Thoughts on methods of eliminating water changes ?

[jason2459]

I just do a big skimmer, red sea nopox and a tiny bit of carbon... And very established rock.

by a tiny bit of carbon do you mean you dose another carbon source besides nopox? Which kind? Or do you mean GAC?

 

[reef jacob]

by a tiny bit of carbon do you mean you dose another carbon source besides nopox? Which kind? Or do you mean GAC?

No just a cup of rox .8 in a BRS reactor but the nopox is plenty of organic carbon.

 

[TbyZ]

Currently I'm playing around with different media types and using seachem matrix (pumice stone). About 3+" of it.

whats wrong with just using a course coral sand?

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

The slow flow of oxygenated water is from the reversed pumping of water to the plate so its pushed through the stand pipe and out the plate.

Here you can see the pump in the back there which that model can reverse its flow which is pushing down into that pipe.

Jesus, what the heck could all those power cords possibly go to?!

 

[Paul B]

Hi Paul;
so the space underneath the RUGF plate is itself a haven for pods etc, & benificial when used in the actual aquarium (not necessarily in the sump) if keeping fish that specifically eat that food. OK, sounds good!

But, aside from the above benifit, and providing surface area for aerobic bacteria to grow, are there any other useful benifits of using a RUGF, anywhere in the system?

Now, algae needs nitrogen & phosphate to grow. It is a fertilizer. Can you give an explanation for the absence of algae in [your] system (other than your algae scrubber) with NO3 @ 160ppm & PO4 @ 2.0ppm?
Do you have fish that graze?

TbyZ, I feel there are many benefits to a proper RUGF and one fact that it has run successfully for 40 years at least proves that it is not detrimental.
Some benefits are that it could be maintained forever unlike a DSB which has a definite lifetime and could never last that long but by common sense. The lower layers will eventually clog like cement where no biological reaction except maybe the formation of hydrogen sulfide forms.
Another benefit is that it can be stirred or moved as much as you like. I keep a breeding pair of pistol shrimp which make huge tunnels and pile gravel 5" high. That would destroy a DSB but in a UG filter it actually helps. Also many of us think of a tank 4 or 5 years old which is not even half the lifespan of a hermit crab, (or the career of Mylie Cyrus) I think we should think of a system that will last our lifetime with no crashes or having to take everything out for maintenance. A RUGF is that system.

Another benefit is that the entire bed and area under it is oxygenated so as I said creatures live all through it. Those creatures as well as bacteria are the beginning of the food chain. They provide food for larger animals including SPS corals, sponges, tube worms, mollusks and smaller fish. It is hard to have a tank where we have to provide all the nutrition. That is in natural. In the sea the substrate and rocks is home to the bottom of the food chain and nature feeds the smaller creatures with no help from us. That is a natural system and I strive for a natural system. If I move a rock in my tank I will see amphipods and brittle stars running all over the place just as I notice in the sea. Another proof of a natural system.

DSBs for instance make no sense long term. I know the theory that the worms wiggle down there providing areas for the water to get there and have the nitrates stripped by the anerobic bacteria living there and that works great "In a Lab" for a year or two. Those worms are not stupid and will stay in the oxygenated areas, so would I. Eventually that thing will clog to the point that if you drilled a hole in the bottom of the tank, no water would come out. (don't try that).

A RUGF does not make oxygen, but oxygen is pumped from the surface all through the gravel including the 1/2" space underneath which is filled with life as I want it.
A sand bed has oxygen on it but as you get lower, the oxygen ebbs so creatures prefer to stay near the surface providing much less room for them to multiply.

If you keep a tank for any length you will want to re-aquascape. That is fine if you run gravel with a RUGF as that will cause no harm. As a matter of fact the system needs to be stirred once or twice a year just to renew it. I do that by using a canister filter (I use a diatom) and stirring up where I can reach. This prevents anything from clogging by removing excess detritus. I never want to remove all l the detritus because detritus actually makes the RUGF work better by slowing down the flow and providing even more area and food for bacteria and pods.

AS for algae growth, I have known since I started this hobby that nitrogen and phosphorous does not "cause" algae but I don't like saying that because virtually every thread will espouse removal of nutrients and changing water to eliminate algae. Does that ever work? No, it doesn't. If that worked, new tanks would have no algae and we know that is incorrect.
If you take a glass of tap water or RO/DI water and put it out in the sun, it will grow algae.
The tiniest amounts of nutrients will grow algae and we will never have that low nutrients "and" keep SPS at the same time. Corals depend on nutrients as they almost all house algae, do they not?

If you have an algae problem and keep changing the water you could actually be making it worse. I get in trouble for that statement but I have been doing this for a while and if you read the algae threads, that is always the recommendation. When you change water where there is an algae bloom, you are removing water that the algae has already stripped it of nutrients including iron and replacing it with new water with more nutrients including iron. Like Duh.

But that is for another thread . We need to use more common sense and not rely completely on information discovered in a lab. Scientists (and I love them) study these things under sterile conditions but their experiments continue until the research money runs out, none of those studies go on for 20 or 30 years. Dr, Schultz came up with that DSB thing in a lab and it is great for a couple of years, but the long term results are flawed. (he started in the hobby the same year as I did and we are the same age, but I am better looking )

I personally do not know why my tank "now" has no algae and even very little in my scrubber, but through common sense I know that if nutrients cause algae, and I have very little, something is missing in our knowledge. I won't guess what it is but I do throw mud from the sea including sometimes water in my tank and nothing happens. I can't explain it and I am sure Randy (who I love, in a manly sort of way) can't either.
If someone could explain it, there would be no "nuisance" algae in this hobby.

That brings up another point and I realize I am rambling. We can't cure algae because it is not a disease. If we see absolutely no algae, there is a problem because algae grows on every healthy reef in the world. I have dove on most of them and it is what it is. We are fooling ourselves if we think there is no algae in the sea. Another common sense thing. If algae didn't grow in abundance in the sea what are all those tangs, rabbitfish, algae bleenies, urchins, chitins, abalone, slugs and snails eating? McDonalds!
The vast majority of creatures on a reef are herbivores, millions of them descend on a coral head at once and at night the reefs are covered in urchins which is why we don't "see" algae on reefs. If you removed those animals the reef would be completely covered in algae in a few days. So much for nutrients causing algae.

My calcium is 450 and I think my alk is 10 the last time someone tested it but I can't look for it right now.
Sorry for the long rant, have a great day.
(I didn't mention Supermodels, hammers, beer cans or cucumbers once)

I took this off Molaki in Hawaii. The spotted moray in the center is surrounded by algae and thriving coral. Maybe he chases away or eats herbivores, but whatever it is, algae grows everywhere.




Another reef in Hawaii. You don't see any algae, but what you do see is an urchin in every nook. Look closely. You won't see any McDonalds wrapppers so I assume they are eating algae. And that was the day time, at night there are three times as many. If you had 200 urchins in your 50 gallon tank every night "and" you taught them to poop outside your tank, do you think you would see any algae.
I try to prove everything I post with pictures because I don't like to re hash something that someone said, because they heard it from someone else, who read it in a book where the author read it in another book that was written by the guy who sweeps the floor in Home Depot and once had a guppy tank.

Sorry double picture, make believe that next picture is Christie Brinkley holding an urchin
Look at the picture under it and stop looking at Christie

 

[jason2459]

Jesus, what the heck could all those power cords possibly go to?!

I think there's only two power cords in all that. Those are all on the outside of the sump. Mostly all sensor and probe wires.

 

[TbyZ]

TbyZ, I feel there are many benefits to a proper RUGF and one fact that it has run successfully for 40 years at least proves that it is not detrimental.
Some benefits are that it could be maintained forever unlike a DSB which has a definite lifetime and could never last that long but by common sense. The lower layers will eventually clog like cement where no biological reaction except maybe the formation of hydrogen sulfide forms.
Another benefit is that it can be stirred or moved as much as you like. I keep a breeding pair of pistol shrimp which make huge tunnels and pile gravel 5" high. That would destroy a DSB but in a UG filter it actually helps. Also many of us think of a tank 4 or 5 years old which is not even half the lifespan of a hermit crab, (or the career of Mylie Cyrus) I think we should think of a system that will last our lifetime with no crashes or having to take everything out for maintenance. A RUGF is that system.

Another benefit is that the entire bed and area under it is oxygenated so as I said creatures live all through it. Those creatures as well as bacteria are the beginning of the food chain. They provide food for larger animals including SPS corals, sponges, tube worms, mollusks and smaller fish. It is hard to have a tank where we have to provide all the nutrition. That is in natural. In the sea the substrate and rocks is home to the bottom of the food chain and nature feeds the smaller creatures with no help from us. That is a natural system and I strive for a natural system. If I move a rock in my tank I will see amphipods and brittle stars running all over the place just as I notice in the sea. Another proof of a natural system.

DSBs for instance make no sense long term. I know the theory that the worms wiggle down there providing areas for the water to get there and have the nitrates stripped by the anerobic bacteria living there and that works great "In a Lab" for a year or two. Those worms are not stupid and will stay in the oxygenated areas, so would I. Eventually that thing will clog to the point that if you drilled a hole in the bottom of the tank, no water would come out. (don't try that).

A RUGF does not make oxygen, but oxygen is pumped from the surface all through the gravel including the 1/2" space underneath which is filled with life as I want it.
A sand bed has oxygen on it but as you get lower, the oxygen ebbs so creatures prefer to stay near the surface providing much less room for them to multiply.

If you keep a tank for any length you will want to re-aquascape. That is fine if you run gravel with a RUGF as that will cause no harm. As a matter of fact the system needs to be stirred once or twice a year just to renew it. I do that by using a canister filter (I use a diatom) and stirring up where I can reach. This prevents anything from clogging by removing excess detritus. I never want to remove all l the detritus because detritus actually makes the RUGF work better by slowing down the flow and providing even more area and food for bacteria and pods.

AS for algae growth, I have known since I started this hobby that nitrogen and phosphorous does not "cause" algae but I don't like saying that because virtually every thread will espouse removal of nutrients and changing water to eliminate algae. Does that ever work? No, it doesn't. If that worked, new tanks would have no algae and we know that is incorrect.
If you take a glass of tap water or RO/DI water and put it out in the sun, it will grow algae.
The tiniest amounts of nutrients will grow algae and we will never have that low nutrients "and" keep SPS at the same time. Corals depend on nutrients as they almost all house algae, do they not?

If you have an algae problem and keep changing the water you could actually be making it worse. I get in trouble for that statement but I have been doing this for a while and if you read the algae threads, that is always the recommendation. When you change water where there is an algae bloom, you are removing water that the algae has already stripped it of nutrients including iron and replacing it with new water with more nutrients including iron. Like Duh.

But that is for another thread . We need to use more common sense and not rely completely on information discovered in a lab. Scientists (and I love them) study these things under sterile conditions but their experiments continue until the research money runs out, none of those studies go on for 20 or 30 years. Dr, Schultz came up with that DSB thing in a lab and it is great for a couple of years, but the long term results are flawed. (he started in the hobby the same year as I did and we are the same age, but I am better looking )

I personally do not know why my tank "now" has no algae and even very little in my scrubber, but through common sense I know that if nutrients cause algae, and I have very little, something is missing in our knowledge. I won't guess what it is but I do throw mud from the sea including sometimes water in my tank and nothing happens. I can't explain it and I am sure Randy (who I love, in a manly sort of way) can't either.
If someone could explain it, there would be no "nuisance" algae in this hobby.

That brings up another point and I realize I am rambling. We can't cure algae because it is not a disease. If we see absolutely no algae, there is a problem because algae grows on every healthy reef in the world. I have dove on most of them and it is what it is. We are fooling ourselves if we think there is no algae in the sea. Another common sense thing. If algae didn't grow in abundance in the sea what are all those tangs, rabbitfish, algae bleenies, urchins, chitins, abalone, slugs and snails eating? McDonalds!
The vast majority of creatures on a reef are herbivores, millions of them descend on a coral head at once and at night the reefs are covered in urchins which is why we don't "see" algae on reefs. If you removed those animals the reef would be completely covered in algae in a few days. So much for nutrients causing algae.

My calcium is 450 and I think my alk is 10 the last time someone tested it but I can't look for it right now.
Sorry for the long rant, have a great day.
(I didn't mention Supermodels, hammers, beer cans or cucumbers once)

I took this off Molaki in Hawaii. The spotted moray in the center is surrounded by algae and thriving coral. Maybe he chases away or eats herbivores, but whatever it is, algae grows everywhere.




Another reef in Hawaii. You don't see any algae, but what you do see is an urchin in every nook. Look closely. You won't see any McDonalds wrapppers so I assume they are eating algae. And that was the day time, at night there are three times as many. If you had 200 urchins in your 50 gallon tank every night "and" you taught them to poop outside your tank, do you think you would see any algae.
I try to prove everything I post with pictures because I don't like to re hash something that someone said, because they heard it from someone else, who read it in a book where the author read it in another book that was written by the guy who sweeps the floor in Home Depot and once had a guppy tank.

Sorry double picture, make believe that next picture is Christie Brinkley holding an urchin
Look at the picture under it and stop looking at Christie

Hi Paul, I don't like deep sandbeds either. Do you have an opinion on plenum dsb?

Do you think having a RUGF in the sump instead of the display tank is as benifcial ? This is something i would be keen to hear your thoughts on.

I had algae in my tank but it disappeared after fitting an algae scrubber. The no3 & po4 disappeared also, so it did work for me.

Thanks for your responses Paul, much appreciated.

 

[Paul B]

TbyZ, I don't think there would be as much benefit of using the RUGF in a sump although it would be better than a glass bottom.
The best part of the RUGF in the main display is that you will never see any detritus at all as it breaks up and goes into the gravel to be ground down to nothing and the creatures will degrade it because they have the oxygen to do it.
You do not have to worry about disturbing the gravel as you do in a DSB or even a DSB with a plenum which is very old school and I remember when they were invented. Bob Goemans is a friend of mine and we have discussed it a lot.
I don't think any system using sand is a great idea. The grains get compacted much to fast and even if they don't get clogged, very little water gets through much less oxygen, bacteria or pods as they will all have to live on the surface.
As I said I Like to prove things as I am not good with rumors. Here where I collect pods and mud that surface mud is good for a tank. Mine anyway. But if I dig down about half an inch, it is jet black and all hydrogen sulfide because the oxygen can't get there even though there are millions of snails digging through the surface. Nothing lives in that lower layer.
As you discovered the best way to eliminate nuisance algae is not to eliminate it, but to make friends with it and force it to grow someplace else, it is a no brainer but most people want to try desperately to get rid of it.
It's the same with parasites, we all want them out of our tanks which is un natural, I, and my fish made friends with them and use them to enhance the health of my fish so they never get infected. Like never.
It is easier to use things as they are and as nature intended rather than try to eliminate things that we can use to our benefit. It is just so easy but many of us try very hard to make this difficult.

I have solar panels on my roof because the sun made my house to hot, now the sun is my friend because not only do the solar panels shade my roof, but they more than make enough electricity to pay for the air conditioning.

 

[TbyZ]

TbyZ, I don't think there would be as much benefit of using the RUGF in a sump although it would be better than a glass bottom.
The best part of the RUGF in the main display is that you will never see any detritus at all as it breaks up and goes into the gravel to be ground down to nothing and the creatures will degrade it because they have the oxygen to do it.
You do not have to worry about disturbing the gravel as you do in a DSB or even a DSB with a plenum which is very old school and I remember when they were invented. Bob Goemans is a friend of mine and we have discussed it a lot.
I don't think any system using sand is a great idea. The grains get compacted much to fast and even if they don't get clogged, very little water gets through much less oxygen, bacteria or pods as they will all have to live on the surface.
As I said I Like to prove things as I am not good with rumors. Here where I collect pods and mud that surface mud is good for a tank. Mine anyway. But if I dig down about half an inch, it is jet black and all hydrogen sulfide because the oxygen can't get there even though there are millions of snails digging through the surface. Nothing lives in that lower layer.
As you discovered the best way to eliminate nuisance algae is not to eliminate it, but to make friends with it and force it to grow someplace else, it is a no brainer but most people want to try desperately to get rid of it.
It's the same with parasites, we all want them out of our tanks which is un natural, I, and my fish made friends with them and use them to enhance the health of my fish so they never get infected. Like never.
It is easier to use things as they are and as nature intended rather than try to eliminate things that we can use to our benefit. It is just so easy but many of us try very hard to make this difficult.

I have solar panels on my roof because the sun made my house to hot, now the sun is my friend because not only do the solar panels shade my roof, but they more than make enough electricity to pay for the air conditioning.

What size & type of gravel do you use above your RUGF plate & how many pumps / tubes do you recommend using to supply the water through it?

 

[jason2459]

A RUGF in the display is far more benificial especially if there are no other places for a refugium/cryptic zone/etc. Allows the entire bottom of the tank to become a refugium for the building blocks of life. This is what PaulB has and what I did with my 55g. With my 180 I have a sump now and have inhabitants that live in sand so went with a RUGF in the sump. I'm sure I'd be fine with out one at all but seeing what it can produce I wanted to keep one in place.

whats wrong with just using a course coral sand?

You have to make sure what is used can not sift into the plate and fill it in. Crushed coral may be ok too.

 

[Paul B]

What size & type of gravel do you use above your RUGF plate & how many pumps / tubes do you recommend using to supply the water through it?

You can see my gravel here. The grains are about as large as rice or slightly larger and it is about 2 or 3" deep.
I have a 6' long tank and there are 3 UG filter plates in my tank, each is 2' wide. I run about 150 GPH down each tube which is very slow. The slower, the better as that was the problem with these systems, people thought a fast flow was better as it would push detritus out of the gravel. That wouldn't even work if you used a fire hose to pump the water and would just enhance the clogging of the gravel. I want some detritus but I don't want particles and food being pushed under there. You need to run it very slow. Power failures have no effect on the thing either. Last week I noticed that one tube came apart and may have been that way for a month or a year. I really don't know as it didn't change anything except maybe the creatures under that particular plate moved to another plate.
Remember, very important. I am not advocating reverse UG filters. Most people are thinking I am nuts, it can't work and they are nitrogen factories so I am tired of arguing. I like the thing and it works very good for me but it must be run as I described because I spent a few years perfecting it and making mistakes.



You can see here my algae scrubber is to the right, that feeds the white tube that empties into the manifold that has three, 1" tubes coming out of the bottom of it. Those tubes are bent at the gravel and travel in back of the tank to where each one enters the UG filter plate.

If I didn't have the scrubber I would pump about 500GPH into that manifold, no more.



The tube that came apart fed the left third of the tank. My tank is built into a wall under a stair case so I can't see most of the back of the tank.

 

[jason2459]

Also, a point Paul made above about herbivores on a reef. There's many. The majority of life on a reef is stacked heavily towards herbivores and omnivorous. I have stocked my tank the same as well including 3 urchins, snails, the fish I keep, etc. Algae is always present just not seen. Just like cyano bacteria. I would bet a lot of money, that I don't have, that practically every tank out there has some level of cyano in it. Just not always seen. Get a microscope out and I bet you'd find it. IMO It's a balance of life and not so much nutrients though they can be a factor. One of many.

 

[bif24701]

TbyZ, I feel there are many benefits to a proper RUGF and one fact that it has run successfully for 40 years at least proves that it is not detrimental.
Some benefits are that it could be maintained forever unlike a DSB which has a definite lifetime and could never last that long but by common sense. The lower layers will eventually clog like cement where no biological reaction except maybe the formation of hydrogen sulfide forms.
Another benefit is that it can be stirred or moved as much as you like. I keep a breeding pair of pistol shrimp which make huge tunnels and pile gravel 5" high. That would destroy a DSB but in a UG filter it actually helps. Also many of us think of a tank 4 or 5 years old which is not even half the lifespan of a hermit crab, (or the career of Mylie Cyrus) I think we should think of a system that will last our lifetime with no crashes or having to take everything out for maintenance. A RUGF is that system.

Another benefit is that the entire bed and area under it is oxygenated so as I said creatures live all through it. Those creatures as well as bacteria are the beginning of the food chain. They provide food for larger animals including SPS corals, sponges, tube worms, mollusks and smaller fish. It is hard to have a tank where we have to provide all the nutrition. That is in natural. In the sea the substrate and rocks is home to the bottom of the food chain and nature feeds the smaller creatures with no help from us. That is a natural system and I strive for a natural system. If I move a rock in my tank I will see amphipods and brittle stars running all over the place just as I notice in the sea. Another proof of a natural system.

DSBs for instance make no sense long term. I know the theory that the worms wiggle down there providing areas for the water to get there and have the nitrates stripped by the anerobic bacteria living there and that works great "In a Lab" for a year or two. Those worms are not stupid and will stay in the oxygenated areas, so would I. Eventually that thing will clog to the point that if you drilled a hole in the bottom of the tank, no water would come out. (don't try that).

A RUGF does not make oxygen, but oxygen is pumped from the surface all through the gravel including the 1/2" space underneath which is filled with life as I want it.
A sand bed has oxygen on it but as you get lower, the oxygen ebbs so creatures prefer to stay near the surface providing much less room for them to multiply.

If you keep a tank for any length you will want to re-aquascape. That is fine if you run gravel with a RUGF as that will cause no harm. As a matter of fact the system needs to be stirred once or twice a year just to renew it. I do that by using a canister filter (I use a diatom) and stirring up where I can reach. This prevents anything from clogging by removing excess detritus. I never want to remove all l the detritus because detritus actually makes the RUGF work better by slowing down the flow and providing even more area and food for bacteria and pods.

AS for algae growth, I have known since I started this hobby that nitrogen and phosphorous does not "cause" algae but I don't like saying that because virtually every thread will espouse removal of nutrients and changing water to eliminate algae. Does that ever work? No, it doesn't. If that worked, new tanks would have no algae and we know that is incorrect.
If you take a glass of tap water or RO/DI water and put it out in the sun, it will grow algae.
The tiniest amounts of nutrients will grow algae and we will never have that low nutrients "and" keep SPS at the same time. Corals depend on nutrients as they almost all house algae, do they not?

If you have an algae problem and keep changing the water you could actually be making it worse. I get in trouble for that statement but I have been doing this for a while and if you read the algae threads, that is always the recommendation. When you change water where there is an algae bloom, you are removing water that the algae has already stripped it of nutrients including iron and replacing it with new water with more nutrients including iron. Like Duh.

But that is for another thread . We need to use more common sense and not rely completely on information discovered in a lab. Scientists (and I love them) study these things under sterile conditions but their experiments continue until the research money runs out, none of those studies go on for 20 or 30 years. Dr, Schultz came up with that DSB thing in a lab and it is great for a couple of years, but the long term results are flawed. (he started in the hobby the same year as I did and we are the same age, but I am better looking )

I personally do not know why my tank "now" has no algae and even very little in my scrubber, but through common sense I know that if nutrients cause algae, and I have very little, something is missing in our knowledge. I won't guess what it is but I do throw mud from the sea including sometimes water in my tank and nothing happens. I can't explain it and I am sure Randy (who I love, in a manly sort of way) can't either.
If someone could explain it, there would be no "nuisance" algae in this hobby.

That brings up another point and I realize I am rambling. We can't cure algae because it is not a disease. If we see absolutely no algae, there is a problem because algae grows on every healthy reef in the world. I have dove on most of them and it is what it is. We are fooling ourselves if we think there is no algae in the sea. Another common sense thing. If algae didn't grow in abundance in the sea what are all those tangs, rabbitfish, algae bleenies, urchins, chitins, abalone, slugs and snails eating? McDonalds!
The vast majority of creatures on a reef are herbivores, millions of them descend on a coral head at once and at night the reefs are covered in urchins which is why we don't "see" algae on reefs. If you removed those animals the reef would be completely covered in algae in a few days. So much for nutrients causing algae.

My calcium is 450 and I think my alk is 10 the last time someone tested it but I can't look for it right now.
Sorry for the long rant, have a great day.
(I didn't mention Supermodels, hammers, beer cans or cucumbers once)

I took this off Molaki in Hawaii. The spotted moray in the center is surrounded by algae and thriving coral. Maybe he chases away or eats herbivores, but whatever it is, algae grows everywhere.




Another reef in Hawaii. You don't see any algae, but what you do see is an urchin in every nook. Look closely. You won't see any McDonalds wrapppers so I assume they are eating algae. And that was the day time, at night there are three times as many. If you had 200 urchins in your 50 gallon tank every night "and" you taught them to poop outside your tank, do you think you would see any algae.
I try to prove everything I post with pictures because I don't like to re hash something that someone said, because they heard it from someone else, who read it in a book where the author read it in another book that was written by the guy who sweeps the floor in Home Depot and once had a guppy tank.

Sorry double picture, make believe that next picture is Christie Brinkley holding an urchin
Look at the picture under it and stop looking at Christie

I have seen in my system that first 1-2 weeks after a 30% water change that algae and diatom growth occurs far more.

I have a large 40 gallon refugium with cheato and a large 100 gallon cryptic sump with some sand, Pukani, and 3 MarinePure Blocks. My system is very efficient in both NO3 and PO4 control as well as nuisance algae prevention. Extremely vibrant pod population. I like a natural approach also.

I'm just not completely sold that water changes are not totally useless.

I use a large skimmer, BRS ROX .8 carbon, lots of Pukani, large cheato fuge, and vinegar (carbon source). I feel that my young system is successful to this point.



As I said however water changes do certainly seem to spur the growth of other algae, cyano, diatoms, and dinos. I can only assume that micro elements in the salt are feeding theses things because my display looks it's best after 4 weeks without a water change. This is very compelling.

 

[Paul B]

Jason is correct, most tanks including mine harbor some cyano. I don't care. It grows and ebbs like in nature. I also have seen it all over the Caribbean.

Bif24701, I am glad you see that water changes can cause algae. Most people don't believe that as they keep changing more and more water to eliminate algae then start one of those "Getting out of the hobby" threads then go on to open a produce stand.

I also didn't say water changes are useless. We should change water, but I feel far to much water is changed. Another very old school theory not discovered by me is that water actually gets better with age.
(Guido Huckstedt "Water Chemistry for advanced Aquarists")

Algae imparts beneficial chemicals to aged water. I don't know which chemicals as I am not a chemist, botanist or piano player but I believe this to be true. I change very little water and I think I could change much less or practically none. Our corals are not growing a pound a week so I doubt they are using that many nutrients. If they are, what are they doing with it. I eat a lot of pasta and it is going to my ever growing belly.
If you see a positive change to your tank after you change water, something is wrong. In a healthy tank, you should see no change as your water should not be deteriorating that fast. Mine doesn't and I have a lot of spawning, over fed fish.

By the way, I use dolomite gravel, I forgot to mention that.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

As I said however water changes do certainly seem to spur the growth of other algae, cyano, diatoms, and dinos. I can only assume that micro elements in the salt are feeding theses things because my display looks it's best after 4 weeks without a water change. This is very compelling.

Perhaps it is a sign that the water change is serving its purpose of replenishing things that are too depleted when a water change spurs growth of something, regardless of what it is.

 

[Paul B]

Perhaps it is a sign that the water change is serving its purpose of replenishing things that are too depleted when a water change spurs growth of something, regardless of what it is.

It certainly spurs the growth of algae so if that is what you are striving for, change more water.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It certainly spurs the growth of algae so if that is what you are striving for, change more water.

Since that same limiting element may be limiting other photosynthetic organisms such as corals, I would!

 

[Paul B]

Since that same limiting element may be limiting other photosynthetic organisms such as corals, I would!

OK, but since you don't have a tank any more, you can't.

 

[bif24701]

Since that same limiting element may be limiting other photosynthetic organisms such as corals, I would!

Agreed 100%. I've learned that maybe I don't need to do 100 gallon water changes to a 275 gallon system every week. Every 2-3 seems perfectly balanced were both cheato and coral vigor receive a boost but not with significant outbreaks of undesirables.

 

[Paul B]

Agreed 100%. .

I only agree 32 1/2 %