Reasons for water changes.

[NewbReefer]

Ok so i know that doing water changes regularly helps to keep phosphates and nitrates down which in turn help keep algae down and it also helps replentish trace elements. Other than those reasons why else do you need to do water changes?

Man this sounds like such a newbish question, im fulfilling my name i guess.

 

[RyanG]

Manual removale of detrious and a good way to clean your aquascape/substrate.

 

[sen5241b]

Everyone says don't let phosphates get high and I've also been told phosphate tests don't work well.

 

[McCrary]

Ok so i know that doing water changes regularly helps to keep phosphates and nitrates down which in turn help keep algae down and it also helps replentish trace elements. Other than those reasons why else do you need to do water changes?

Thats not enough of a reason, lol. Water changes also remove organics that are not removed by the skimmer, so you are keeping your DOC's lower when you do water changes.

 

[NewbReefer]

Everyone says don't let phosphates get high and I've also been told phosphate tests don't work well.

Phosphate tests work ok the problem is the algae consumes it as fast as it's produced. If you were to rip all the algea in your tank out and then test for phosphates a couple hours later you'd see it in the tests.

Thanks McCrary, i didn't know about the DOC's.

 

[cthegame]

water changes are a main part of filtration for running reef tanks. Not only does it remove wastes, phosphates, etc. it also resupplies the water will all the essential elements in your saltmix.

I think the 3 main filtration elements are water changes, skimmer and live rock. but the one you will not be able to do without at all is water changes.

 

[fatman]

The solution to pollution is dilution. The ocean has a constant influx of river water and precipitation. We provide water changes and top off evaporated water. Rivers provide the ocean with a constant supply of fresh new minerals that are needed such as calcium, carbonates, magnesium, and trace elements. We do this with water changes. Oceans have vast numbers of fish and other organisms to use all the nutrients introduced into the ocean or has developed processes to capture and contain them safely (well until we started polluting it). We are capable of only having a few fish and organisms so the contaminants and nutrients build up and the minerals extracted by the fish and corals work to deplete minerals and trace elements. We replaced the minerals and trace elements with water changes and remove nutrients and contaminants with water changes. Most nutrients supplied to the tank to feed the fish are not utilized but the fish and are passed as waste (up to 90 percent or more). Live rock and live sand only change the form of these nutrients they do not remove them. A skimmer removes some but is far from effective. It might surprise you to know that most coral growers routinely change 50 percent of their system water weekly and this in systems that contain no fish or virtually none. Even though a lot of retailers want to sell a lot calcium products, supplements and trace elements they safest and easiest and most assured way of supplying for the needs of a contained min reef system is through frequent water changes. With frequent water changes most reefers do not need calcium products, supplements or trace elements. Few reefers house enough corals to need much of anything but water changes and food input.

 

[sen5241b]

What about these legends that some of the best reef tank keepers never have to do water changes? Are they just lucky?

 

[fatman]

Mostly they are exaggerations and lies, but there are a few real cases. They usually have well established deep sand beds of 6 to 8 inches or more and they had to do water changes usually for up to several years before the sand beds became developed well enough to do all the denitrification. Even then, most of them, if they had any substantial amount of coral, had to do supplemental inputs for calcium. Other than that they were just typically doing water top offs after the tank was established for one or two years. Even then they did it to prove a point, they do not recommend it regularly. It is a research tool not a method of operation that is promoted for general reef tank persons. Typically they had/have just token loads of fish, corals and invertebrates. Most of them were very hard pressed before they would even admit to calcium supplementation with Kalkwasser as ATO water. These people were researchers not aquarium trade professionals like Calfo, Fenner, Riddle, or Joshi etc..

 

[NewbReefer]

There was a period of about 3-4 months where i could not do water changes due to a broken jaw and was told not to lift more than 10 lbs. I only ran T5's during that 4 months and only fed the tank every other day. i had very little algae accumulate on the glass. I did not have any SPS at the time and only a few low light softies. so i do believe it can be done without water changes but you gotta have one heck of a filtration system and supplementation.

 

[fatman]

There was a period of about 3-4 months where i could not do water changes due to a broken jaw and was told not to lift more than 10 lbs. I only ran T5's during that 4 months and only fed the tank every other day. i had very little algae accumulate on the glass. I did not have any SPS at the time and only a few low light softies. so i do believe it can be done without water changes but you gotta have one heck of a filtration system and supplementation.

You can go months and months without killing your fish if that is what you mean. Softies also take in a lot of organic nutrients and so help with keeping some control over algae. I am sure if you had tested the water you would have found quite lot of nitrates after 3 to 4 months without water changes. These people we are talking about kept their tanks with a nitrate reading of zero without water changes.

 

[Bifferwine]

I can vouch for that -- with regular (10% once a week or every two weeks), my nitrates stayed below 10 (I have such a heavy fish load that I really can't ask for more). Six months without water changes (even with an awesome skimmer and daily top offs), my nitrates were at 150+, totally off the charts. Yeah, everything lived, and everything looked fine, but I wouldn't recommend that route.

 

[NewbReefer]

my nitrates were abit high and once i got the ok from the Doc to start lifting after my accident and started with the water changes my corals opened up more and seem much happier. The same thing happened once i got an auto top off, i would try to top off every day but sometimes it would be forgotten about for 2 or 3 days if i was really busy. once i added the auto top off my corals and fish seem even happier due to the stable salinity. it's crazy to see how much little things like that can have such a huge effect.

 

[fatman]

Water parameters are the first and most important key to happy fish and corals.