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you can choose not to open the threadI am positive. I'm tired of seeing the same topic beaten to death. No one searches for previous threads on topics.
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you can choose not to open the threadI am positive. I'm tired of seeing the same topic beaten to death. No one searches for previous threads on topics.
You can’t mimic the ocean
A lot of animosity in this thread. I don't know why. If I don't like a thread, I don't read it.
Anyway I think we change far to much water in this hobby. I have been here since the hobby started and I don't remember who came up with that changing water every week thing.
I have a full reef, it is very old and I change water maybe 4 or 5 times a year and I only do it that much because I like going to the beach to collect water.
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If only I could go to the beach and get sea water......
I skipped alot of comments due to some of the possible trolling. So waterchanges are a weird thing it seems like to me.. At first I always assumed we could use a good water change schedule to handle the required imports and exports in the reef tank.. But upon modeling it, it doesnt seem like thats really the case as it functions more like a self-optimizing system.
What I found really interesting in just making a simple math model is that the import and exports really seem to balance out right at about 3-4 months.. Which anecdotally seem to line up with when people say this ugly phase passes, etc.
In this study is there a nitrate removal method in place? ChaetoI've modeled water changes pretty extensively, as have others, and I have a different conclusion: they can help quite a lot over time, particularly with things that you cannot or do not measure.
Water Changes in Reef Aquaria by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
While I think that nitrate is not a primary reason to do water changes, the modelling is the same for any accumulating material.
The graph below, for example, says nitrate, but it could be any accumulation material (say, an organic toxin or an inorganic ion) and shows what can potentially happen to it over time under various water change scenarios:
Figure 12. Nitrate concentration as a function of time when performing daily water changes equivalent to 0% (no changes), 7.5%, 15% and 30% of the total volume each month (in other words, 0%, 0.25%, 0.5% and 1% per day). In this example, nitrate is present at 100 ppm at the start, and is accumulated at a rate of 0.1 ppm per day when no water is changed.
In this study is there a nitrate removal method in place? Chaeto
It is a mathematical model that assumes accumulation of nitrate (or other chemical of interest). No matter what else is happening, if something is accumulating, this sort of graph can show what will happen.
You can make any sort of mathematical model you wish to, however if you arent naming the trace elements and actually conducting a lab study, it is essentially invalid.
This is entirely negated under the fact that carbon should remove most of the impurities and toxins. And chaeto should remove the nitrates.
You can make any sort of mathematical model you wish to, however if you arent naming the trace elements and actually conducting a lab study, it is essentially invalid.
I was surprised it took 3 pages of BS to find someone to answer the op correctly. This is exactly what I was going to say. Nothing absorbing alk, cal, mag, and t elements as this is a "fish only". If you keep nitrates and phosphate in check, the less you need to water change.Wow... there are lot of things people can find time to argue about.
It has already been said by someone here... in a fish-only system the need for water changes depends on how well you are removing phosphates and nitrates. That can be done with a refugium, GFO, or some other methodology. Since there are no corals, you are not going to be depleting any major chemicals at a rapid rate (Ca, Mg, Alk), or even trace elements for that matter. Those are the two primary reasons for water changes to "remove" toxic substances and to "replenish" nutrients. For those of us dosing reef tanks to minimize water changes, like myself, it is all about knowing the rate of depletion of nutrients. If you have a lot of corals and you are not dosing, chances are you are doing a lot of water changes. If you don't have a lot of corals, in all likelihood, your need for dosing is almost non-existent.