No Water Changes - FarmerTy Reefing Method
- Thread starter FarmerTy
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CaribbeanCollector
New Member
Glad to see you on R2R instead of just the Austin Reef Club. Your tank is really coming along nicely. Last time I saw it I was buying a tiger tail, and some frags off you. You had just started moving things over to your new tank.
leptang
Well-Known Member
I am always interested into biodome type projects to say the least. I some how feel this is man kinds future if this world of people continues the way they are with co2. Hell Iran just hit a heat index of 165°f on Friday. I hope this post doesn't steal your thread... But man kind should look into this kind of thing like long term space travel even, or world collapse.
OP
OP
Who is this by the way? I don't recognize the screenname. [emoji16]
jared graves
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madtownguy
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Great looking tank! Years ago I got one of my tanks to virtually no water changes. I still did them like every 4-6 months but I'm not sure I needed to even then. I totally agree with your method.
OP
OP
Thanks! Got an old pic of the tank? I'm always curious as to other's results with no water change tanks.
I've seen some people do it with softie and LPS tanks but much less SPS dominant like mine.
robby2782
Well-Known Member
I ran mine for almost 3 years with only 1 water change. One day I randomly started losing colonies that I had to frag down to save. I'm pretty sure I had a buildup of elements that I wasn't diluting from water changes.
I can't prove anything, but starting last year I've been doing a 20% water change each month to hopefully mitigate future crashes.
OP
OP
That's very interesting! Do you have a picture of the system at its peak? What were you running in your sump? Husbandry routine?
madtownguy
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No photo, and you are correct yours is packed with things I wouldn't have even tried. Impressive!
ngvu1
Valuable Member
I can't argue with your results. However I do not know if I can reproduce your success so I am sticking with my current frequent water change method as that has been working for me. 
robby2782
Well-Known Member
I do somewhere, but not on this phone. I'll have to look for it.
I was running pellets, a refugium with miracle mud, 4" sand bed in my display, oversized skimmer, rox carbon, Kalk, calcium reactor, tons of flow with 4x mp40s, and dosed amino acids, and bacteria and carbon. Everything grew like crazy with great color, but one day everything just started losing tissue from the base. I was able to save most of my acropora, but I have 60 pieces I don't remember what they were that I'm just now seeing color up again.
I ended up tearing the entire system down, bleached and boiled my live rock in acid, and started over 16 months ago. I've read similar stories from other people who didn't do water changes either, so correlation could be causation here.
OP
OP
I can't argue with your results. However I do not know if I can reproduce your success so I am sticking with my current frequent water change method as that has been working for me.
I'm all about if it's working... don't change anything. That's how I got to this point with this method. Haha.
I remember reading about the method when it first came out. I looked back over the 13 elements he tests for and it's interesting to see I test for all the same things except for Strontium, Boron, and Iron. I wonder if reading about it in the past had indirectly influenced how I run my current systems. I agree with the testing and tweaking if needed and to not do water changes. I probably employ different means of export of nutrients and import of trace elements but I think it's all based on the same premise... good stuff in, bad stuff out, don't do water changes. It seems to require a lot more testing than I do. Once stabilization has been reached, I only test my alk weekly/bi-weekly and all my foundation elements/nutrients quarterly. If something seems off, I will run a full test to see if anything is out of sorts. I may decide to add the 3 missing elements from the DSR method into my testing regiment if the system starts to go down after 3 years and I can't figure out why.
That would be very interesting to know.
Well now I'm very interested in seeing pics of your system and hearing more observations from when you noticed it decline for no reason. If we can figure out why it did, perhaps we can be able to extend the time even further with no water changes. You run a very similar system to mine minus the kalk, miracle mud, and dosing of bacteria.
OP
OP
I will say I was able to reproduce the same results twice now, once on my 125-gallon system and now on the 215-gallon system.I can't argue with your results. However I do not know if I can reproduce your success so I am sticking with my current frequent water change method as that has been working for me.
Nothing fancy here:
-CaRX for alk/Ca/Mg/various other trace elements
-biopellets to remove nitrates (topped off quarterly)
-GFO to remove phosphates (monthly)
-GAC to remove toxins and clarify water (monthly)
-oversized skimmer
-dose aminos 2x/week
-feed my fish a ton (higher bioload)
-no physical removal of detritus
-high flow
-2-3" sandbed
I test alk weekly and the rest (Ca, Mg, Salinity, Nitrates, Phosphates, Potassium, Iodine) quarterly unless something seems off.
Otherwise, my only maintenance is cleaning the glass every week, dumping skimmate every 3-4 weeks (love that extra reservoir and auto neck cleaner), testing alk weekly, and refilling my ATO chamber weekly. I'll also replace media for biopellets, GFO, and carbon monthly.
No buckets to fill and dump... No mixing of salt... No waiting around for RO/DI to be made... No testing every element to make sure the water change didn't overly increase one but not increase another enough.
OP
OP
I will say this method was born from my own laziness. No way did I want to do 20% water changes on a 125-gallon, let alone my current 215-gallon!
Testing is done not on a weekly basis and has to do with levels needed by the corals. I think this is a forward thinking method to take. Just as we learned about calcium and alkalinity needs of the corals we keep we need to learn about all the other needs of corals.
Mearle
Community Member
Ever see the brs macna video on phosphate an nitrate he didn't do water changed let nitrate hit like 100 ppm and phosphate go crazy no problems lol you should try that and see if your corals are able to do good then you will have little maintenance at all
OP
OP
If you're talking about the Richard Ross video, then yes I've seen it.
I've never gotten to see close up shots of his tank so at least for me, the jury is still out on coloration of his SPS. It is impressive that they are still alive with such high nutrient levels but I think that's just acclimation working there. Kudos for making it happen.
Perhaps my no water changes is in some way the same, just slow acclimation of the corals. [emoji6]
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