Longest you’ve ever gone without a water change

[Reefer Matt]

Not nearly enough pics in this thread - particularly from the folks that have not done water changes for very long periods of time. Let’s see those tanks!

 

[vetteguy53081]

You have a beautiful tank, full of corals and fish. What is your export and dosing method ?

Dosing is based on trident unit and I add aminos, Polyp Lab polyp booster, some moonshiners ingredients as well as Pohls Zucht

 

[volt5015]

5 or 6 years... maybe 7 now. I stopped keeping track. BTW for 5 or 6 of those years, no skimmer, no ATS, no dosing, nothing but ATO. PERIOD.

How can you go so long without a water change?

 

[bezj]

Hi. Haven’t done one for 24 months on a 3ft cube with a big sump (500l). Photos attached. All For Reef has been key. I dose 28ml per day. I also dose Bacto balance which I think the corals love - polyp extension is great. Originally I had low nitrate 0-1 and phos at 0.1 so I was worried about one of them bottoming out as I built and run the nitrate destroyer. I feed heavy with a lot of fish. Mixing between dried and frozen has allowed me to increase my nitrate levels which are now 10 with phos at 0.1 and can balance them. Destroyer is always on hand as is Elimi Phos Rapid which wells really well if something needs bringing back. I run a large protein skimmer, filter roller and the destroyer. I also have an area for a Refugium but no algae in there currently. I test every week DKH, nitrate, phos and salinity. Calcium and mag every other week.

Maintenance is dead easy!

Only issue which I’ve had for 12 months which ICP has confirmed is high calcium (505) so just about to reduce AFR and dose bailing part B to get them balanced out. This was caused by dosing calcium nitrate prior to switching to Bacto balance.

 

[Doctorgori]

3 years. ( twice) tank crash reasons unknown

 

[VintageReefer]

My tank is on month 30 with no water changes. 75g. Algae turf scrubber. No triton. No skimmer. No socks. No algae besides film on the glass every few days. I add freshwater top off and for the last 8-10 months I’ve been using all for reef

Nitrates always 2-5
Phosphate almost always .02-.05

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Are you serious? Only a couple of hours?! That must’ve been when they let people buy sea turtles too, and put them in the tank. I heard that a lot too.

lol

It was using an automatic water change system. I used it for many years, and would do so again if I set up another tank. It was set to change about 1% daily using a home depot timer that had it on for a bunch of 15 minute periods spread out over the day and night.

I had a new salt water reservoir made from two 44 gallon Brute cans plumbed together, so I could make up about 80 gallons once every couple of months and then sit back and let it do its thing.

No need to match anything, nor to heat the new salt water.

 

[Minifoot77]

I'm going on 3 years for my tank and it's had 2 water changes

 

[a.t.t.r]

What’s the longest any of you have gone without a water change either intentional or you just forgot?

15 years.


But I did not have a tank.

 

[DcoarM]

3 years in and no water change. I'm not a fan of the water change. The ocean doesn't change water. I just stay on top of my parameters. If there is something drastically wrong and I can't fix it I will do a water change.

 

[musel101]

I'm going on 3 years for my tank and it's had 2 water changes

How much water volume is your tank?

 

[musel101]

15 years.


But I did not have a tank.

Did not have a tank what do you mean? What was the water volume?

 

[Js.Aqua.Project]

Did not have a tank what do you mean? What was the water volume?

I think the user is being facetious...you asked how long without a water change...15 years...because he didn't have a tank...

 

[Js.Aqua.Project]

So here are some of the most recent shots from the 240 taken about two weeks ago. I don't take many full tank shots as most of my photos are to track growth rates. I am on a very limited budget so aside from a few recent corals that I got almost everything in here started as a dime sized frag or in the case of the zoas with maybe 1-2 polyps.

 

[musel101]

So here are some of the most recent shots from the 240 taken about two weeks ago. I don't take many full tank shots as most of my photos are to track growth rates. I am on a very limited budget so aside from a few recent corals that I got almost everything in here started as a dime sized frag or in the case of the zoas with maybe 1-2 polyps.

Looking good, especially with limited or no water changes

 

[threebuoys]

lol

It was using an automatic water change system. I used it for many years, and would do so again if I set up another tank. It was set to change about 1% daily using a home depot timer that had it on for a bunch of 15 minute periods spread out over the day and night.

I had a new salt water reservoir made from two 44 gallon Brute cans plumbed together, so I could make up about 80 gallons once every couple of months and then sit back and let it do its thing.

No need to match anything, nor to heat the new salt water.

As Paul Harvey would say,

"and now we know the rest of the story"

 

[Minifoot77]

How much water volume is your tank?

80 gallons total and I loosely follow the moonshiners method

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Since I just posted this comment (below) a couple of days ago, I thought I'd repeat it here since it is relevant to this sort of discussion, where there is often minimal mentioning of anything on the husbandry systems used except the one of interest, here that one being water changes. That is not to say that water changes are or are not needed, but that one needs to take a lot more into account than whether one does water changes or not and whether the tank looks good.


We refuse to accept the mantra that the proof is in the pudding. This item comes up a lot, and many reefers misunderstand it. A single reef tank is proof that if every single thing in the way of husbandry done to it is repeated on a second, otherwise identical tank, then that second tank is likely to look similarly nice to the original. But that first tank is not in any way evidence that ANY SINGLE act of husbandry on the first tank is needed or useful, and may even be detrimental. You might accept it as evidence of import if I said the owner doses rubidium, but probably would not if I said the owner does a dance with a voodoo doll of her ex-husband every night when she doses calcium. Why accept one and not the other? Science starts with these sorts of anecdotes and tries to test them (e.g., stop the dance and the dosing of rubidium, and see if anything changes). Without testing, it's not evidence of anything except that it can be done in at least one tank, and still have a good tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The ocean doesn't change water.

I know that is a common throw away phrase by the anti-water change community, but on many real reefs it is actually not true. Many chemical changes take place as open ocean water is pushed across natural reefs by currents, as well as in and out of lagoons.

This article, for example, discusses calcification by corals based on how alkalinity drops as water flows from the open ocean, across a reef flat, and into a lagoon:

https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/156/m156p001.pdf

This article shows that water flowing over an island reef gets enriched in dissolved organics, particulate organics, and nitrate that gets swept back out to sea.

https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.4319/lo.1975.20.2.0198

 

[Minifoot77]

Since I just posted this comment (below) a couple of days ago, I thought I'd repeat it here since it is relevant to this sort of discussion, where there is often minimal mentioning of anything on the husbandry systems used except the one of interest, here that one being water changes. That is not to say that water changes are or are not needed, but that one needs to take a lot more into account than whether one does water changes or not and whether the tank looks good.


We refuse to accept the mantra that the proof is in the pudding. This item comes up a lot, and many reefers misunderstand it. A single reef tank is proof that if every single thing in the way of husbandry done to it is repeated on a second, otherwise identical tank, then that second tank is likely to look similarly nice to the original. But that first tank is not in any way evidence that ANY SINGLE act of husbandry on the first tank is needed or useful, and may even be detrimental. You might accept it as evidence of import if I said the owner doses rubidium, but probably would not if I said the owner does a dance with a voodoo doll of her ex-husband every night when she doses calcium. Why accept one and not the other? Science starts with these sorts of anecdotes and tries to test them (e.g., stop the dance and the dosing of rubidium, and see if anything changes). Without testing, it's not evidence of anything except that it can be done in at least one tank, and still have a good tank.

So you mean stirring my soda ash with my toes isnt why my tank is looking better these days?!?!