Are regular water changes necessary
- Thread starter dodgy67
- Start date
DasCamel
New member
Regarding the water change, I'm going on the assumption somethings we're going to import and export manually. My main point is, very practical to occasionally change some of the water, not hard. Why risk it.
Definitely looking into a CA reactor or something when adding SPS into the new system.
I hear you, and I agree. Though I 'suspect' water changes are not the essential part of husbandry that îs generally assumed, I'm also not willing to risk not doing at least some. I continue to run a UV for the same reason.
Stop doing the water changes and you will notice some differences. Colonial 'nems can start to recede - especially the harder-to-keep ones that some people stuggle with. LPS can have their tissue start to recede up their skeletons. SPS will stop growing, PE will lessen and they can start to STN from the base us. All of this can get better with just one or two water changes.
I don't know how their can be so much thought of not knowing something, yet insisting that it is not necessary. I think that I am going to stop exercising because I have no cardiovascular issues - there could not possibly be any causality there, right?
I am also a big fan of CaRx - melting natural media will put into your tank what the true coral uptook when it was growing. This is not the same for man-made media, BTW. There are lots of other things that true coral don't use to make skeletons.
Keep in mind that 2-part tanks can have significant amount of chloride ions build up - nobody also is really sure what this means, but RHF has opined in the past decades that this will reach a point of issue and recommends routine water changes to help manage.
There are toxic heavy metals in most food, but especially frozen. Sure, you can mechanically remove it, but you remove the other trace elements as well perhaps making your problem worse.
Every summer I get really busy with work my tanks get somewhat neglected for a while - especially my mixed reef. One positive that I have noticed in this tank is that the bubble algae in the overflows and up top where the emeralds cannot get to them are severely cut back after 5-6 months of no/limited water changes. I can only assume this is from iron, but who knows. Lets keep in mind that the same kind of symbiotic dinos in the algae are also in the coral. The growth on my branching LPS and SPS get stalled near the end of this. Some corals don't care. Some of the trickier zoas will recede a bit. Nothing ever dies. They all catch back up in the fall and winter when I start to care more. This year I am vowing to at least take the time to change some water once a month, but I vowed this last year as well.
I don't know how their can be so much thought of not knowing something, yet insisting that it is not necessary. I think that I am going to stop exercising because I have no cardiovascular issues - there could not possibly be any causality there, right?
I am also a big fan of CaRx - melting natural media will put into your tank what the true coral uptook when it was growing. This is not the same for man-made media, BTW. There are lots of other things that true coral don't use to make skeletons.
Keep in mind that 2-part tanks can have significant amount of chloride ions build up - nobody also is really sure what this means, but RHF has opined in the past decades that this will reach a point of issue and recommends routine water changes to help manage.
There are toxic heavy metals in most food, but especially frozen. Sure, you can mechanically remove it, but you remove the other trace elements as well perhaps making your problem worse.
Every summer I get really busy with work my tanks get somewhat neglected for a while - especially my mixed reef. One positive that I have noticed in this tank is that the bubble algae in the overflows and up top where the emeralds cannot get to them are severely cut back after 5-6 months of no/limited water changes. I can only assume this is from iron, but who knows. Lets keep in mind that the same kind of symbiotic dinos in the algae are also in the coral. The growth on my branching LPS and SPS get stalled near the end of this. Some corals don't care. Some of the trickier zoas will recede a bit. Nothing ever dies. They all catch back up in the fall and winter when I start to care more. This year I am vowing to at least take the time to change some water once a month, but I vowed this last year as well.
Yes, and this is precisely what the balling method takes into account with dosing the third part of elements that do not contain NaCL (part 3). Not saying it's better than CaRX and all that.
The point is more around how much to do and how often, and why. I believe I was doing it too much with new salt water that was vastly different in make up than the chemistry that was in the tank which made keeping things consistent an issue.
That's not to say that I think no one should ever change water, rather, in MY CASE I believe I was changing too much. You can still have too much of a good thing.
