Waterchanges might be a farce

[PranK]

I get natural salt water delivered to my house and from that I do 100l (~25g) change every week which is approx 15%. I change my water because I believe it introduces additional elements I don't even know about. It just means that my water really is as close to nature as possible.

I definitely don't do changes to control nutrients.

I keep some pretty happy SPS and LPS corals

 

[Marie7]

So my background is reefing since 2005.

I use to be this big believer in bimonthly waterchanges .... but now slowly AND firmly changing my mind.

First off, I'm not a SPSer (acros and the like) ... thats a whooooole different ballgame. I'm a LPS'er, heavily involved in zoas/palys

Okay...to the point of this post:

Ever since discovering dosing the strain of blue-green Phytoplankton... im starting to truly believe that waterchanges are only really necessary for major/minor element control that get low or high.

So I'm asking myself;

"If I'm doing regular waterchanges "just because...", am I taking out all that good biochemistry that includes built up phytoplankton? I mean... look at a natural reef swarming in blue-green phytoplankton giving that ocean reef water that turquoise look"

"Is adding brand new saltwater putting a stress on my little ecosystem, where this new water has to biochemically cook and convert??"

Ever since:

* slowing down my waterchanges

* using my skimming to more-wet

* dosing blue-green strain of phytoplankton

* dosing trace elements thru a product called Replinish

* testing and looking for out of range Calcium, Alk and Mag

..... Im seeing mushrooms, zoas, palys plump up to sizes ive never seen before.

So religious Waterchanger ppl might say "What about nitrate/Phosphate control? You gotta change your water every 2 weeks!"

In some mild researching, I'm reading how dosing the strain of Blue-Green Phytoplankton OUTCOMPETES nuisance algae and makes for a more balanced tank.

I'm reeeeally starting to think regular waterchanges is dumping good biochemical water down the drain that worked so hard to achieve a balance.

If I can control my NO3 and PO4 thru heavy skimming, dosing phytoplankton .... why would I do a waterchange UNLESS smthg like Calcium or Carbonate or Magnesium was off?

And if I can dose major and minor elements to keep them within range...AND my no3/po4 are in check... why do a waterchange?

Dilute my biochemistry and the phytoplankton > zooplankton > corals and fish ecosystem chain (?)

To where new saltwater has to "re-cook" that biochemistry?

WHATS YOUR OPINION ON WATERCHANGES????




.

I must have to agree with that, I still making water changes as I'm seeing to many small bristle worms, I assume that it was the heavy feeding I had to do in order to avoid that the eel eat my fishes, I don't have it no more, but, i remember that when I didn't need to feed no silver side fishes, use the phosphates bag and even charcoal and pushing some phytoplankton, I had a nice coraline on my glass tank that my corals did very good and propagate, unfortunately I'm trying to boost my tank again, so by not having no more the eel I'm just about to work on the other areas and concentrate in the most important things, phosphates, calcium, PH and alkalinity in order to boost my tank again...and cut down water changes.

 

[nereefpat]

Why isn't it debatable when OP have solution to remove built up things and to able to replace used up things like what OP had just said?

Oh, there are other ways to remove or replace things.

But, it is a fact that when you do water changes, you are removing and replacing things. That part is not debatable.

 

[DSEKULA]

Interesting thread, cool to see different methods and appreciate others sharing opinions with the recognition that their way may not be the only way.

I think the issue i see is that for many new reefers there is little to no background understanding of water/reef chemistry, mixing and dosing, methods of nutrient removal, etc. So the most simple way to get started is to take out x amount of water weekly and add x back in. The method has worked for years for many people and is easy to explain to someone just starting.
For example i had a friend of friend (fof) situation where fof started a tank 20 days ago and everything was looking horrible and dieing. This person had no clue what they were doing and fof was running their sg at 1.033 along with tons of food decaying in the tank, high nutrients, algae etc.. in this situation im absolutely going to help them get the tank to a more appropriate salinity and show them how to mix and change water out recommending some large changes over the next couple weeks to get on track while feeding less. I couldn't imagine explaining to fof how to test even more parameters and set up dosing, a skimmer etc right at that moment. The poor persons head was already close to exploding.

Now, on my 300gal system i probably change out under 10gal a week doing normal maintenance like cleaning detritus etc. I have an ats and a skimmer i dose alk, ca, and tm part c using my trident to monitor. This has been a good method for this specific system, for me it is some wc but seems to be the right balance to keep things happy. This is where i feel common sense has to come in bc i dont care what method you use its the growing reef that proves it works for you or dosent.

My second reef tank is a 2gal pico this tank is run on water changes only. The pico is an aio build with all the gear hidden inside the fake rock. Its very much an experiment in kiss reef keeping for me, once a week i drain about 80% of the water and put in new, theres no dosing monitoring etc. For this tank i feel this was the easiest path to success but i couldn't imagine draining 280gallons weekly in the other system to accomplish the same. This isnt lazy in my mind its just being realistic lol.

 

[Da8]

IMO if it's good for SPS it is good for all



Of course you can run a tank without water changes, as you can do many other things in reefing with "positive" results, but I believe not long term success.

 

[Doctorgori]

Salt gets expensive .... so does making RO water , but TBH if you can pull off no water changes with a simple HOB filter then KUDOS. But my guess is what you save in salt you make up in equipment or effort elsewhere ...
I went a few years w/o H2O changes, it worked until it didn’t ... IMO the proof of concept isn’t worth the risk

 

[Jon Fishman]

I do 35 gallons on a 150-ish gallon setup every 4 months

 

[bobbyM]

Shhhh

Wet skimming => water changes.

 

[kruler]

Just wondering if those dosing phyto have a UV sterilizer on their systems. I’d like to try phyto but am concerned that the UV would just kill it.

 

[Kevind0905]

I think of it this way. You hear all the back and forth about live rock and sand vs. dry rock and sand. Most agree live is better because of the head start, that is the live bacteria cultures and micro flora/fauna that “kick start“ the nitrogen cycle. I think the same logic applies to water. Specifically, that fresh mixed saltwater is the minimum viable starting point. It contains elements, but it’s dead.
I do not use water changes to maintain parameters or for routine maintenance. I spend a significant amount of time, effort and money maintaining element levels and micro flora/fauna populations. IMO water changes flush that down the drain. I view water changes as a tool specifically for dilution.
It’s worth mention that everything I put in the tank is carefully selected to maintain overall balance, including the livestock. I dose EVERYTHING manually (including No3 and Po4 to target Redfield ratio), test several times a week to once a week depending on the test and feed the tank daily. Each day’s feeding is different and typically consists of 3-5 different foods including live phyto (Algae Barn Oceanmagik) 3 times a week.

 

[EMeyer]

Every time I read about someone dosing live phytoplankton I think about the ingredients in algal culture medium (F/2).

f/2 Media

F/2 Nutrient Solution provdied by Algae Research Supplier is affordable, reliable, complete nutrient media for growing algae: Spirulina, Nannochloropsis, more..

algaeresearchsupply.com

Thats a lot of stuff getting added to the tank on a regular basis, unless you are somehow separating the algal cells from the culture medium before dosing. I'm not criticizing, just suggesting that perhaps the benefits the OP sees may result more from dosing these nutrients, trace metals, and vitamins rather than the absence of water changes. (Or perhaps the former makes up for the latter)

 

[danieyella]

I don't perform regular water changes, and rarely do them from the display tank. Once every couple months I do a 5-10g change from the sump to pull any buildup. Occasionally if things test weird or corals are acting up I'll do an additional. My critters keep the sand bed clean enough that I don't see buildup in the display. However, I do use filter pads changed every couple days, I skim heavy, and I autodose needed nutrients that would normally be replenished with the new water. Also worth mentioning: my tank is softies & LPS - not SPS.

 

[ca1ore]

It would be interesting to do a poll to see how longer-tenured reefers have changed their approaches to water changes. My suspicion is that folks do less changing of water today then they did, say, 10 years ago ….. I know I do! The equipment and methods to manage nutrient levels are much more advanced now than they were a decade ago, so the 'primary' reason to do water changes (export/dilution) is less urgent. Better testing and wider use of things like calcium reactors means that element depletion is much less of a problem thus minimizing the 'secondary' reason to do water changes (replenishment).

I do 50 gallons AWC over two weeks on my nominally 600 gallons system. 10 years ago I did double that. I have toyed with eliminating water changes completely, but a 50 gallon bag of IO is less than $10 so $20 a month seems modest compared to the cost of livestock. So I keep doing them, for now …….

 

[DennisRoach]

I did a 5g water change yesterday on a 100ish gallon system. There was 1” of detritus in the bottom of the jug when I was done. How else does that get removed if I wasn’t doing water changes?

Isn't that the point of the CUC?

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I also dose phyto daily. What is your dosage per gallon? I have been doing 50ml/day on a system of about 200 gallons. Everything seems happy, but I would love to get an idea before playing with the dosage.

Per gallon it varies per tank due to some having more things that consume more phyto than others.

500g (562g actual) = 9.6 ml per gallon per day.
180g (214g actual) = 7.5 ml per gallon per day.
75g (81g actual) = 1.6 ml per gallon per day.
40g (44g actual) = 3.1 ml per gallon per day.
14 bio cube (9g actual) = 6.5 ml per gallon per day.

one thing to not forget is the concentration of phyto being dosed. I have no idea how to tell how much, so to speak, outside of color. I dose mine before it gets the super dark green. You also have to account for the salinity being added in when you dump as much as I do into tanks. I use dosing pumps, controllers and salinity probes on all but the 14 to keep it in check. The 14 is palys, Xenia and a pod farm lol. Luckily it is not much of an adjustment on any of the tanks except the 14. My son enjoys this hobby so he checks it daily and adjust accordingly. For the other tanks, Skimming wet pulls out SW, ATO adds fresh, and the controllers do the rest. Before the controllers, the swing had to be checked manually and it was a pain. There were numerous times I went to almost 1.030 when I started to get up there in amount dosed. Slowly moved up to that salinity, but still something to think of.

In short, it can be a huge pain in the rear sometimes when starting to work towards a set level and figuring out salinity increase, evaporation, average of water pulled out by the skimmer and such. But I enjoyed the challenge.

Another thing to note, is phyto can culture in your tank. The 500 seems to be doing that and I am going to have to cut back on the amount dosed. Granted, not as much culturing as when done in a controlled environment, but again, an aspect to pay attention to.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Just wondering if those dosing phyto have a UV sterilizer on their systems. I’d like to try phyto but am concerned that the UV would just kill it.

I dose and no UV on any tank I have.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Shhhh

Wet skimming => water changes.

Good way to look at it. This is true in a sense. I dose phyto, skim wet and the phyto water is in sense replacing the skimmer water. So a water change of sorts is being done lol.

 

[swiss1939]

Per gallon it varies per tank due to some having more things that consume more phyto than others.

500g (562g actual) = 9.6 ml per gallon per day.
180g (214g actual) = 7.5 ml per gallon per day.
75g (81g actual) = 1.6 ml per gallon per day.
40g (44g actual) = 3.1 ml per gallon per day.
14 bio cube (9g actual) = 6.5 ml per gallon per day.

one thing to not forget is the concentration of phyto being dosed. I have no idea how to tell how much, so to speak, outside of color. I dose mine before it gets the super dark green. You also have to account for the salinity being added in when you dump as much as I do into tanks. I use dosing pumps, controllers and salinity probes on all but the 14 to keep it in check. The 14 is palys, Xenia and a pod farm lol. Luckily it is not much of an adjustment on any of the tanks except the 14. My son enjoys this hobby so he checks it daily and adjust accordingly. For the other tanks, Skimming wet pulls out SW, ATO adds fresh, and the controllers do the rest. Before the controllers, the swing had to be checked manually and it was a pain. There were numerous times I went to almost 1.030 when I started to get up there in amount dosed. Slowly moved up to that salinity, but still something to think of.

In short, it can be a huge pain in the rear sometimes when starting to work towards a set level and figuring out salinity increase, evaporation, average of water pulled out by the skimmer and such. But I enjoyed the challenge.

Another thing to note, is phyto can culture in your tank. The 500 seems to be doing that and I am going to have to cut back on the amount dosed. Granted, not as much culturing as when done in a controlled environment, but again, an aspect to pay attention to.

I've been wondering this as well... What the critical mass point is before Phyto cultures in your tank to the point it's just a bloom despite constant skimming and all the uptake. In fact my tank had a Phyto bloom after the first month of dosing cause i was dosing too much too fast. Things stabilized when i cut back a little on dosing, added the power filter and just left the skimmer on full time.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I've been wondering this as well... What the critical mass point is before Phyto cultures in your tank to the point it's just a bloom despite constant skimming and all the uptake. In fact my tank had a Phyto bloom after the first month of dosing cause i was dosing too much too fast. Things stabilized when i cut back a little on dosing, added the power filter and just left the skimmer on full time.

I have never had a full on bloom thankfully. But checked the water last night on all the tanks and the 500 was a little greener than usual. I would say it really depends on the tank and how much gets consumed. Always best to start slow and work up to whatever gives the best result. I assume tank stability is also key. My nitrates went up just a hair, as I thinned the fuge our pretty good a few days ago. That is what I am thinking may have allowed for some in tank culturing. Of course I could be wrong, as I am no scientist, but just my guess lol.

 

[DennistheMenace]

Per gallon it varies per tank due to some having more things that consume more phyto than others.

500g (562g actual) = 9.6 ml per gallon per day.
180g (214g actual) = 7.5 ml per gallon per day.
75g (81g actual) = 1.6 ml per gallon per day.
40g (44g actual) = 3.1 ml per gallon per day.
14 bio cube (9g actual) = 6.5 ml per gallon per day.

one thing to not forget is the concentration of phyto being dosed. I have no idea how to tell how much, so to speak, outside of color. I dose mine before it gets the super dark green. You also have to account for the salinity being added in when you dump as much as I do into tanks. I use dosing pumps, controllers and salinity probes on all but the 14 to keep it in check. The 14 is palys, Xenia and a pod farm lol. Luckily it is not much of an adjustment on any of the tanks except the 14. My son enjoys this hobby so he checks it daily and adjust accordingly. For the other tanks, Skimming wet pulls out SW, ATO adds fresh, and the controllers do the rest. Before the controllers, the swing had to be checked manually and it was a pain. There were numerous times I went to almost 1.030 when I started to get up there in amount dosed. Slowly moved up to that salinity, but still something to think of.

In short, it can be a huge pain in the rear sometimes when starting to work towards a set level and figuring out salinity increase, evaporation, average of water pulled out by the skimmer and such. But I enjoyed the challenge.

Another thing to note, is phyto can culture in your tank. The 500 seems to be doing that and I am going to have to cut back on the amount dosed. Granted, not as much culturing as when done in a controlled environment, but again, an aspect to pay attention to.

Thank you for the info!