Friend has 2-3 water changes every 2 years

[rogeragrimes]

A friend of mine has had a marine aquarium since 2004, and he only does 2-3 water changes every two years. No filter, no skimmer, adds no chemicals, doesn't vacuum his sand. He only has thick sand, a wave gyre, and DI/RO ATO, and of course lots of lots of live rock, corals, and fish. Everything looks very healthy and happy. His corals are growing out of his tank. His anemones are splitting like mad. He never does a chemical check. He changes the water when his corals or fish seem strange for a week or so.

He's advising to me get rid of my filter, sump, refugium, skimmer, and stop with all the additives, etc.

I gotta say, I'm a bit jealous. The only thing I didn't like was his very dirty looking sand. And I was a bit surprised that he never cleans the tank (other than glass scrubbing), never removes anything, never vaccums the sand, and it all seems to work quite well.

Thoughts?

 

[ca1ore]

Shrooms and softies like a dirty tank, so you can get away with dodgy husbandry. LPS and certainly SPS would not be so accommodating. Depends on your tank goals essentially.

 

[chimmike]

His hard corals can't be growing like they are without more frequent water changes or dosing of some kind. Once the minerals are used from the water, they don't get magically replaced.

He may be changing water more frequently than he's letting on, because something's not adding up

 

[atraperegrinus]

His hard corals can't be growing like they are without more frequent water changes or dosing of some kind. Once the minerals are used from the water, they don't get magically replaced.

He may be changing water more frequently than he's letting on, because something's not adding up

looks like MAYBE a cup coral on the right? if it isnt just a huge mushroom, otherwise all softy and shrooms. I dont see anything else in the picture that wouldn't mind dirty-ish water.

 

[doradosteve]

I may need to take the same approach. Save a ton of cash & time!

 

[chueu]

By the way, I also do not do water changes.

The current 180g I'm running has been up around 6 months with good growth on both softies and lps.

I'm basically using chemsitry to keep nitrates and phosphates in check. And I dose a hell lot haha.

I will start a thread on this soon

 

[Ron Reefman]

Your friend has a fairly easy tank to care for. Mushrooms, leathers and gorgonians tolerate (may even like) a tank with less than pristine water.

I have a 400g system (180g sps/lps reef, 75g gorgonian tank and 160g 70g sump/ 45g refugium/ 45g DSB with 8" of sand) and I average about 3 or 4 water changes a year (25g each on a 400g system). My fish are fat and happy and my corals grow faster than I want, so I have to frag more often than I want. I don't run carbon or GFO or any reactors. I use filter socks and run a big skimmer.

 

[Marchillo]

This thread makes me question a lot. I am barely getting into corals after 14 months into the hobby and I am very religious on my water changes. Usually done weekly and at most it goes 10 days. Is this complete overkill? Besides the easy corals are these tanks lightly stocked? I have two fish and an rbta in a 40 and changing 5g weekly. Should I be doing this monthly? Lol. This is crazy to me.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I have a 40b with a 20 gal sump that is heavy stocked with 8 fish that I feed 3 times per day and a lot of mostly LPS corals. I change 10 gal of Reef Crystals mix every two weeks and my tank is doing very well with this.

Here is a link to my tank: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2540376

I feel it's better to do the 20% every two weeks as when I test that seems to be the optimum time for me to do the WC. I have gone 3 week and also 1 month and I can see the difference in my corals when I wait past the 2 week period by more than 3 days.

Currently I'm not dosing anything. This might change if I decide it's cheaper or better for my corals by dosing than doing the WC's