Water changes??

[ReeferMaddness843]

In a bit of a pickle. I am curious as to how necessary water changes are in our Reef with all parameters remaining constant. I currently have a 90gal, 14 gal fuge, and 20 gal sump holding about 10-12 gal water. About 150+ lbs live rock. Tank is a year old next month. Lots of worms and critters such as chiton, amphipods, Copepods, etc. My parameters are spot on and I manually dose to accommodate losses. I over test I know and am very meticulous about my tank. Lol.

This test was on the 10th, I have not done a water change since July 22, aside from a 5 gal change on August 15th just because I felt guilty for not changing anything.
Alk 7
Calc- 450
Mag- 1380
No3 - undetectable
Po4 - undetectable
SG 1.026
All Salifert kits
No algae or cyano after removal about month or so ago via h202 (has not come back)

I am working to raise my nutrience by feeding heavily as I'm pretty lightly stocked for my tank size I think.
2 osc clown
1 benggai Cardinal
1 blue spot goby
1lawnmower blenny
1 Royal gramma
1 coral beauty
Lots o snails n hermits. (Mixed)

I just feel water changes would be counter intuitive for my goal of raising nutrience. Or am I fighting fate in that trace elements may be used up without my knowing (have not done a true triton test, yet)

I run filter floss, skimmer, chemipur, phosban (needs to be removed I know), and no macro in fuge, just anthelia, as my macro never grows and dies off from lack of nutrients. However all livestock and corals look extremely happy and growing well. Not as well as when could maintain nutrients a bit, but well.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

Included a pic of current state to show how everything looks. (Terrible pic, but none the less. Everything happy)

 

[Waters]

Technically, water changes are never needed as long as nutrients are exported and missing elements are added back in. Both can be achieved by dosing and using effective filtration. There are many successful tanks that never do water changes.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

Woohoo. Just what I wanted to hear! Lol. Keep the info comin!

 

[themcnertney]

Water changes are what keep parameters in check IMO. My tank will speak for itself as I don't dose. I am a firm believer of smaller more frequent changes rather then larger less often changes.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

Thing is, I rarely dose. Maybe 1dkh loss per week all, 10 calc biweekly, and maybe 10-15 mag monthly. (All estimated based on what I remember, can get more accurate with log in front of me) Just seems when I'm all over the water changes my softie and LPS suffer from stripping too clean.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

I also don't have an ato, auto feeder, or apex system. I am very hands on and can almost always spot a problem immediately visually based on livestock and coral responses. It's in my main living area so a lot of eyeball and hands on time goes into it. Most people like to automate as much as possible to sit back and watch, but I really enjoy the chemistry and knowledge I pick up from it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Water changes are clearly not "necessary', but they are useful, and IMO, the main utility is not for anything you are likely measuring unless you use Triton and other sorts of sophisticated measurements.

Here's more:

Water Changes in Reef Aquaria by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

from it:

Conclusion

Water changes are a good way to help control certain processes that serve to drive reef aquarium water away from its starting purity. Some things build up in certain situations (organics, certain metals, sodium, chloride, nitrate, phosphate, sulfate, etc.), and some things become depleted (calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, strontium, silica, etc.). Water changes can serve to help correct these imbalances, and in some cases may be the best way to deal with them. Water changes of 15-30% per month (whether carried out once a month, daily or continuously) have been shown in the graphs above to be useful in moderating the drift of these different seawater components from starting levels. For most reef aquaria, I recommend such changes as good aquarium husbandry. In general, the more the better, if carried out appropriately, and if the new salt water is of appropriate quality.

Calcium and alkalinity, being rapidly depleted in most reef aquaria, are not well controlled, or even significantly impacted by such small water changes. In order to maintain them with no other supplements, changes on the order of 30-50% PER DAY would be required. Nevertheless, that option may still be a good choice for very small aquaria, especially if the changes are slow and automatic.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

Thank you! That was my concern, that the trace elements that are not regularly tested may deplete or untested organics may build up. Looks like Ima do one in very near future just to satisfy the unknown. Thanks @Randy Holmes-Farley for the response. Always appreciate your input.

 

[Rob Lion]

water changes do 2 things;
1. they add trace elements in your water that will be used over time up by your tank inhabitants.
2. they reduce unwanted things from your tank.

sea water consists of many things, most people test and dose just a small few of them, the rest are not, over time they will diminish and effect your tank. Conversely, you look at water changes removing only nitrates and phosphates, but again they remove much more, like toxins released from your coral, or heavy metals leached from your equipment/rocks/substrate/filtration media etc.

IMHO water changes are important and necessary, I do 20% water changes every 2 weeks, and even though I dose Alk, Ca,Mg and trace elements daily, my tank always looks at its best the day after the water change.

In the real world, each cubic metre of reef gets a 100% water change every few seconds. If you think about water currents, they are say about 5mph for the average reef, so every 24 hours, its getting "fresher" water from 120 miles away, where all the unwanted things have either dissipated, sunk to deeper water, or into deep sand or, been bound up or converted to something else.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

Great explanation! Thank you!

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Great explanation! Thank you!

But I think your approach and method is correct. Nicely done and well asked.
Fwiw my method is quite similar to yours. And I have pretty freely used different salt mixes to, I guess, replenish a wider variety of minerals that may be depleted.
But yea, I wc pretty regularly. My tank needs it. Yours and the frequency of the wc depending on the livestock may not.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

Thanks everyone for advice and input. So I think I may restart my wc routine just for the fact of random unknowns removed and others building up. I know the general rule of thumb being 10-20% monthly, but I may do a few of those larger, then go back to a smaller 1% daily kinda thing. Like a gallon a day. That way a missed day is no big deal, all missing elements will be replenished to a degree daily, and I'll still feel productive and satisfy tanks needs without being a very strenuous project. Could even do that without cutting the sump down. Time to get a gameplan together and see how my tank receives the new plan.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

lol. Me Im lazy. I just mix a 5g.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

I would, but then I'd have to use it all. Lol. Would 5 gal every 5 days equal 1 gal daily in terms of removal and export? I'm walking that thin line of too clean. Nervous honestly to carbon dose or create something people try all the time to remove.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I would, but then I'd have to use it all. Lol. Would 5 gal every 5 days equal 1 gal daily in terms of removal and export? I'm walking that thin line of too clean. Nervous honestly to carbon dose or create something people try all the time to remove.

i honestly dont sweat that kinda math. I just use the whole 5g cuz

I felt guilty for not changing anything.

;)
even though my tests said is all fine.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

Yup. Tests were perfect but I still felt I was neglecting. Lol

Cool deal, I may just start small and do a 5 gal weekly then. I feel like such a beginner asking water change questions a year in. Hahaha.
But I have that subtle feeling of "it ain't broke don't fix it". And on the flip side, there's experience, chemistry, and science that says otherwise. Lol I'll opt for science over my gut.

i honestly dont sweat that kinda math. I just use the whole 5g cuz
;)
even though my tests said is all fine.

 

[Oldsofty]

I did read an interesting article in coral magazine about just this situation. Seems like a tank was suffering from something, the cause of which, no one could identify. They tested everything and it was perfect and yet corals were dying.... Seems as though they were using a knock off chinese pump, to save money the company made the propeller shaft using a tungston alloy which was bleeding slowly into the tank. This is something not usually tested for and as such, went unnoticed. Triton testing eventually found the element and they did water changes to lower tank levels. I myself don't do as many water changes per say, i remove old tank water as i dose phyto, but as more and more cheaper products hit the market it might be time to rethink water changes in the future. Just like some of you i am seriously considering more exstensive changes.