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12/16/2018, 07:21 AM | #1 |
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Posts: 932
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holding off on a water change
I haven't posted about this in a long time. But a little history.
3 years ago when I started my reef tank up, I used dry sand, and dry rock during set up. For the past 2 years, I have always fought with high nitrates. High as in 50-75, with an occasional 100 (no decimal point). All my inverts, fish, and coral all seemed to be happy. But the fight to lower those nitrates continued regardless. I tried chaeto, less feeding, and more water changes. For the past 2 years, and I'd say 10 months, I was religiously doing water changes every two weeks. Nitrates would never drop. Or if they did, it was very minimal. During these high nitrate days, I was feeding LRS frozen foods. I was led to believe the LRS was causing the high nitrates. So I switched frozen foods, and continued to do my bi-weekly water changes. The nitrates dropped and they are now in check. That was very exciting to see. Blew my mind how quickly they dropped. I have a 170g system, that includes the sump. Every other week I was doing 50 gallon water changes. As you can imagine, that was a lot of salt. Although I was buying the boxes or Reef Crystals every two months, it really felt like it was more than that. It was exhausting. So in November, I jumped in on a local group buy and bought 5 boxes of RC, cause i knew I'd need it. Shortly after buying it, I sat back and thought, what if I were to hold off on my water changes. That would save me money on salt, as well as maintenance. My last water change I did was on November 11th. Once I did that water change, I have been testing my water weekly to see how the system would react as time went on. I am now at the 5 week mark, today. My parameters are all in line as they were after the first week. My alkalinity may have dropped from 400, down to 380/390, but still in the ballpark. On another thought, Other than the cost and labor of constantly doing water changes every two weeks, is there anything beneficial to leaving the tank go this long without a water change? My parameters are all the same, everything seems happy, and the corals are growing. I thought of going another week, but the alkalinity did drop a few. I realize things can go bad in a hurry, that's the only thing that makes me nervous about holding off longer. I certainly like not doing bi-weekly changes should I continue to hold off on water changes for another week or more? How quick can things go from good to bad while not doing water changes? I know many do one water change a month to every few months. But this is definitely new territory for me. |
12/16/2018, 07:52 AM | #2 |
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Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: North Carolina
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Without knowing everything that is being depleted or elevated we can only make generalized statements...There are many people that only do water changes every month..or even 2 months...or even 4 months..I basically havent done one in 1.5 years now and all fish and corals and inverts are doing just fine and I simply dose alk/cal/mag..
Watching your key parameters and looking at whats going on in the tank is a decent way to judge for yourself...if everything is thriving you can reduce your water change schedule and look and adapt as needed...
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12/16/2018, 08:15 AM | #3 |
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Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 223
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Unless you know what are you doing and how to keep everything on check, nutrient export, other factors,you can even not water change. It is more than just the big 3, Alk Mg & Ca. But water change are the easiest and the best to replenish elements used by coral/fish/inverts. My self stay at 1month water change as i have little bioload and moderate corals. So its up to your self. No right or wrong here
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12/16/2018, 08:36 AM | #4 |
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
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ok. Thank you
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12/16/2018, 03:56 PM | #5 |
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Mountain View, CA, USA
Posts: 88,616
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As others have implied, we don't have a practical way to measure all the parameters in our systems. Water changes are a good way to keep the ionic balance in reasonable shape and remove any refractory organic compounds. Some tanks might be fine without them, though.
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