrates below 10 ppm, phosphate about 0.2ppm.

Bioload is moderate to high but only 10 fish in 150 gallon volume system.

i think carbon dosing would be my last resort to minimize water changes. I just have been frustrated with refugium. Chaeto doesn’t die but wont grow anymore. I know you can over shoot the mark and kill all your corals with dosing so a bit weary.

thoughts?
What are you using for filtration? I know that once I switched to a roller mat, my nitrate dropped to zero. My skimmer has pretty much become a jumbo airstone. Prior to the Rollermat, my skimmer brewed perfect coffee, after the Rollermat I get hardly any skimmate. Part of my questioning the whole water change thing vs modern filtration.
 

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I really have no idea how people get so much export of nutrients without carbon dosing or a well run refugium. My nitrates are notoriously present despite even doing weekly 20% water changes, nitrate reactor did not work for me.

refugium worked for 6 weeks then just stopped growing. My tank is fine now but i am doing a ton of water changes to keep nitrates below 10 ppm, phosphate about 0.2ppm.

Bioload is moderate to high but only 10 fish in 150 gallon volume system.

i think carbon dosing would be my last resort to minimize water changes. I just have been frustrated with refugium. Chaeto doesn’t die but wont grow anymore. I know you can over shoot the mark and kill all your corals with dosing so a bit weary.

thoughts?
That leads to the "all tanks are different" statement.

I had high nitrates and phosphates on my 29 gallon due to no water changes, heavy food in, no refuge, ok running skimmer.

When I cleaned my tank to it's current state, the chaeto doesn't grow as fast, better skimmer is running dry, WC more frequent and I try to put a cube of frozen in my tank daily for three fish.

Barely detectable nitrates and phosphates now and been that way for awhile, heavy softy and LPS load. I do water changes to siphon out loose mushrooms or suck out snips of nepthia.

I've cut back to 4 gallon WC's every couple of weeks...but may skip a week. I may even cut back to 2 or 3 gallons soon.
 

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Pic of my old tank, didn’t have ICP test back then, or dosing pumps, just relied on what foods we were adding and a BEEFY algae scrubber. Can’t remember how long I did no waterchanges but it was a while;


I always use a ham or chicken scrubber but a beef scrubber sounds like it would be effective
 
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