Yes, I've experienced lots of water quality problems. As usual, different species have different requirements, so I can't generalize and I have recently discussed organic solvents and other toxic compounds getting into tanks. For most intertidal species that I have kept, they are fairly tolerant of salinity, oxygen and pH problems, but can have difficulty with nitrogen including nitrates. Subtidal species seem more susceptable to allo these problems. For example, one small piece of uneat shrimp left in a 5 gal aquariums can kill an O. havanensis withing 24 hours. A Neogonodactylus bredini or wennerae would laugh at this.
In general, I've found that with the very small aquaria that I use (1-5 gal), partial water changes are the way to go.
Roy