To water change or to not water change?

Clownshow

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I have a 10 gallon nano with sps, lps, and softies and I have seen the growth take off like crazy in the last two weeks. The thing is I have not done a water change in three weeks. So the question is do I leave it alone or change the water? Also about three gallon of water evaporates each week.
 
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Suohhen

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Corals respond to stability so it makes sense to see such a difference in a small system where stability is the challenge. However there are real risks of cutting out water changes. Dosing cal/alk can cause the water to become out of balance with the leftover sodium and chloride and other things can accumulate left unchecked. They do make supplements "to put back in" what is left out in 2 part so I won't say that it can't be done, but the risks need to be accounted for and I personally feel a heavy burden keeping sps alive in non-nano systems and your in the pico range so tread lightly.
 
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Clownshow

Clownshow

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Corals respond to stability so it makes sense to see such a difference in a small system where stability is the challenge. However there are real risks of cutting out water changes. Dosing cal/alk can cause the water to become out of balance with the leftover sodium and chloride and other things can accumulate left unchecked. They do make supplements "to put back in" what is left out in 2 part so I won't say that it can't be done, but the risks need to be accounted for and I personally feel a heavy burden keeping sps alive in non-nano systems and your in the pico range so tread lightly.
I don't dose anything.
 

PatW

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If your SPS are growing like crazy, they are consuming ALK and Ca. If the ALK gets too low, it can cause real problems. I would suggest measuring ALK. You can dose ALK to bring it back into line.

In a small system like that water changes are a good idea to keep the parameters stable especially if you have corals.

I have a large system and I dose ALK, and Ca. I find that when I do regular water changes, things just go better.
 

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