No water change with leathers present

[BanjoMan87]

Hey Everyone, Long time lurker first post and hopefully its in the right place.I'm returning from a deployment soon and I have a 95 gallon reef with a 30 gal sump/fuge and dosing 2 part and vodka via pump with bi-weekly addition of trace elements. A question i cant find the answer to is going the no water change route with leathers in the tank. My parameters stay very stable and am having my wife only doing about a 5 gal water change once a week trying not to burden her too much. Since its gone so well with little water change ive considered going none at all when I get back. I'm running a carbon reactor but I'm wondering if thats enough to keep up with terpene/toxins released by the leathers if i go this route. Thanks for any help or insight.

 

[Spare time]

You can get away with no water changes as long as you reliabley dose trace elements (I use chaetogro and red sea trace A) and use quality carbon. My macro dies if I do not dose chaetogro since I don't do water changes to replace things like iron. I have a big leather and non of my other corals ever have problems. I just run carbon in a bag but reactors are ideal. My leather frequently gets stung by a riccordia so if the leather was wanting to release some chemicals out to fight it has by now so I would say I feel my carbon does fine.

 

[rwreef]

Welcome to R2R!

I do monthly water changes. You may find things are not that stable with without your current weekly water change. But in theory, yes it might be okay as long as you replace trace elements.

 

[BanjoMan87]

Thanks for the replies. I had planned on dosing more trace elements if I stopped water changes completely. I dose/maintain my alk/cal/mag to the same levels as fresh salt mix so very little if any swings when I do water changes. I'm running matrix carbon in a reactor changed bi-weekly.My only concern was the leather toxins compounding over time and reaching lethal levels with out any water being changed out.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If I were to go the no water change route, I'd be sure to use GAC, and dose trace elements periodically.

 

[BanjoMan87]

If I were to go the no water change route, I'd be sure to use GAC, and dose trace elements periodically.

Thanks for the reply. I'm definitely going to keep up with the carbon and trace elements. Also I'd like to thank you for the wealth of knowledge you've provided me the past couple of years. Any water chemistry questions ive ever had has led me to one of your articles, research papers or posts.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks for the reply. I'm definitely going to keep up with the carbon and trace elements. Also I'd like to thank you for the wealth of knowledge you've provided me the past couple of years. Any water chemistry questions ive ever had has led me to one of your articles, research papers or posts.

Thanks very much!

Happy Reefing.