Not performing water changes, only top offs on very large tank

[larsson]

Has anyone heard of someone not performing water changes on a very large, 400+ gallon, tank and only topping off mositure evaporation? The tank will house fish, some invertibrates, and some low light corals.

[Doug1]

Well Yah, I believe one member here sorta follows that philosophy. Granted 400+ gallons is a large system its still just a drop in th ebucket compared to the vastness of the ocean. Since over time biological processes are going to cause changes in water chemistry, almost always for the worse, rarely if ever for the better, why wouldnt one try to stave the bad changes off with water changes. Ya know the old axiom."The solution to pollution is dilution".
IME water changes are low tech and cheap form of maint, so why not?

[Jeremy1973]

Well, if your tank is in balance, that should be okay. But doing water changes helps replenish trace elements, remove contaminents...

So, I am guessing, if you are adding the elements, and you have a good filtration system (LR or mechanical) I guess you could be okay. I have no experience with that. Granted, I don't have to do water changes all that often..maybe once every 4 months. But still, I would be always worrying about my tank if I never did them. Just my 1 cent!

[larsson]

Originally posted by Doug1
Well Yah, I believe one member here sorta follows that philosophy. Granted 400+ gallons is a large system its still just a drop in th ebucket compared to the vastness of the ocean. Since over time biological processes are going to cause changes in water chemistry, almost always for the worse, rarely if ever for the better, why wouldnt one try to stave the bad changes off with water changes. Ya know the old axiom."The solution to pollution is dilution".
IME water changes are low tech and cheap form of maint, so why not?

I don't know. I have heard of someone with a tank that size being fine only topping off the water. The tank would have a lot of invertibrates, so cleaning would not really be an issue, unless it's the occasional cleaning the algae off the glass. I was just wondering what people's opinions on the matter were.

[Geoff]

Originally posted by Doug1
Well Yah, I believe one member here sorta follows that philosophy.

now where is Mike when you need him

if it was anybody else, i would say they would be heading for doom. i do not see how Mike does it, maybe it is the fact that he keeps upgrading every couple of years.

hey Mike, do you own a swimming pool?

G~

[Minnreefer]

I would highly recomend you SLOW DOWN and domore research. You seem to be jumping into this very fast. I do't want you have have a large tank and have it go to crap in a month then have to sell it, unless I can buy it ,.

Slow down a little bit

Jon

[reefcam]

I have a 224g, and for the first year I did only 3 water changes. Mainly to help increase the water salinity. But with all good things, if you don't do the minimum maintenance (which includes water changes), IMHO, the tank will become unmanageable. Remember this is a closed system and not open like the ocean. Ok, I guess you can say the ocean is somewhat a closed system, but the last time it rain over my tank, I called it a disaster.

But at some point you should so water changes to remove excessive waste and replenish the trace minerals. I still do about 5 water changes yearly to increase salinity, replenish trace minerals and remove excessive waste. Oh any to purchase more salt.

[Doug1]

If you are using a super skimmer and a calcium reactor, kalk drip or gallons of 2 part additive, not to mention feeding the tank, you are going to alter the tanks water chemistry from the start point.
Swim tanks with Fish only tend to tolerate deteriorating water quality over time better than reef tanks but they will adjust, then when a problem becomes apperent and you do the major water change to bring things in line, shock and further decline.
Bottom line in my opinion its better to stay up on maint from the get gop, do smaller frequent changes and keep up on the maint, rather than assuming since the tank is SO BIG it will be forgiving, come to think of it we are finding out that ignoring it doesn't work for the ocean, why would this be any different?