The no water change revolution!

[mtraylor]

Trying to skip out on simple scheduled water changes by dosing many different individual elements based on what might be week old data seems backwards to me. Why complicate things?

I cant speak to triton method as I have never tried it, but I can speak to not doing a bunch of non warranted water changes. I will use my aquarium as an example.
My aquarium is a mixed reef, heavily stocked sps aquarium almost 400 gallons volume water. The nutrient demand is heavy. I mean heavy. The corals consume allot. Now if I choose too. I could do say 40 gallon water changes maybe every 3 days to try and keep up with nutrient levels in the aquarium. This is a guess. Not sure If I could keep up with that schedule. Anyway moving forward. With nutrient import trying to be maintained with water changes would be a nightmare. They would be going up and down and out of control. This is not how you keep a happy reef. You want your reef to be steady.

Me personally I use a calcium reactor to dissolve old coral skeleton's back into the water column with a steady rate that is consistent to the demand rate. Of course I still have additives that I have to make up any adjustments needed. Now why would I need a water change. I have great mechanical filtration, and my water quality is superb. The aquarium is actually constantly removing salt water via skimming, etc. You have to add salt to the aquarium every now and then. There is really no need for it in my situation unless I have an issue. If something looks like it might be going wrong, then I may do one, but in my large volume aquarium....I'm not going to do one unless its necessary.

I specifically designed the aquarium for efficiency. Personally I think water changes are over rated. I have been running my format for many years 10 plus. When I first started reefing, there was the water change fab, and everyone preached it. Its a good thing if you think about it from LFS perspective. You don't have to get into big detail with the customer to try and tell them on how to maintain all their parameters in their aquarium. YOu can basically give them the top 3 and tell them to change water every week or two. The novice customer likes it because they don't have allot of chemistry vials to perform tests on and they can relatively keep the corals they like. Win...win.

Once you get into the detail of reefing and start monitoring your parameters closely you learn more and more of what is needed for your application. You can then decided on what is best for your aquarium and design your aquarium around your needs. I don't think no one is saying one way is better than the other, but I will say this. Water changes are definitely not needed, and are not plausible in some applications to maintain a reef. In todays reefs, where allot more people are using reef computers to maintain their aquariums, there is allot more knowledge of the parms in their aquariums and they don't mind taking the water measurements.....and I think you will find that more and more people have designed their systems to where they do not need to do un wanted water changes because they maintain their water quality with their system and not with water changes.

I hope that helps.

 

[Leaellynasaura]

Do you see any difference yet?

I am not sure yet. One thing that freaked me out is that towards the end of my no water change time purple slime appeared and engulfed an entire rock. It still has not gone away yet and I don't know why.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Ok tbh I'm not a huge fan of water changes. I do once every other week if I'm feeling particularly clean, otherwise every two weeks. It's not really on a schedule. I also don't really care about protein skimmers. I don't think its very essential if you have a good filter with good media

 

[U_ser_ID]

I'm researching so I can try and set up my 210g tank and very much so interested in zero water changes. Sub'd

 

[Murica]

I'm researching so I can try and set up my 210g tank and very much so interested in zero water changes. Sub'd

After you go beyond 150 gallons I feel they get less and less practical.

 

[Michael Llabona]

After eliminating unnecessary water changes I found myself more successful. I test more often and the tank is more stable. I would rather do routine testing than routine water changes

 

[Sallstrom]

One of the tanks at work, last water change in 2014. Runs with large sump, some macro algae, calcium reactor + Triton labs additives.
This tank has worked fine without any mayor problems the last 4 years. Largest problem has been keeping up with adding KH, Ca etc. Now we top up with Core7, the calcium reactor isn't enough.
We send ICP test to Triton lab 8-10 times a year.

/ David

 

[U_ser_ID]

After you go beyond 150 gallons I feel they get less and less practical.

I'm a n00b so forgive the elementary question.. why would it be less practical as the quantity of volume goes up? I would think the opposite.

 

[Murica]

I'm a n00b so forgive the elementary question.. why would it be less practical as the quantity of volume goes up? I would think the opposite.

Cost of salt and the amount of water you have to change. A 20 percent water change for me is just under 50 gallons. A real pain in the butt having to do that every other week.

 

[U_ser_ID]

Cost of salt and the amount of water you have to change. A 20 percent water change for me is just under 50 gallons. A real pain in the butt having to do that every other week.

Oh, I totally read that backwards.. lol. Yeah, I'm not interested in doing water changes once I get everything up and running. I'm willing to take my time stocking the tank to keep from "shocking" the parameters. Thinking slow stocking will allow for the system to self regulate.

 

[Bpb]

I tried this. Really wanted it to work. But some of my favorite acros began to get brittle tissue and necrosis at about the 3 month mark.

 

[srm077]

After you go beyond 150 gallons I feel they get less and less practical.

My system is 750 Gallons and water changes are 150 Gallons. I had been doing changes every 6 weeks but I am converting over to ATI Essentials now. That and NoPox hopefully will make my reef keeping much more enjoyable. I will not miss burning 6 or more hours doing water changes. To me, the cost is not a consideration- it's the additional time I will have for my 2 young Boys that makes it attractive.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

My system is 750 Gallons and water changes are 150 Gallons. I had been doing changes every 6 weeks but I am converting over to ATI Essentials now. That and NoPox hopefully will make my reef keeping much more enjoyable. I will not miss burning 6 or more hours doing water changes. To me, the cost is not a consideration- it's the additional time I will have for my 2 young Boys that makes it attractive.

With an automatic water change system, you can spend far less time. I made of 88 gallons in about 5 minutes and let it run on its own for month.

 

[srm077]

With an automatic water change system, you can spend far less time. I made of 88 gallons in about 5 minutes and let it run on its own for month.

Auto water change systems make ZERO sense to me. If the main reason is to remove nutrients and replace trace elements then wouldn't you want to do the removal and addition separately? An auto change system is diluting the water removed with good water thus it is inefficient and wasteful.

 

[Whiskeyboy84]

I am a new reefer and am implementing the Triton Method on my new system as well! After all my research it shows to be a proven method that provides good water quality as well as a less stressful environment but you are not completely eliminating water changes just reducing the frequency of them.

 

[Pntbll687]

I have a 200g display with a 40g sump, and have done 2 water changes since August 2017. My tank is mostly LPS coral and lightly stocked with fish (maybe 10). The tank looks better and better the longer I go without doing major water changes. As far as testing goes, every once in a while, or when something looks bad.

The tank is in the middle of the house, so I don't have a way to plumb a water change system to it, and I really hate getting the brute cans out.

On the other hand, I do pretty frequent changes on my nano system, probably once a month. But I'm only changing about 5g at a time, maybe less.

 

[Daltrey]

I'm somewhere in the middle. I have a 200 gallon total system and run the Triton method and when my consumption rate goes up I plan on also bringing a calcium reactor online.

I was changing 50 gallons a month but plan on having a Triton test ran every 4 months and will probably do a 50 gallon water change every four months also. That will be to vacuum my sandbed and clean and do maintenance on all my equipment.

I would stick with water changes on anything 125 gallons or less.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Auto water change systems make ZERO sense to me. If the main reason is to remove nutrients and replace trace elements then wouldn't you want to do the removal and addition separately? An auto change system is diluting the water removed with good water thus it is inefficient and wasteful.

lol

Have you ever looked to see exactly how "inefficient and wasteful" it really is? It's not particularly wasteful. It just seems like it should be.


It is trivial math to show that 1% changed every day, whether continuously or in 1% changes all at once, once a day for 30 days is equivalent to about one 26% water change all at once.

26% vs 30% does not seem, IMO, to qualify as "inefficient and wasteful" since it has huge benefits:

1. Little aquarist time is needed
2. There never any shocking of the chemistry.
3. No need to match temps, salinity, or anything else.

I show the math and a ton of graphs here:

Water Changes in Reef Aquaria by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

 

[najer]

I guess back too the thread title, I know, I will have already posted similar before.
Water changes when I have to, no "method".
Manual dosing liquid buffers, 2 part, a few drops of this and that and the odd sprinkle of the other daily or twice a day.
RO top up twice a day to a pen mark on the sump return chamber (about 9 litres / 2 gallons a day).
Skimmer, heater, 2 return pumps.
... no I don't really test!
..... because people said I couldn't do this!

DSC_0004 by sshipuk, on Flickr

 

[Murica]

Just an update. I've done a couple changes but not too many. I just put in a 150 sump/refugium so in planning to go to a 0 water change with the exception of emergencies and if there's occasional issues