Why are some people anti-waterchanges?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If they are immeasurable then how do we know that they are there and if they are immeasurable then How do we know that they are harmful?

Water changes are insurance against unknown problems accumulating. People do a great many things, both in and outside of the hobby to avoid potential problems without any evidence that they will suffer the problem if one does not mitigate it.

We know many inorganic and organic compounds are toxic to marine creatures. That's exactly why many of them are synthesized by other marine creatures in the first place.

I cannot prove any specific toxins accumulate, since as far as I know no one has ever looked for any such toxins, but it is demonstrated that organic material in general accumulate in reef tanks, so I'm not sure why one would assume all of those accumulating organics are benign.

 

[Troylee]

I do them but nearly as much as I should… 2 reasons for me.. pure laziness is the first and when I wanna do them it’s so hot in Vegas when I make water in my garage it’s 95° the next morning lol.. when I had my little cube I’d make 10 gallons and bring it in the house and let it sit over night.. I don’t have that option now as I change about 60 gallons when I can “weather permitting” which is this time of year I’ll get back on track with them as my tank is over 300 gallons wet… I just picked up a 110gallon storage tank and gonna set that up for massive changes on my big tank and my new tank I’m setting up next week.

 

[BeanAnimal]

There's a constant stream of failed tanks. Often we do not know why.

I am not (at all) against water changes, and in fact think they are a tried and true method of helping to maintain stability.

That said, every system is unique from its physical and kinetic parameters to its husbandry from feeding to maintenance, from export to light cycles, etc.

I think it is may be easy to say what can crash a system than to say what can be done to prevent crashing a system. I am not sure that water changes are the make or break practice, but certainly can be an abatement tool when other things (know or unknown) are going sideways. Where is that line between band-aid and essential tool? I have no clue.

 

[Subsea]

Have links to the research behind this? I'm very interested. That being said, my systems have tons of sponge life of all kinds everywhere, and still quite obviously need water changes. Allelopathy is a thing! (And I use Carbon and Ozone also)

https://www.coris.noaa.gov/activities/resourceCD/resources/sponge_lp.pdf

Above link is marine science lesson plan that explains how sponges process food.

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The sponge holobiont in a changing ocean: from microbes to ecosystems - Microbiome

The recognition that all macroorganisms live in symbiotic association with microbial communities has opened up a new field in biology. Animals, plants, and algae are now considered holobionts, complex ecosystems consisting of the host, the microbiota, and the interactions among them...

microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com

The sponge loop​

The assimilation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) by sponge holobionts facilitates DOM cycling in benthic habitats with cascading effects on marine food webs [29]. Microbes contribute to the assimilation of DOM by the sponge holobiont [29, 114, 115], which can account for up to ~ 90% of the holobiont’s total heterotrophic carbon uptake [116,117,118,119,120,121,122]. In addition to providing an important food source for the holobiont, DOM uptake by sponges has been proposed to play a key role in DOM cycling within tropical and deep-sea coral reefs via a pathway termed the “sponge loop” [29, 114]. By rapidly taking up the DOM released by primary producers and converting it into particulate organic matter (POM) in the form of detritus, sponges transform DOM into a food source that is more readily available to other benthic reef fauna [29, 115, 123, 124] (Fig. 2). Similar to the microbial loop [1, 125], the sponge loop therefore enables the energy and nutrients in DOM to be retained and recycled within reef food webs. Although exact quantification of DOM cycling by the sponge loop is lacking, DOM uptake by cryptic sponges in the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific is estimated to be on the same order of magnitude as gross reef primary productivity and may even exceed DOM cycling by the microbial loop [29, 126]. Thus, by acting through the sponge loop, the sponge microbiome may play an important role in driving DOM cycling at the ecosystem level, as well as facilitating energy transfer through reef food webs (Fig. 2).

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I am not (at all) against water changes, and in fact think they are a tried and true method of helping to maintain stability.

That said, every system is unique from its physical and kinetic parameters to its husbandry from feeding to maintenance, from export to light cycles, etc.

I think it is may be easy to say what can crash a system than to say what can be done to prevent crashing a system. I am not sure that water changes are the make or break practice, but certainly can be an abatement tool when other things (know or unknown) are going sideways. Where is that line between band-aid and essential tool? I have no clue.

I don't disagree with that, and obviously water changes are not needed.

IMO, the question is whether they are beneficial always, sometimes, or never.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I cannot prove any specific toxins accumulate, since as far as I know no one has ever looked for any such toxins, but it is demonstrated that organic material in general accumulate in reef tanks, so I'm not sure why one would assume all of those accumulating organics are benign.

I would not disagree with your position or assessment, but rather posed the question based on the OPs steadfast assertion that this was a given fact.

I think my prior posts kind of sums up my thinking. Water changes may do more good than bad but I am not sure when, if or how often they need to be done and at what volume. Where do diminished returns kick in, etc.

I lean toward your early dilution articles from Reefkeeping Magazine (even built a dilution calculator based on it) and fully understand the premise. There are just so many variables with regard to what we don't or can't measure. I think that is where the unknown is for me and why I see water changes as one of may possible viable methodologies but see no or limited water changes as viable as well.

 

[The_Paradox]

I don't disagree with that, and obviously water changes are not needed.

IMO, the question is whether they are beneficial always, sometimes, or never.

I view a lot of this hobby like our education system. That is to say it is inaccurately simplified depending on the level you are at. Because of this, there is a lot of dogma. I think the “you must change your water” mindset probably applies to a lot of people especially new. The same way primary school children can ignore the mass of a proton. Many grow up thinking protons have no mass and that ideology has no effect on their life or none we can perceive. As I stated earlier I don’t think there will ever be a “right” answer here. Even if limited with bounty conditions there are just too many variables and unquantifiable outcomes demonstrated by the fact we have great tanks that are decades old using every methodology imaginable.

 

[Reeferbadness]

I have 2 large mixed reef tanks (180g and 200g) with medium bio load from fish. I would love to go without water changes but, after a 1 month trip to asia last year, parameters were well maintained with dosing and monitored with trident, both were noticeably in decline when i came back. After 2 weeks of 20% water changes all corals made a comeback, especially the sps that were getting brown tips, LPS that were in clear decline etc.

I have a large mixing station that i can pump directly into my tank (2 x 50g barrels) so water changes arn't too big a hassle. Salt costs do add up though - i usually go through 200 g a month between the 2 tanks but it's worth it to see the corals thrive.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I don't disagree with that, and obviously water changes are not needed.

IMO, the question is whether they are beneficial always, sometimes, or never.

Easy question, not so easy answer

So I think the general premise is to err on the side of them doing less harm than good.

As you know I went ~6 years (maybe longer) without a single water change, skimmer, scrubber or other means of export. No SPS (they were already gone) but leathers, mushrooms, zoanthids and a brain coral and a ton of blue ridge lived and for the most part thrived. Maybe it was the total lac of feeding the fish more than once every 4-8 months that kept things from crashing. I don't know. I am sure that SPS would not have done well simply because I was not dosing Ca, Alk or Mg but everything else was fine.

When I decided last year to get back into SPS - I did some manual algae removal, brought salinity back up (it was very low) and started dosing triton. I added the skimmer back and that is it. Still no water changes. We will see how things go, it has ben 18 months and SPS was doing great, except for a salinity issue while I was traveling that caused a good bit of STN and browning. That has reversed since the salinity correction.

 

[Reefer Matt]

I think it's also about personal preference. Some people like to challenge themselves by measuring things in the ppb range and micro dose trace elements, etc.
I don't, but I understand it, and accept that there is more than one way to reef. For me it is far simpler to just change the water.

 

[The_Paradox]

I don't, but I understand it, and accept that there is more than one way to reef. For me it is far simpler to just change the water.

But changing water only slows the rate of depletion. From that stand point, change vs no change will eventually reach the same numbers just at different rates absent dosing.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

This reminds me of the so called gun debate. I’ve never seen a gun owner go out and start yelling at a random anti-gun person/group to buy a gun. I have seen it go the other way around though.

I'm always open to how others are doing things and honest, constructive criticism. I absolutely abhor when someone just assumes it's the ONLY way to do things.

 

[Reefer Matt]

But changing water only slows the rate of depletion. From that stand point, change vs no change will eventually reach the same numbers just at different rates absent dosing.

Depending on coral load and water change frequency, yes. I am starting to see this with my 75 gallon sps tank. I dose alk, ca, and mg, but I suspect trace elements like iodine and potassium are being used up in between changes. It's a problem for Reefers with tanks full of coral for sure. I am starting to test more frequently for those elements, but I don't want to get into the icp, trace element game. Luckily nutrients are always higher, and water changes aren't causing a problem like bottoming them out.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

But changing water only slows the rate of depletion. From that stand point, change vs no change will eventually reach the same numbers just at different rates absent dosing.

While that is technically correct, water changes are likely only a minor contributor the the balance of many trace elements, with foods being a big source. We know little about what levels are actually needed for most chemical forms of most trace elements to most organisms we keep. perhaps half of the level in a salt mix, or 10% of the level in a salt mix is plenty.

I agree that water changes cannot possibly keep up some that are fast depleting, such as iron and manganese, but they may be plenty to keep the major and minor ions, and perhaps some of the trce elements in line.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Depending on coral load and water change frequency, yes. I am starting to see this with my 75 gallon sps tank. I dose alk, ca, and mg, but I suspect trace elements like iodine and potassium are being used up in between changes. It's a problem for Reefers with tanks full of coral for sure. I am starting to test more frequently for those elements, but I don't want to get into the icp, trace element game. Luckily nutrients are always higher, and water changes aren't causing a problem like bottoming them out.

FWIW, potassium is a major ion, and it is not obvious why it seems to deplete in some tanks and not others (never depleted in mine). I have a theory relating to the foods fed being deficient in K relative to N and P, perhaps due to freezing and washing of foods.

 

[TheDuude]

This is erroneous thinking; NO3 and PO4 are not the only toxins building up overtime. FW hobbyists have the benefits of plants to remove NO3 and PO4 [they even have to dose these for high-tech setups], yet they still do waterchanges on a weekly basis to reset nutrient levels, remove DOCs, etc.

Moreover, protein skimmers do not remove all DOCs, etc. Protein skimmers were never a substitute for waterchanges. Just another arsenal in overall water filtration.

Keep in mind that SW fish are N times more expensive than FW species. So why risk their wellbeing over a couple of gallons of SW per week?

Many reefers here have 300 gallon plus systems. We are not talking about a couple gallons a week.

 

[Reefer Matt]

FWIW, potassium is a major ion, and it is not obvious why it seems to deplete in some tanks and not others (never depleted in mine). I have a theory relating to the foods fed being deficient in K relative to N and P, perhaps due to freezing and washing of foods.

Thanks for the clarification. I tested mine after receiving a suggestion to, and it was at 360 ppm in a tank with a 40% water change once a month. I don't know the cause either. The fish are fed flake and pellet food. May not be too low of a concern, but it is something I will pay more attention to.

 

[The_Paradox]

While that is technically correct, water changes are likely only a minor contributor the the balance of many trace elements, with foods being a big source.

I think most in both camps are in agreement that we should feed our animals. I guess what strikes me most about this “debate” is the readiness that people accept that company Y can formulate the perfect salt mix, but the same company cannot possibly formulate an adequate trace supplement.

 

[alton]

One thing I have learned in the last 32+ years is not every tank is the same, and after you get to the 300+ gallon tanks water changes are costly. I had to sell my perfect 310 with all my large angels because I was up to 100 gallon water changes to keep up with the pristine looking tank with coral and fish. The person who bought the tank has spent a ton of money on coral, fish, dosing, moonshiners and yes some water changes. You must be old to still be using the skin a cat saying which I have not heard that phrase in many years. The following attachment was a 158 that I had in my office that maintained itself with only 5 gallon water changes and 99% of the time the skimmer stayed unplugged. I would probably still have it if our company had not decided to change locations. The slimmer in the picture started as a 1" frag, and had a way of propelling itself from Xenia and GSP take over. Today in my 120 office tank and my 180 home tank I do 60 gallon water changes on a need to basis. Sometimes that's once a month, sometimes every two weeks?
158

120 at work

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think most in both camps are in agreement that we should feed our animals. I guess what strikes me most about this “debate” is the readiness that people accept that company Y can formulate the perfect salt mix, but the same company cannot possibly formulate an adequate trace supplement.

That's fair, but I would point out that a salt mix matching NSW is a well known thing with perhaps just a single answer, while a given trace element supplement optimal for one tank's set of needs might not match another.