Thoughts on methods of eliminating water changes ?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Does running activated carbon eliminate contaminants such as pesticides, smoke, etc?

It can help reduce organic molecules, depending on what specifically the molecule is, but it doesn't necessarily eliminate them.

 

[Scott.h]

1. Some degree of major, minor and trace element replenishment.
2. Manage undesirable Nitrate and Phosphate build up.
3. Reduce undesirable yellowing pigments and odors from the tank.
4. Reduce general contaminant accumulation from impurities in foods, additives and unintentional additions from hands, kids, cleaning agents, air ...

I certainly don't think everyone should run out and stop water changes because they have been a pretty integral component of a vast majority of successful reef tanks but looking at this I have to say there seem to be much more effective and easier methods of achieving one though three and four is a bit of a mystery. Just for discussion, would a system with a calcium reactor, functional refugium/ATS, bag of carbon and an annual or semiannual change of a majority of the water achieve a good portion of the same goals with a lot less effort and expense?

More or less are these four functions the reasons you do water changes? Are there other significant reasons? Ideas on better ways to collectively achieve the same goals as a complete approach or method of reefing?

1. Most claim they do water changes to replenish trace elements if nothing else. But from the testing I've seen, my salt (also the one triton recommends, ran from day one) doesn't have much of what I consider trace elements in the salt at all. Ca mg alk of course.. strontium etc, some, but the real trace, no. It's also said that these elements aren't necessary, and make no difference. I'm not a scientist, nor doing scientific studies on corals, but I can say without a doubt in my experience adding all of the real trace elements combined did make a noticeable more vibrant difference. Can you have success without them, of course, but the corals won't be as bright.

2. Using water changes for reducing N and P is an expensive, non productive way of achieving this goal. The key is proper water volume/live rock in ratio for the inhabitants intended to keep. The focus should be on filtration.

3. Run carbon if yellowing is an issue.

4. There are some unknowns with this. Fish food contains impurities. My thoughts are it's going to take awhile for this to accumulate to a significant amount. If I end up doing a few water changes when I need to, so be it. Maybe the skimmer/carbon will pull 30% out over the year as well. Time will tell. The whole process is still cheaper and easier then doing water changes regularly.

Personally I'm very happy, and have never had better overall health, and coloration then I have. Logically the system makes sense AS LONG AS the proper filtration and planning was put in place on the front end. If not, it would end up being more expensive and more work continually trying to rebalance everything.

 

[Ryanbrs]

I think trace elements are one of the more interesting elements of all this, particularly because we all know you can be successful without spending a lot of time worrying about them. There are simply too many tanks based on basic 2 part or kalkwasser to argue against that fact. Supportive of that, for the same reason that water changes don't maintain calcium and alkalinity levels in these tanks, water changes are also not a realistic solution to maintaining minor or trace element levels. So levels are likely significantly depleted in a majorty of these tanks, and it is not preventing their sucess.

For a majority of my personal reefing adventure, I have felt most of us shouldn't dose anything that is unnecessary and expensive, doesn't produce definable and easy to identify results, or anything you can't test for. I think that thought process was largely founded upon not only making this affordable, but also easy enough that the average person can do it. I still think this is sound advice to a vast majority of reefers.

The element that has changed in the last 5 years for me is an understanding that everyone's goal is not the same. Some of us just want a reef tank in our homes, but many reefers want a hobby and want to continually hone a skill and their knowledge on the subject - All of which span a wide breadth of available space, time, budgets, and other resources. Honing skill and knowledge can be expensive but almost always has more failures than sucesses and certainly very time consuming...

So in that spirit, I think the real question isn't "can you be successful without dosing trace elements" because I think the answer to that question has already been answered and is not really debatable. The question is "are there real benefits to maintaining trace elements that justify the efforts and results?" I guess at this point it is hard to believe that maintaining natural sea water parameters won't have some benefit - but are the results worth the time and effort? This is really an individual goal question that likely doesn't have a universal answer.

Someone brought up the vitamin c analogy which is at minimum an interesting thought process worth exploring. Almost 99% of the human body is made up of just oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. The last ~1% is minor and trace elements, minerals, and vitamins - many of which are almost universally agreed to play major roles in your overall health.

Somewhat similar to what we are discussing today, I think you could survive for decades on diet made up largely of water and Big Macs. However, a complete diet rich in minerals and vitamins will almost certainly increase metabolic health and growth, provide denser bone structure, sharper vision, and immune response - all the types of things that go with providing your body the elements required to regulate and promote healthy biological function.

Now, corals are pretty far from the human body so this is not a fair comparison, but even looking at less complex lifeforms like wheat, the reduced availability of a single trace element like Molybdenum can reduce the ability of the plant to utilize nitrogen and related growth by 30% before symptoms even become apparent. There is a lot more to all this than most of us reefers will ever fully understand.

Still, this doesn't relate to corals directly. Sadly, there just isn't a lot of legit research done on the role of trace elements and a variety of coral species, and there probably won't be a lot of this type of research in the foreseeable future. So, more or less, it is up to us to explore.

So while I stand behind my original thought processes of 'don't spend time doing anything that doesn't produce definable and easy to identify results or anything you can't test for,' I think we should leave room for the trail blazers who are willing to spend their time and money on their tanks at home attempting to further the conversation and our knowledge. In this specific case, there is one thing we all know for sure: Natural sea water produces results. This is the environment corals evolved to thrive in, so attempting to emulate that certainly isn't a bad concept. That said, I can tell you it's almost certainly the most expensive and time-consuming concept and the reason why most reefers probably won't value the results enough to do it.

Bringing this all the way back to eliminating maintenance water changes and the impact on trace elements, I guess I would be pretty nervous about the presumably ever decreasing levels. While water changes do replenish some amount of trace elements, they are far from the most efficient or effective way of doing so. If I attempted near zero water changes, I would see a lot of value in testing periodically to see what is being depleted and by how much. At a minimum, I think I would select a method of calcium and alkalinity replenishment which is likely to replenish some amount of minor or trace elements. Potentially, I would even explore a calcium reactor which theoretically replenishes many elements and, long term, can be much more cost effective than other approaches.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If I attempted near zero water changes, I would see a lot of value in testing periodically to see what is being depleted and by how much. .

One of the drawbacks to this methodology, such as the Triton method, is the inability to actually measure NSW levels of some critical elements, such as iron. Consequently, it is still a matter of trial and error dosing for these, no matter how high tech you want to be.

 

[Paul B]

I was never a big advocate of too many water changes and feel that changing too much water is actually detrimental. Look at a new tank with all new water, they all look lousy.
Of course there are other reasons besides new water for that.
I change about 100% of my water once a year. I change about 20% 4 or 5 times a year. No problems yet.

 

[atoll]

I do infrequent water changes and then only about 10%. I rely heavily on my Atlantis 2 ATS together with 2 Oxydator model A's along with my skimmer and small amount of PO4 remover. I also feed heavily at least 3 often 4 times a day. This works very well for me as my results show.

 

[Forsaken77]

I will start this conversation by saying almost everyone I know who has an epic show stopper tank has one thing in common. They all have solid maintenance habits with a consistent water change schedule, some even automated. While not always true on LPS or softy tanks this is almost universally true with long term successful SPS dominant tanks.

That said, I have been reading and thinking about this a lot as of late. Why do we do water changes? Are there better ways of achieving the same goals? Why do some reefers have success without them and others seem to require frequent water changes? I am super curious what everyone thinks about the value of water changes. With everything we have learned about reefing in the last few decades how critical are they? There has been significant discussion about the Triton method in relation to this but I think the conversation absolutely goes well beyond that single commercial method or product.

I guess I'd like to start by focusing the conversation on what is the purpose of these water changes and what are the alternatives? In my mind, there are four main issues that a solid water change schedule addresses.

1. Some degree of major, minor and trace element replenishment.
2. Manage undesirable Nitrate and Phosphate build up.
3. Reduce undesirable yellowing pigments and odors from the tank.
4. Reduce general contaminant accumulation from impurities in foods, additives and unintentional additions from hands, kids, cleaning agents, air ...

I certainly don't think everyone should run out and stop water changes because they have been a pretty integral component of a vast majority of successful reef tanks but looking at this I have to say there seem to be much more effective and easier methods of achieving one though three and four is a bit of a mystery. Just for discussion, would a system with a calcium reactor, functional refugium/ATS, bag of carbon and an annual or semiannual change of a majority of the water achieve a good portion of the same goals with a lot less effort and expense?

More or less are these four functions the reasons you do water changes? Are there other significant reasons? Ideas on better ways to collectively achieve the same goals as a complete approach or method of reefing?

The problem I have is the removing of detritus and waste in the sand. Fish drink the water. So do you really want them drinking in unhealthy waste?

This approach may work with corals, but if you have a heavy fish load, I don't see any way around water changes unless they have a chemical/bacteria that specifically targets fish pee in the water.

 

[Lasse]

I don't see any way around water changes unless they have a chemical/bacteria that specifically targets fish pee in the water.

Saltwater fish drinks but they do not pee because of the osmotic laws. Fish normaly get ride of surplus nitrogen through the gills - not through the pee. And one the other hand - pee is not dangerous to drink - not even for humans

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Ashish Patel]

Until I know every element that is in natural seawater and how to achieve this I would not trust going fully without water changes. I am not a scientist and can't imagine maintaining 10+ additional elements. As the tank matures I will adjust my water change schedule based on triton analysis to see if I need to dose additional supplements. For years I think I just wasted a lot of salt by doing a monthly water change regardless of livestock and found its better to start with less frequent water changes and eventually as the tank matures increase the water change schedule substantially.

Trace-Elements 80%
Detritus /nutrient removal 10%
Prevention of bad things (the unknowns;Cyclops) 10%

 

[Forsaken77]

I'm following along with this and just have a thought on the RODI water added by the ATO.

I have a 100 litre box of RODI which I need to top up every 2 weeks ish just to cope with evaporation. As this is adding pure water to the system could this count towards the water change amount in any way or is it just pure 100% water anyway that's evaporating so it just cancels itself out?

I regularly do the 10% weekly water changes as it doesn't take long for me using a couple of buckets and I appreciate the reasons for reducing nutrients and replacing trace elements etc etc.

The salt stays, doesn't evaporate, and so does the waste and detritus. So the more evaporation, the more concentrated those things become. So your top off is just adding what evaporated. I wish it counted as a water change

 

[Lasse]

One of the drawbacks to this methodology, such as the Triton method, is the inability to actually measure NSW levels of some critical elements, such as iron. Consequently, it is still a matter of trial and error dosing for these, no matter how high tech you want to be.

I´m planning to dose iron until i see anything in the Triton test. After that i will get a rough estimate of how much Iron I need to dose in my system - Is this a good plan or just a crazy idea?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

@Forsaken77 Please specify which wastes you talking about?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[hartin461]

Mine fish are disgusting, not only drinking pee ridden water but enjoying some poop along the way..: )

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I´m planning to dose iron until i see anything in the Triton test. After that i will get a rough estimate of how much Iron I need to dose in my system - Is this a good plan or just a crazy idea?

Sincerely Lasse

It's a fine plan, but you'll either need a large dose or test rapidly.

Here's what I found:

Iron (Fe). The natural iron level varies a lot with depth, but surface seawater may have only 0.006 µg/L. The Triton LOD = 0.3 µg/L. I dose iron, and when I dose it I boost iron to roughly 1-2 µg/L, which would be detectable. This sample was taken more than a week after the last iron dosing, and none was detected as it gets depleted in the meanwhile. I’ve not yet seen a Triton test result for a real aquarium sample that had detectable iron, but that doesn’t mean these tanks are necessarily deficient. Iron is also a case where the form is critical, and ICP cannot distinguish form. Binding to organic matter, for example, can alter the bioavailability of iron.

 

[Paul B]

After that i will get a rough estimate of how much Iron I need to dose in my system - Is this a good plan or just a crazy idea?

I think it's a great Idea, it's one inch of hammer for every 10 gallons of water.

 

[Ashish Patel]

I think it's a great Idea, it's one inch of hammer for every 10 gallons of water.


We have some Funny Jokester's here ;Playful

 

[Forsaken77]

Mine fish are disgusting, not only drinking pee ridden water but enjoying some poop along the way..: )

My fish to. One fish takes a dump and another one eats it.

 

[Forsaken77]

@Forsaken77 Please specify which wastes you talking about?

Sincerely Lasse

All waste. Fish poop/pee, decaying food/organics, dead algae, ect...

 

[Forsaken77]

Saltwater fish drinks but they do not pee because of the osmotic laws. Fish normaly get ride of surplus nitrogen through the gills - not through the pee. And one the other hand - pee is not dangerous to drink - not even for humans

Sincerely Lasse

Are you drinking your pee, Lasse?

 

[Lasse]

I think it's a great Idea, it's one inch of hammer for every 10 gallons of water.

, ,

Sincerely Lasse