Water Changes

[Nate5154]

Hello, I was just wondering if I can run a coral tank only on water changes weekly? I’m not really too fimilar with how dosing works and would rather just do water changes weekly but will my corals be happy? I use reef crystals salt, but if there’s a better alternative let me know. Thank you!

 

[KrisReef]

A large tank with very few corals can be maintained with water changes for awhile.

A fish bowl tank can also be maintained with 100% water changes each week.

The difficult part is to know how much water to replace each week, and this depends on what corals you are keeping.

The water change must replace list elements or else the tank will slowly slide into the fail zone with unbalanced parameters

 

[Troylee]

In the beginning sure! But as your corals grow you’ll need to supplement them with calcium, alk and mag at some point.. it also depends on the corals.. soft corals and LPs can go a lot longer on just water changes only then sps “sticks” they commune alk and calcium at higher rates

 

[KrisReef]

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/randys-elements-to-dose.952/

 

[Nate5154]

In the beginning sure! But as your corals grow you’ll need to supplement them with calcium, alk and mag at some point.. it also depends on the corals.. soft corals and LPs can go a lot longer on just water changes only then sps “sticks” they commune alk and calcium at higher rates

I’m planning to keep lps, do you know what the best supplement brand etc would be?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

If you're just in the planning stages of getting corals, then you are several months, maybe even a year or more away from needing to dose, lots of time to look into and get better understanding.

 

[GARRIGA]

Don't some maintain Pico tanks strictly off water changes? Although I think they perform 50% weekly or something like that?

How big is this tank?

Consider all for reef (when the time comes) and just test alkalinity which can be done with simple kits such as API or Tropic Marin based off how many drops needed to change color. Dosing doesn't have to be complicated. Just ignore that which you drop in and hope it maintains parameters such as Sea Lab 28 or whatever that nonsense is called.

 

[dangles]

You’ll most likely be fine for quite some time with weekly water changes alone, especially if you do 20-30% or so. It will really come down to how fast you stock the tank and with what.

Start with just water changes and let testing be your guide :)

 

[Nate5154]

Don't some maintain Pico tanks strictly off water changes? Although I think they perform 50% weekly or something like that?

How big is this tank?

Consider all for reef (when the time comes) and just test alkalinity which can be done with simple kits such as API or Tropic Marin based off how many drops needed to change color. Dosing doesn't have to be complicated. Just ignore that which you drop in and hope it maintains parameters such as Sea Lab 28 or whatever that nonsense is called.

15 gallon cube tank

 

[GARRIGA]

15 gallon cube tank

WWC has small tanks that I believe they rely strictly on water changes and those tanks full of all types of corals.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Maintaining alkalinity in a hard coral tank by water change is far more expensive than dosing, and is a lot of work. You may need to change 20+% daily with a high alk mix.

If the new salt is 4 dKH higher than the tank, and you change 25% daily, that’s only equivalent to dosing 1 dKH per day, which is a low demand for a hard coral tank.