regular water changes thing of the past?? who doesnt do them who does????

[reefwars]

would seem some of the nicest tanks out there dont even bother with regular water changes only if need be or in emergency cases and im thinking im joining the bandwagon im gonna mix up some in case i need it for emergency but im cutting it out of my regular routine, call me crazy call me dumb but im given er a shot

who here doesnt bother with them and who here swears they need to be done??


wish me luck!!!


***** for those who do water changes whats the longest youve went with out and what difference good or bad have you noticed??*****

[Money pit]

I took my skimmer offline a couple months ago, so for me water changes are a must.I change about 3 gal/day on a system thats about 55 gal. I find the small daily w/c easier than the larger weekly ones.
I think most who are skipping w/c are using one of the low nutrient systems. like Zeo or bio pellets. So they don't have the nutrient load a tank without this would have.

[daniella3d]

I do 20% of my 70 gallons once a month. My zoanthids are a good indication when it is needed...they shrivel and if I don't do the water change they melt away.

Even if we dose for this and that, there are trace elements that can only be replinished by water change.

Once a month is not too bad though, as I used to do 30% each day for my discus or my nitrates would be off the chart. It's less costly for freshwater of couse as I only needed RO water and that's it, but it was a pain.

Originally Posted by reefwars

would seem some of the nicest tanks out there dont even bother with regular water changes only if need be or in emergency cases and im thinking im joining the bandwagon im gonna mix up some in case i need it for emergency but im cutting it out of my regular routine, call me crazy call me dumb but im given er a shot

who here doesnt bother with them and who here swears they need to be done??


wish me luck!!!

[Aquattro]

50g change in a 180g every other week. I would do more if I had a bigger mixing barrel.

[reefwars]

was at a friends house yesterday and he has a 60g full blown reef mostly sps, no skimmer no zeo nothing fancy as its not available here uses tap water and not a water change in over a year,everything in his tank is about to grow out the top,not many fish though....im baffled really as ive always been 10% weekly faithfully....some people have all the luck i tell ya lol i also know someone else here who has a 300g runs a skimmer and doses but no water changes since set up....got me thinking for sure

[nlreefguy]

wow, really? I wasn't aware of anyone locally who was doing anything even remotely like that! I'd like to meet this guy and/or see his tank! (or girl, right? What a chauvinistic remark)

Originally Posted by reefwars

was at a friends house yesterday and he has a 60g full blown reef mostly sps, no skimmer no zeo nothing fancy as its not available here uses tap water and not a water change in over a year,everything in his tank is about to grow out the top,not many fish though....im baffled really as ive always been 10% weekly faithfully....some people have all the luck i tell ya lol i also know someone else here who has a 300g runs a skimmer and doses but no water changes since set up....got me thinking for sure

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by nlreefguy

wow, really? I wasn't aware of anyone locally who was doing anything even remotely like that! I'd like to meet this guy and/or see his tank! (or girl, right? What a chauvinistic remark)

haha really fred cause you know them lol small world what lol

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

I do 20% of my 70 gallons once a month. My zoanthids are a good indication when it is needed...they shrivel and if I don't do the water change they melt away.

Even if we dose for this and that, there are trace elements that can only be replinished by water change.

Once a month is not too bad though, as I used to do 30% each day for my discus or my nitrates would be off the chart. It's less costly for freshwater of couse as I only needed RO water and that's it, but it was a pain.

wow 30% every day even if it is ro only its def got to be a pain lol

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by reefwars

wow 30% every day even if it is ro only its def got to be a pain lol

When I had Discus I changed 90% everyday in 3 tanks. "Pain" doesn't quite describe it -lol

Compared to that, my schedule now is nothing!

I do water changes to freshen everything up. I imagine the fish living in the tank is comparable to when I go play squash. I get to the court, and 2 sweaty people leave, and in I go. And hold my breath because it's disgusting. I have to ask the club to turn on the AC each time, and once they do, it's, well, a breath of fresh air. I think this is good for the fish in a closed system, it's gives them a break from swimming around in fish urine....not to mention replacing lost elements.
Really, I've never looked at a tank and thought "gee, your tank looks like crap, you should stop doing water changes"
Not doing them, IMO, is being lazy and/or cheap. Reef keeping isn't a hobby for lazy/cheap people
As a note, I've been doing this 10 years now, and I have better results now, doing larger changes, than I've ever had. I'm actually considering do more frequent changes now...

[doch]

Knowing that I was going to be moving soon, and then once I moved, knowing that the upgrade was enroute, I stopped doing water changes. The results are really weird. Some of my corals turned way brighter. Some of them turned way more dull. The biggest things that I noticed were a significant increase in the algae growing on the side of the glass, and the skimmer was definetly pulling out more crud. I think that once all is said and done, I'll be doing less frequent water changes on the upgrade. I'm thinking about 10% every other week. I'll also be running full zeo on this tank. Oh, and I switched to RO this time around.

BTW, Most of my corals are SPS. ALL of the corals that I noticed a change in are SPS. LPS and Zoas did not seem to change at all.