Reasons Why Im Not Doing Water Changes Anymore.

[Tangchaser]

"No water changes" has to be the most desirable achievement of any SPS reefer.

Unfortunately, a lot of people get it wrong and very few come back to report the issues.

In my opinion, if you just stop water changes and don't adopt a method to back it, you are starting a time bomb. The bomb wick is just as long as the volume of the tank.
More volume equals to more time to deplete or saturate trace elements. Reason why, large tanks go well a long time without WC, whereas small tanks not so much.

Secondly, water changes causing instability is easy to fix and I wouldn't use it as the driver to stop WC entirely. Adjust the new water parameters to match the tank's water, do it slowly and the problem is solved.

Having that said, it is amazing what Triton and DSR are bringing to the hobby and hopefully thechniques like these will become more accessible shortly.

I agree with what your saying. I started this experiment with drive to learn more. I know you can achieve stable water changes but that was not the route I decided to take. I think most people fail because they fail to keep learning. Something goes bad they just blame it on whatever or the fact that they just needed a waterchange. Why? Why did the tank need that change what was going on? When I first got into the hobby I would skim threads on chemistry and would fall asleep instantly. Now im a firm believer that you can't get enough info on reef chemistry.

 

[Squamosa]

it is amazing what Triton and DSR are bringing to the hobby and hopefully thechniques like these will become more accessible shortly

They are available right now, I think you already know how to implement them

 

[rockskimmerflow]

With the advent on Triton testing and other methods of monitoring specific ion content in reef tanks, I believe we are on the verge of no water change system's with very long term success. I have never tried a full blown Balling system using only 'sodium chloride free' salt to correct for salinity creep from dosing while maintaining relative element concentrations. I always admired how visionary that system was for the future of the hobby and the lack of a need for water changes to address nutrient issues.

I am a firm believer in detritus removal and there's nothing like a thorough cleaning to make a tank sparkle again. I do agree that from a nutrient management standpoint water changes are largely unnecessary. My concern is that sodium and chloride may become severely imbalanced when adding large amounts of a 2 part system over time (upward salinity creep for certain). Employing a calcium reactor would avoid this problem, but I think I'd still chicken out from ion imbalance concerns after 6 months or so even if I was using a CR. Unless I was on a Triton type system I personally wouldn't try it, but it's clear that with many tanks no water changes can be viable. I'd love to see the longevity on systems running this method without Triton type testing and only hobby grade tests/corrective supplementation used instead. Would be neat to experiment.

Good luck to anyone who is going all in on the never doing a water change system! I like the experimental attitude many members of this hobby possess.

 

[muntwo]

@fsamir, I totally agree. Unless you're approaching reef maintenance through systematic, high-precision testing and correcting imbalanced ion concentrations as your tank matures, set aside the hubris and do a water change because it may only be a matter of time before your tank crashes. To promote otherwise is totally irresponsible and detrimental to the reef keeping community. That said, if a water change is so dramatically altering your tank parameters that corals are dying, either: 1) your dosing is in excess or is insufficient to closely match the parameters of your fresh saltwater or 2) you have a bad batch of salt mix every time you do a water change. Don't take this personally, but I'm inclined to say it's the former and that you're better off doing regular water changes.

 

[timkenagy]

This is a great post because I think it's a good indicatior of where we're going to. I picture as equipment advances, like 10 years ago skimmers were barely doing anything.. Now people are experimenting running them on timers because they're pulling too much out? Eventually a company like midstream is gonna get it right and we're all gonna be able to monitor almost every aspect of our water in real time 24/7.. Have filtration that will make the tank water better than new water, and with the live data have the ability to dial in every level in the aquarium. In 10-15 years we'll be on here saying "does anyone remember back when we had to change water every week?" It's just a matter of time.. We'll get there sooner or later... I imagine a monitoring system that not only monitors all the levels.. But the computer automatically doses according to its current needs at any given time. Instead of dosing a mathematical guess.

 

[Bryce Peterson]

You can't argue with results. It really seems to be working for you. I did notice that your fish load is very light compared to most tanks I see. Would you say this contributes to you being able to maintain the balance you have apparently achieved? I will be doing a tank move in the next year or so and am looking into ways to improve my sps rearing abilities. I am considering running a separate fish/LPS tank downstream of the sps tank. Still don't know if I would be brave enough to completely cut out the water changes.

 

[atoll]

Just read through all the posts and could only find 2 (I may of missed 1 or2) on here running an ATS. Seems most people are running Triton. I like natural wherever possible and run 2 small ATS a DIY waterfall and a Santa Monica HOG2 and never had such great results with my SPS. I do a 10% water change every month or so. Nitrates phosphates are undetectable on my test kits. I also have some Red Sea pulsing Xenia which also helps with nuitrent export. I just wonder why so few run an ATS and prefer the considerably more expensive Triton method. My tank is only 12 months set up but many SPS frags have only been introduced in recent months starting 6 months ago.

 

[Ferozkaamil]

I agree but hey I'm sure u invested a lots of money in equipment and other stuff.

 

[atoll]

A lot of my equipment is either DIY or secondhand and the GHA in my scrubbers comes free

 

[malcnunn]

I stopped wc's a few yrs ago . I found macro algaes of varying types do the business of metal removal fine without the need for polyfilters , infact I sometimes get low on Zn (not sure if that's the algae or corals fault ). I dose NaNo3 and liquid plant food and use excess Co2 on my calcium reactor in order to keep the algaes blooming .

 

[Squamosa]

(upward salinity creep for certain)

I've only experienced the reverse, over almost 2 years. And yes, only corrected with NaCl

 

[Squamosa]

may only be a matter of time before your tank crashes.

With all due respect, there are many of us who totally disagree with this statement!

 

[Squamosa]

Instead of dosing a mathematical guess

No guessing involved

 

[Squamosa]

A lot of my equipment is either DIY or secondhand and the GHA in my scrubbers comes free

I made my own calcium reactor

 

[Bruce Burnett]

When I setup my 300 gallon system almost 2 years ago I went bare bottom. I had been out of the hobby for 7 years for medical and money reasons. I made modifications over the 1st year. I was using phosban reactors for GFO and gac, 2 aqua c EV240 skimmers. I built a new sump with filter socks after the new Reef Dynamics INS450 skimmer added a recirculating bio pellet reactor, added a calcium reactor I already had. Even though I was feeding heavily my corals were going pale. At first I thought it was from my lighting but then realized my water was short on nutrients. This was something I could never do before, I could go 2-3 weeks without cleaning the glass no algae growing anywhere. I started using amino acids heavily until my nitrates and phosphates started going up and most of corals got color back but not all. I changed out my GFO and had a couple of frags die, here I was blaming the gfo and realized that since I moved I now needed to put heaters in my system as I had a 15 degree drop. I recently switched over to the all in one bio pellets and got rid of my GFO reactor. Some of my corals still did not have full color and I found my potassium was low, slowly bringing it up. Noticed a big improvement in color of all the corals in 2 days. I have recently this week added ozone to my skimmer and at the moment I am getting the most dry skim mate in a long time. It is almost colorless and I expect it to get less in a week or two. I thought my water was clear before but it has really became clearer. My tank is mostly SPS but mixed with about a dozen fish. Even though I claim I don't do water changes I do theoretically make small changes because of the 1-2 gallons pulled out by the skimmer each week. I am now at the point where I want to get an Apex or Archon control system but no other major changes as I have done enough now it is time for fine tuning and less money.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

I've only experienced the reverse, over almost 2 years. And yes, only corrected with NaCl

As I said in my post, if you're using a Calcium Reactor you won't have the upward salinity creep. Are you using 2 part? -Because mathematically you will see upward salinity creep from heavy 2 part solution addition. Slow, downward creep makes sense for a tank with longterm Ca reactor use. I definitely think a tank with no water changes will stay balanced longer when using a calcium reactor.

 

[timkenagy]

Just read through all the posts and could only find 2 (I may of missed 1 or2) on here running an ATS. Seems most people are running Triton. I like natural wherever possible and run 2 small ATS a DIY waterfall and a Santa Monica HOG2 and never had such great results with my SPS. I do a 10% water change every month or so. Nitrates phosphates are undetectable on my test kits. I also have some Red Sea pulsing Xenia which also helps with nuitrent export. I just wonder why so few run an ATS and prefer the considerably more expensive Triton method. My tank is only 12 months set up but many SPS frags have only been introduced in recent months starting 6 months ago.

I run a huge ATS suspended above my ridiculously large refugium. Sorry the fuge looks a bit boring I just set it up last month and haven't decided completely the direction I wanna go with it yet.

 

[mcarroll]

it was Sps heavy, but also lightly stocked with fish

The real secret to an actual ultra-low-nutrient-system AND simplicity - light stocking levels! Don't let that get out!

 

[GARYSODERLUND]

I decided not to do water changes in February of 2015. Mainly because I tend to work out of town for sometimes as long as a month if not more. Why for that reason you ask? Well because of work I bought an apex and some brs dosers and started auto dosing my tank with calcium, alk, and mag. Dialing everything in didn't take long and worked great. Water stability was awesome till I did a water change. This whole time I noticed that when I was doing water chages the salt mix was always different from how my tank was leveling out. With each water change I felt like paramiters would shift too much. Most of this was because I was doing larger monthly water changes instead of smaller weekly water changes. Anyone who has been in the hobby for a wile knows that stability in water paramiters is a must.
After reading some articles on dutch systems and seeing amazing results from people that were dosing instead of doing water changes, I decided I would give it a go. The whole reason for water changes are to export waste and import chems. Well I'm exporting waste through a Aquamaxx c02 skimmer, Brs reactor, and micro algae. I'm importing nutrients from dosing with brs dosers ran from an apex controller.
Since Febuary 2015 I have cut down on losses on newly introduced corals, managed to keep a wild acro colony, and have seen some great growth. Water paramiters have been constant and I have been able to go on a month long jobs with out any change of water paramiters.
I write this just to inform people about whats working for me. I'm not here to change your mind or say water changes are bad. If what your doing works keep doing it.

Some pics of my strawberry short cake acro.

June 2015


Jan 2016

I HAVE A QUESTION. I DO WATER CHANGES BECAUSE MY BOTTOM ACCUMULATES UNUSED FOOD, ETC.... IF I WENT TO NO WATER CHANGES, WON'T THAT GET VERY BAD ? P.S. I DON'T HAVE LIVE SAND.

 

[Squamosa]

I HAVE A QUESTION. I DO WATER CHANGES BECAUSE MY BOTTOM ACCUMULATES UNUSED FOOD, ETC.... IF I WENT TO NO WATER CHANGES, WON'T THAT GET VERY BAD ? P.S. I DON'T HAVE LIVE SAND.

Pick your flow up, get that detritus suspended in the water column with random flow and exported to your sump.

Failing that, 2-5 litres of junk siphoned out per fortnight is not a water change...unless you run a nano