Longest Time without water change?

[Beenalongtime79]

I dose 3 part, run a nitrate reactor, algae turf scrubber and skimmer.
I have not changed it in about 5 months, my tank seems to have healthier corals because of this. I think older/aged water allows your corals to a adjust without wild ramps in salinity, ph, calcium, alkalinity,etc from water changes. I am worried about some of the trace elements though.

Also have no mechanical filters ( other then protein skimmer ).

Seachem sells a reef trace supplement that is fairly priced if it really worries you...

 

[Beenalongtime79]

I had a 4 year old 55 gallon mixed reef. Only a pair of clowns and a sand sifting goby, cleaner shrimp, and a small cleaning crew of mixed hermits, and snails.

I went 6 months without a water change, and thought, oh well I can back off my water changes. So I did water changes on a 4 month cycle for the next year. All of my parameters were on the edge of okay, and bad.
Then one day my water all turned a dark green <unknown still what caused it> and would not go away, could not filter it out, did 50% water changes every week for a month.

Ended up with almost all my coral, both clowns, and the shrimp being dead. I managed to save two or three corals, or frags of the corals and get them into fellow reefers tanks before they died.

I have the feeling that my previous schedule of 20% water change every 6 weeks would have prevented that crash, but honestly can not say.

It has been two years since I crashed that tank and I am just now setting up a tank again.

Sad to hear that story! . However, I would change my water if it was in fact of poor quality (elevated nitrates, phosphates, etc.). You did say that they were sitting on the edge. Did you have a deep sand bed? Sometimes this acts as a nutrient sink until one day it all goes to crap when the nutrients begin to leach back into the tank (Somewhat analogous to your houses septic tank overflowing and backing up).

I don't have much of a sandbed to speak of so it shouldn't be a nutrient sink. I brought the topic up because I really do think that my tank with its low fish bioload reached an equilibrium where nutrient uptake equaled nutrient input.

Energy and nutrients being added by scarce feedings and photosynthesis and then energy uptake by coral growth and macro algae and turf algae growth. That why phosphate and nitrates have stayed low and I have almost nil nuisance algae.

Keep em' coming guys! There must be other lazy guy success stories out there! :lol2:

Cheers,
John

 

[mussel and hate]

When I was a young fella I used to change water every time I moved. The longest duration without waterchanges(back in the day) wasy three years. Everything looked great at the time and this was in a 20 gallon tank. The tank did eventually crash after another 3ish years w/o water change though I can't say what the cause was, perhaps I was overdue on a wc.

 

[NeilFox]

My first reef was set up for about eight years. Homade acrylic 160 gal. I had an overflow that I would run a little plyester quilt batting in. I replaced the batting every few days. The first six months or so I would change water as I felt it was needed. Usually vaccuuming of detritus. I had a sand bed about two or three inches. It was actually live sand I collected at a place near Key Largo called the Horse Shoe. Sort of a basin filled with sand that appeared to be Hallimedia Discordea algae skeletons. Everybody had bare bottoms in those days 1985. I just thought the sand would look nicer. Everyone thought I was nuts for using it. I also threw in a few stafrfish and a couple sea cucumbers and some things called sea biscuits a little like fat sand dollars.

It seemed to be working out pretty good. The trend at the time was not to do water changes if you could help it. In Alf Neilsons words "small and infrequent". All I ever did was throw in a water change of about a gallon or two when I was siphoning the sand rocks etc. That was it for eight years. I Had quite a colony of Halimedia going I would pull some out and give it to freinds. I dosed Kalk (purchased in bulk 50 lb bags). No dosing just a drip system manually monitored. I would mix the Kalk in a five gallon container of triple distilled water using a magnetic stirrer to get saturation. I seldom measured Alk mostly dosed till the Ph was right. I see that is now the way some of the French guys are doing it. I also dosed magnesium and strontium. It was just becoming apparent that strontium was required. The first stuff had molybdnium in it for some reason so we started purchasing strontium and potassium iodide from Sigma pharmacutical.

For feeding I would throw in a piece of fresh rock every now and then. I never tested for magnesium because I don't think kits were available. PH would swing between 7.9 to 8.3 depending on what time I measured it, DKH between 7 and 8. Nitrate around 10, 20ppm. Phosphate, no idea, couldnt offord that kind of kit.

I had a pretty mixed reef most of the SPS were colonies of milipora and pocilapora that came in on rock (10% rule at the time). I was running HO 60 watt fluorecents, daylight and actinic in various configurations. LPS were a big elegance (still alive at a freinds place) some acans, a few various euphillias and a bunch of oddball zoas encrusting gorgonians and a couple regular gorgo's. I ended up getting a couple Acros, actually 3 I think from Julian Sprung. They were rare and expensive then. I also rescued a couple clams from a guy that was killing them.

As far as fish, I had quite a few, three yellow tangs, a dwarf lionfish, a pair of clowns, a fink skunk clown, a scorpionfish, somer cromis, a Naso Tang and a few firefish that I can remember. I guess I lied about feeding, I would throw a few guppies in for the Lion occasionally when he started looking frisky. There is more but I can't remember.

I only recall having one problem. When I got the Acro's I upgraded to MH lighting, I don't know if it was competition for calcium or a change in lighting but the Halimedia started to dissapear. The Acro's and Clams really started thriving though. I also had a couple hundred astrea snails if that means anything.

I guess the tank didn't look two bad. Charles Delbeek came by the house and wanted to take a few pictures. They ended up in Julian Sprungs first book! I also had a 6 page feature in the Jan 1993 FAMA magazine. I wish I could get a back issue because I lost my copies.

Anyhow, not doing regular water changes worked for me. I just setting up a 120 and I plan to do pretty much the same thing. I will just take advantage of a few things that make life easier nowadays.

 

[Beenalongtime79]

Very cool story neilfox!! Wow, you were way ahead of the curve back in the day! Most people could barely keep saltwater fish healthy in those days and you were growing acros!

That is definitely one of the coolest stories I have heard in a while. Thanks so much for sharing.

Cheers,
John

 

[Charfish]

Been guilty of being a lazy aquarist...or poor. When younger and having an expensive hobby didn't match my income, the water-changes suffered. Thinking back, I honestly did not see any harm resulting from my neglect--- granted, that was fish-only with a few softies...

 

[NeilFox]

Thanks for the compliment John! I haven't been able to stay with the hobby consistently though. Had to give it up for quite a few years due to my job. Still doing the same thing but my new wife has caught the reefing bug and our son really loves the fish. just got a 120 set up and cycled, slowly stocking it. I'm staying in Vietnam which makes things interesting. It has it's advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is living across the street from a live seafood vendor. He gets seawater delivered weekly for his holding tanks. I can get 500 liters for 150,00 vnd (about 7 usd). I may end up doing a few more water changes this time around since it comes from the source!!!

Neil

 

[kevantheman35]

I would love to see these pics of the tank neil. Anywhere I can find them besides buying the book

 

[saltyair]

1 month on the WC - i don't dose so 10 gal a week is best for me. 3 days on feeding.

 

[NeilFox]

Hi Kevin. I have some at my Mom's place. They are old polaroids. Maybe I can see if I can't get a few scanned. I would like to see if I could get a copy of that old FAMA mag. Maybe someone has it and could scan a few pages for me?

I'll see what I can do about the pics. The style may be a little bit outdated compared to what people have now, rimless, cubes, heavy SPS tanks, etc. But it wasn't bad for those days I suppose.

Regards

Neil

 

[buffalo123]

Maybe we should consider one gallon water changes,to take care of trace elements. I usually try for once per month, when you read the threads you think you need to do them weekly. Thats not necessarily a good thing for stability

 

[Beenalongtime79]

Maybe we should consider one gallon water changes,to take care of trace elements. I usually try for once per month, when you read the threads you think you need to do them weekly. Thats not necessarily a good thing for stability

I agree, doing huge 30-50% water changes probably doesn't make any of your tank inhabitants happy and I never bought into the use of water changes as a nutrient export method. A good protein skimmer is an infinitely better solution. .

Cheers,
John

Good to hear everyone's stories, good and bad.

 

[Misled]

Maybe someone has it and could scan a few pages for me?

I'll keep looking.

 

[Curtis72]

longest ive gone is about 8-10 months in my 33 gallon cube

 

[Bruno3047]

I change about 30% of the water every 6 months while at the same time removing about 30% of the sand and rinsing it really well in tap water. Keeps my substrate clean, my water fresh and my bristleworm population under control. In the meantime, I dose Reef Plus and Reef Trace to keep my trace elements up. I run a denitrator and have nitrates constant at 0-5 ppm. I never
could see the point in going to all of that trouble just to replace water.

BTW. Filter-feeding corals FEAST on Cryptocaryon bugs. That's why your corals look so good after all of your fish have been wiped out by Ich.

 

[Beenalongtime79]

I change about 30% of the water every 6 months while at the same time removing about 30% of the sand and rinsing it really well in tap water. Keeps my substrate clean, my water fresh and my bristleworm population under control. In the meantime, I dose Reef Plus and Reef Trace to keep my trace elements up. I run a denitrator and have nitrates constant at 0-5 ppm. I never
could see the point in going to all of that trouble just to replace water.

BTW. Filter-feeding corals FEAST on Cryptocaryon bugs. That's why your corals look so good after all of your fish have been wiped out by Ich.

Do you have a very large bristle worm population?

 

[Bruno3047]

I used to. Now I think a have a good balance after I started the sand-rinsing with tap water. The tap water kills the worms on contact. I used to rinse the sand with new salt-water.

 

[YamahaF934]

Interesting, here I am doing a water change once a week. Haha.

 

[dave sullivan]

I think when we are almost bragging about how long its been since we did a water change is simply not right. Animals are constantly taking vital nutrients out of the water and depleting the system. So, I believe water changes are very important. Have a great day!

 

[eg8r210]

I think when we are almost bragging about how long its been since we did a water change is simply not right. Animals are constantly taking vital nutrients out of the water and depleting the system. So, I believe water changes are very important. Have a great day!

Why do you believe anyone is bragging? Is answering an honest question honestly now reduced to bragging?

eg8r