Reasons for Doing Water Changes?

[Amoo]

Im not sure this is true, is it? Depending on which regimen you are using. I don't think I would abandon testing ca/alk/and occasional mg if I wasn't doing water changes. I think it would be interesting to hear (and maybe Triton has literature on this) - how many tests they receive that result in an 'actionable result' - especially from tanks that have no sign of problem (either an element that is much to high or much too low - and has been proven to affect tank health).

No I agree, and that's the thing. Honestly IMO running "no water change" can have a lot more work involved then running a WC and forget it style system.

I'm just saying there is a balance on both sides where we have to test regardless of what system we choose. I can tell you from personal experience since taking my 60G to no WC I have done SIGNIFICANTLY more work and spent significantly more time with my equipment and components and testing then I did previously.

As usual YMMV, but I want to be clear there is a BIG difference between LARS and an active reefer running "no water change"

 

[TbyZ]

I have never said that people couldn't have tanks without water changes.

Thats outright rubbish. Your typical opinion to NRWC tanks, & my arguments has been, quote "I dont care if you never do another water change. I do care that other people reading this BS will think its ok." I think that bit of pretentious self righteous grand standing came before your obscene name calling started.

Sorry - I have complimented and posted several times the example (no water change) tanks are nice and its an interesting discussion.

Yeh, compliments, unless its me posting the points, or examples of tanks that do great without RWC. Like for example Farmer Ty's tank. If had posted his tank as an example you would have targeted me with another aggressive & personal accusation that I was misquoting or misrepresenting the tank or whatever, rather than giving me the "nice tank" Farmer recieved.
Larrs raises the possible problem of trace element mixing in large batch salt production, & thats fine. But I post examples of actual major element problems with salt people have used, & you comment, quote "Another anecdote that means nothing" & continue on with another aggressive & personal berating tirade, which unfortunately a couple of participants here actually posted a "like" to.
I don't care for your opinions so stop stalking me & quoting my posts thanks!
Go start your own thread & put your points forward to prove that No Regular Water Change tanks cannot be done successfully, cause that's your argument here!

 

[Amoo]

Hey @TbyZ I know you were upset that @MnFish1 was coming on a little strong man, but he's kinda taken a step back, you might consider an adjustment as well. If for nothing else to keep the peace.

 

[TbyZ]

Hey @TbyZ I know you were upset that @MnFish1 was coming on a little strong man, but he's kinda taken a step back, you might consider an adjustment as well. If for nothing else to keep the peace.

Has he? I must have missed that bit.
But I'll keep an eye on it, thanks.

 

[Reef Pets]

It seems far more logical to frequently change small amounts of water rather than adding a ton elements and a lot of testing to achieve the same goal.

sometimes old methods create the best results. That’s just how I see it because I would much rather do a water change than add depleted elements.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Didn't Red Sea already figure out a good way to estimate trace elements consumption based on Ca uptake, as trace elements are thought to be taken up in a fairly predictable ratio compared to the Ca uptake.

No. They couldn't, because trace element uptake is not necessarily tied to calcification at all.

Much of the trace element uptake in a reef aquarium goes into tissues and/or inorganic precipitation due to insolubility. They do not necessarily go into skeletons.

Even if every hard coral generated the same amount of tissue per skeleton (do you think they do?), what about trace element uptake by soft corals, macroalgae, microalgae, sponges, and every other growing organism that deposits no calcium carbonate at all?

Maybe this idea is better than mL of a mix per gallon per week, but possibly not.

 

[TbyZ]

No. They couldn't, because trace element uptake is not necessarily tied to calcification at all.

Much of the trace element uptake in a reef aquarium goes into tissues and/or inorganic precipitation due to insolubility. They do not necessarily go into skeletons.

Even if every hard coral generated the same amount of tissue per skeleton (do you think they do?), what about trace element uptake by soft corals, macroalgae, microalgae, sponges, and every other growing organism that deposits no calcium carbonate at all?

Maybe this idea is better than mL of a mix per gallon per week, but possibly not.

I know glenf would argue "
Do we really need to match all 90+ element perfectly to make corals thrive in aquarium?
- Do corals grow due to NSW or despiteNSW?"

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If I am correct then the argument of those that say water changes are not necessary under normal circumstances is that one does not know if the mix is good since it has not been measured (this seems to be Triton's argument, and that of the creator of the balling method) although that argument could be turned against those advocates since one also does not know exactly what is in the Triton and balling products.

Not sure what you mean by the Balling example. Tropic Marin claims they have a Perfect sodium chloride free salt mix to use with sodium carbonate and calcium chloride in that method (Lou Ekus has claimed it here multiple times). If you have such a perfect mix, you can have a perfect salt mix. Whether that is true or not I do not know.

That said, loads of salt mixes have been measured many times.

The one other issue I see with those that advocate water changes as 'the answer' is that going by the data that those articles I linked to presented then they are not changing enough water to correct the issues they say make them a necessity.

I'm not claiming it is "the answer' and I don't think most people do. The sole question (IMO) is whether it is desirable, neutral, or undesirable, and opinions vary on that.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think it will work from a technical point of view – you only ad some more catalyst.

But the question of the stabilizers remains unsolved. I do not know if it’s a concern or not

Sincerely Lasse

I've never found good info on this and I've looked several times. A number of chemicals are listed as possibilities, but what, if anything, is in most commercial products isn't clear.

The thing about hydrogen peroxide that perplexes me and makes me worry a bit about is stabilizers is the instant drop in ORP that many people see when adding it. Pure H2O2 itself in a pure chemical system of seawater should raise ORP.

That drop might be from a stabilizer, or may be because bacteria are immediately being broken open.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think it will work from a technical point of view – you only ad some more catalyst.

But the question of the stabilizers remains unsolved. I do not know if it’s a concern or not

Sincerely Lasse

I've never found good info on this and I've looked several times. A number of chemicals are listed as possibilities, but what, if anything, is in most commercial products isn't clear.

The thing about hydrogen peroxide that perplexes me and makes me worry a bit about is stabilizers is the instant drop in ORP that many people see when adding it. Pure H2O2 itself in a pure chemical system of seawater should raise ORP.

That drop might be from a stabilizer, or may be because bacteria are immediately being broken open.

 

[MnFish1]

Has he? I must have missed that bit.
But I'll keep an eye on it, thanks.

Firstly, I cant be completely objective here because I dont see my responses as being as 'negative' as you do - that said, I apologize if I came across to you as berating/rude/etc. It was never the intention. After reading the posts - some of mine were a little terse. I would suggest - that some of yours were just as 'inflammatory' - and occurred before I posted anything on this thread.

I just read all of my comments on this thread - and yours. Again I cant be completely objective in my opinion here - but reading your responses to other people when they questioned your logic In the first 4 pages of this thread was frustrating. It seemed (to me) that when people tried to answer your thread - in which you asked 'why do water changes' - you basically said everyone responding was incorrect. If it seemed like I was more negative on your posts, it is because I disagreed with the premise that you start a thread to 'ask a question' and then proceed to disagree with everyone that answers the question differently than you like (and I'm not talking about my posts - Im talking about everyone's posts).

Again - I do apologize that some of my wording was stronger than intended.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The participant i believe you're refering to is performing 15% water changes on his system monthly, which falls into your recommendation. Yet his test showed his tin is off the scale as is his iodine, P & PO4.
His P problem could be controled by fitration. His high iodine must be from a particular food he uses as he doesn’t dose it directly. Where his tin is comming from I don't know, as he only doses "recipe 2" for alk and calc" but regular water changes have been more than inadequate, so he needs to address those problems directly.

I don't see your point. He's changing less than my recommendation, but I didn't claim it eliminates issues, just makes them less severe. Why would you assume the levels wouldn't be much higher without those changes?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Paul B. Has run ozone in his tank for 40 plus years and he will let you know real quick that he hasn't grown 2 heads or suffered respirator failure.
.

Maybe Paul B is an example of bad things that can happen using ozone recklessly.

 

[FarmerTy]

It seems far more logical to frequently change small amounts of water rather than adding a ton elements and a lot of testing to achieve the same goal.

sometimes old methods create the best results. That’s just how I see it because I would much rather do a water change than add depleted elements.

That's not always the scenario though. I know logically that since I don't do water changes, one would think that I must be hovered over my tank dosing 20 different trace elements weekly and testing my water or having it tested all the time but that's not the case at all. These are trace elements, we're talking parts-per-million here of which most we have no real clue if they have any function regarding coral biological activity other than a select few that we do know their function.

I test my alk every two weeks, I test everything else quarterly ( calcium, magnesium, phosphate, nitrate, potassium, and salinity), and I send in a sample to Triton annually. That's it. I tried dosing iodine for a few months based on a very low detection in my Triton results and it yielded no difference to my tank so I stopped. I don't aim to replenish any Trace elements unless I see an issue in the tank, then I'll review the Triton results and see if there's something I need to look into dosing, but that hasn't been the case for three years with the old tank before I moved.

So in my scenario at least, water changes comes out to actually more work and more physically grueling labor then just topping off my Medias in all my reactors. I don't spend my days adding drops of trace elements and donating my money to Triton as it is naturally assumed if you go with no water changes. That's at least an assumption I'd like to dispel with those that are successful going with no water changes.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I know glenf would argue "
Do we really need to match all 90+ element perfectly to make corals thrive in aquarium?
- Do corals grow due to NSW or despiteNSW?"

He can argue with Lou of Tropic Marin then. It isn't my opinion that all of these need be at any particular level.

And I think we are lucky that is the case, since we cannot presently measure some critical ones anyway (e.g., iron).

 

[Newb73]

No. They couldn't, because trace element uptake is not necessarily tied to calcification at all.

Much of the trace element uptake in a reef aquarium goes into tissues and/or inorganic precipitation due to insolubility. They do not necessarily go into skeletons.

Even if every hard coral generated the same amount of tissue per skeleton (do you think they do?), what about trace element uptake by soft corals, macroalgae, microalgae, sponges, and every other growing organism that deposits no calcium carbonate at all?

Maybe this idea is better than mL of a mix per gallon per week, but possibly not.

So without Triton (and there is literally no way of being sure just how accurate or useful the results are), you are flying blind.

It still brings you back to "a little dab will do ya" as a method then.

 

[Lasse]

Ozone is not like radiation, it is simply aggrivating to sensitive airways and will quickly dissipate and degrade into regular 02 as soon as it encounters something to oxidize. It has a short life at low concentrations.

Ozone will under a short time during its breakdown process form active free radicals - free oxygen radicals is suspected to be one of the real reasons for some cancer forms (if not all). There is also evidence that Ozone can act together with other molecules and form active radicals At least some radiation (like UV) create free oxygen radicals when it hit our skin. Among the pale population of Scandinavia - skin cancer is a growing issue. We do not have enough of the antioxidant melanin in our skin and we travel a lot to the sun. Just Google free radicals cancer - you got tons of links

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So without Triton (and there is literally no way of being sure just how accurate or useful the results are), you are flying blind.

It still brings you back to "a little dab will do ya" as a method then.

With trace elements, yes that is true.

 

[Lasse]

No. They couldn't, because trace element uptake is not necessarily tied to calcification at all.

Much of the trace element uptake in a reef aquarium goes into tissues and/or inorganic precipitation due to insolubility. They do not necessarily go into skeletons.

Even if every hard coral generated the same amount of tissue per skeleton (do you think they do?), what about trace element uptake by soft corals, macroalgae, microalgae, sponges, and every other growing organism that deposits no calcium carbonate at all?

Maybe this idea is better than mL of a mix per gallon per week, but possibly not.

My old tank crashed because I thought it could be done that way. I will never go back to dose combined products again. The corals was better than ever but the fishes and the clean-up crew died.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[dz6t]

Didn't Red Sea already figure out a good way to estimate trace elements consumption based on Ca uptake, as trace elements are thought to be taken up in a fairly predictable ratio compared to the Ca uptake.

Randy can you please elaborate on this please?