No water changes

[Treefer32]

I'm going down the path of no more water changes. I was doing 130 gallons monthly for close to 6 months on my 350 gallon system. I have everything in place now to monitor and keep it stable for the most part. I'm going on 2 months now of no water changes and things are staying the same. Corals are doing well. Between two sets of hammers I counted close to 30 heads that all fully open and look great. I recently got an orange hammer frag and gold hammer frag and both are fully opening since day one. My Acros are remaining healthy and if anything growing faster than when I was doing water changes.

Alk is remaining stable at 9, calcium at 500, Magnesium around 1500. I'm dosing all three with a bubble magus doser.

I'm vodka dosing 6 ml per day, and growing large amounts of hair algae in my turf scrubber and skimmer is fully functional. Everything is in place to go water changeless.

I don't know if this is a chemistry question because I don't understand the role of orp. But ph is stable between 8.15 and 8.4 on a daily basis.

It's been said ORP matters if one is not introducing fresh salt water. I know there's tons of anecdotal evidence of "I haven't changed salt water in 2 years and it's not a concern for me."

Just wondering if there's any science to needing to monitor and or boost ORP Levels (which I believe is done through Ozone?)

Thoughts?

 

[blaxsun]

Do you know what your ORP levels are? I get a constant readout on my Apex, and while I don’t rely on it it does give me indications if something is ever off, ie: I turn the skimmer or pump off for maintenance, perform a water change, medicate, etc.

I am also performing very few water changes (twice in 6 months) and have not been augmenting my tank with ozone. Here’s my ORP for the past week.

 

[flagg37]

I went about a year with only one water change. I would have gone longer but I had to shut the tank down to move. I don’t remember seeing any change in orp but it became essential to dose trace elements. Iron was the hard one for me to keep up with. My cheatomorpha was sucking it all up.

 

[Steve and his Animals]

One of the things that people don't often consider is the bacterial load in the water when you stop doing water changes. Consider a UV sterilizer if you haven't already. And consider running it during the day only; I find having it off at night lets the pods/microorganisms do what they're supposed to without it getting out of hand.

 

[Treefer32]

One of the things that people don't often consider is the bacterial load in the water when you stop doing water changes. Consider a UV sterilizer if you haven't already. And consider running it during the day only; I find having it off at night lets the pods/microorganisms do what they're supposed to without it getting out of hand.

I'm not sure what you mean by bacterial load. . Generally water changes don't remove bacteria. Vodka dosing maintains the carbon source. So, not sure how water changes would manage bacteria populations?

 

[Treefer32]

Do you know what your ORP levels are? I get a constant readout on my Apex, and while I don’t rely on it it does give me indications if something is ever off, ie: I turn the skimmer or pump off for maintenance, perform a water change, medicate, etc.

I am also performing very few water changes (twice in 6 months) and have not been augmenting my tank with ozone. Here’s my ORP for the past week.

Wow, you've got high orp! So, My Apex classic shows ORP but I don't have an ORP probe, does it calculate based on temp and ph or does the PH or temp probe actually monitor orp too? I never paid attention to it because I didn't know where the data was coming from.

I looked back to July when I was doing water changes and my orp then was lower than it is now... go figure. . .Right now my ORP is between 305 and 315 each day. Yours is 100 more than mine. . .

I have no idea what's good or if my measurements are taken by an instrument or just calculated from temp and ph.

 

[Hydrored]

Had an Orp probe since day one. I never really pay attention to it to be honest. Some people get away with no water changes but any ICP test I’ve sent shows low trace elements even with dosing triton other when not doing water changes. I do 10% a week and things always test fine.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It's been said ORP matters if one is not introducing fresh salt water. I know there's tons of anecdotal evidence of "I haven't changed salt water in 2 years and it's not a concern for me."

Just wondering if there's any science to needing to monitor and or boost ORP Levels (which I believe is done through Ozone?)

Never heard that, and I do not agree with it.

I see no reason for ORP (not that useful to begin with) and no water change methodology to be related.

Higher ORP is not "better". Don't fall for that.

I discuss all you'd ever want to know about ORP here:


ORP and the Reef Aquarium - Reefkeeping.com

 

[blaxsun]

Wow, you've got high orp!

I’ve got a lot of pumps running devices in my sump (4), so I’m sure that has some bearing on it. It’s been in the low 400’s since I started the tank.

 

[Steve and his Animals]

I'm not sure what you mean by bacterial load. . Generally water changes don't remove bacteria. Vodka dosing maintains the carbon source. So, not sure how water changes would manage bacteria populations?

Nutrients and other organics in the water allow water-borne bacteria to multiply over time. Too many bacteria in the water is usually what leads to our animals having suppressed immune systems, from what I understand (people usually attribute declining fish health to nitrates, but we know that isn't the case until you get into the extreme numbers). I'm not sure how vodka dosing affects this, though. Changing water definitely reduces bacterial loads if we're talking about water-borne bacteria.