No water changes?

[Sigmund]

If I had a 400 gallon tank, probably wouldn’t love doing water changes either. But I do not understand this continued goal to manage tanks without water changes? I have 3 tanks, 125, 65, 20 and do weekly changes. Other than salinity, I probably check parameters once a year, other than AFR do not dose anything. Always just seemed easier to me to just do quality water changes, then constantly test water, and try to chase parameters ghat I can achieve with just maintenance. For the record, do not have acros, but basically everything else. Guess it just where u want to spend your time. To each their own, but then I usually think I am right. Not a great trait of mine!

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

I created a thread a while back that exploded. Here’s a wealth of information here with a bunch of people sharing their opinions, conventional and controversial, on why or why not to do water changes. Let’s just say, I can’t talk about water changes on here anymore lol. Hope this helps.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/do-you-do-water-changes.884131/page-4#post-9780757

 

[Saltyanimals]

I'm in the same boat of trying NOT to do WC if I can take care of the water I have. I actually enjoyed the WC when I had a smaller tank. A simple 5G bucket is easy to mix and perform. Even 2 buckets. However once you get to a med-large tank, the amount of WC to actually affect change goes much higher thus alot more difficult. My medium 180g + sump means a simple min 10% equates to 18+ gallons which now becomes a chore that will take hours. And 10% really doesn't move the needle much in terms of benefit, so I reverted to taking care of the water instead.

I do CaRX reactor so that gives me the core and I dose trace elements weekly. That's it. Test water probably monthly on a mix reef - SPS leaning. Took me a bit while the tank matures and will naturally balance as things stabilize and things settle down. However I will do ICP twice a year to make sure things stay in check. This is a small price and effort compared to doing WC to make sure I at least monitor my laziness.

 

[Timfish]

You can't measure the microbial stuff or the different types of DOC in your system. The composition of both has a profound influence on the health of your corals. Corals, sponges and algae are all messing with these, and vise versa. DOing water changes reduces both the good types and bad types together and facilitates corals in maintining the stuff they want. If your intention is to maintian your system and corals for it's/their normal life expectancies I would say water changes are essential. Here's a data bomb if your interested in:

"Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" This video compliments Rohwer's book of the same title (Paper back is ~$20, Kindle is ~$10), both deal with the conflicting roles of the different types of DOC in reef ecosystems. While there is overlap bewteen his book and the video both have information not covered by the other and together give a broader view of the complex relationships found in reef ecosystems


Changing Seas - Mysterious Microbes


Nitrogen cycling in hte coral holobiont


BActeria and Sponges


Maintenance of Coral Reef Health (refferences at the end)


Optical Feedback Loop in Colorful Coral Bleaching


Richard Ross What's up with phosphate"


Indirect effects of algae on coral: algae‐mediated, microbe‐induced coral mortality
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2006.00937.x
Influence of coral and algal exudates on microbially mediated reef metabolism.
Coral DOC improves oxygen (autotrophy), algae DOC reduces oxygen (heterotrophy).
https://peerj.com/articles/108/?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_campaign=PeerJ_TrendMD_0&utm_medium=TrendMD
Role of elevated organic carbon levels and microbial activity in coral mortality
http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps2006/314/m314p119.pdf
Effects of Coral Reef Benthic Primary Producers on Dissolved Organic Carbon and Microbial Activity
Algae releases significantly more DOC into the water than coral.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0027973
Pathologies and mortality rates caused by organic carbon and nutrient stressors in three Caribbean coral species.
Starch and sugars (doc) caused coral death but not high nitrates, phosphates or ammonium.
http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps2005/294/m294p173.pdf
Visualization of oxygen distribution patterns caused by coral and algae
https://peerj.com/articles/106/
Biological oxygen demand optode analysis of coral reef-associated microbial communities exposed to algal exudates
Exposure to exudates derived from turf algae stimulated higher oxygen drawdown by the coral-associated bacteria.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3719127/
Microbial ecology: Algae feed a shift on coral reefs
https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol201661
Coral and macroalgal exudates vary in neutral sugar composition and differentially enrich reef bacterioplankton lineages.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23303369
Sugar enrichment provides evidence for a role of nitrogen fixation in coral bleaching
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.13695
Elevated ammonium delays the impairment of the coral-dinoflagellate symbiosis during labile carbon pollution
(here's an argument for maintaining heavy fish loads if you're carbon dosing)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166445X19307192
Excess labile carbon promotes the expression of virulence factors in coral reef bacterioplankton
https://www.nature.com/articles/ismej2017142
Unseen players shape benthic competition on coral reefs.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22944243
Allelochemicals Produced by Brown Macroalgae of the Lobophora Genus Are Active against Coral Larvae and Associated Bacteria, Supporting Pathogenic Shifts to Vibrio Dominance.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27795310
Macroalgae decrease growth and alter microbial community structure of the reef-building coral, Porites astreoides.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22957055
Macroalgal extracts induce bacterial assemblage shifts and sublethal tissue stress in Caribbean corals.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23028648
Biophysical and physiological processes causing oxygen loss from coral reefs.
https://elifesciences.org/articles/49114.pdf
Global microbialization of coral reefs
DDAM Proven
https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol201642
Coral Reef Microorganisms in a Changing Climate, Fig 3
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7096749/figure/fig3/
Ecosystem Microbiology of Coral Reefs: Linking Genomic, Metabolomic, and Biogeochemical Dynamics from Animal Symbioses to Reefscape Processes
https://msystems.asm.org/content/msys/3/2/e00162-17.full.pdf

Because sponges are essential players in the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycle(s) on reefs here's some links to research done with them.

Element cycling on tropical coral reefs.
This is Jasper de Geoij's ground breaking research on reef sponges. (The introduction is in Dutch but the content is in English.)
https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/files/14555035/13completethesis.pdf
Sponge symbionts and the marine P cycle
https://www.pnas.org/content/112/14/4191
Phosphorus sequestration in the form of polyphosphate by microbial symbionts in marine sponges
https://www.pnas.org/content/112/14/4381
Differential recycling of coral and algal dissolved organic matter via the sponge loop.
Sponges treat DOC from algae differently than DOC from corals
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2435.12758
Surviving in a Marine Desert The Sponge Loop Retains Resources Within Coral Reefs
Dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen are quickly processed by sponges and released back into the reef food web in hours as carbon and nitrogen rich detritus.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279061640_2013_deGoeij_Science_Sponge_loop
Natural Diet of Coral-Excavating Sponges Consists Mainly of Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3934968/
The Role of Marine Sponges in Carbon and Nitrogen Cycles of COral Reefs and Nearshore Environments.
https://search.proquest.com/openvie...9d1e5/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
And since we're discussing favorable and not so favorable bacteria here's a paper looking at how different corals and polyps are influencing the bacteria in the water column.
Aura-biomes are present in the water layer above coral reef benthic macro-organisms
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28828261

 

[fishgutz]

take a look at the "tank of the month" from whatever forum you choose. You will rarely if ever find a tank at that level that does not perform regular water changes.
It can be done, but rarely with the result most of us are striving for.

 

[DHill6]

In the early stages of a tank I think water changes are important. After it matures I don't believe it is as important as long as you keep your water chemistry going without the water changes. Here is a video of my 12 year old tank. I haven't done water changes really for 9 years now.

Very nice, coral placement isn’t crowded. Fish are nice and healthy.