Discussion of the Week ~ Water changes~

[mojoreef]

Well in last weeks discussion we came up with a bunch of good myths and I would like to pursue a few of them to allow the reasoning behind them to be told. So for the next few weeks we will live in the land of Myths and non myths and try to get to the bottom of them. The first will be water changes. Now some of us live by them and some of us are lasy . The standard mantra is dillution of the polution,but in several recent studies evidence has shown that the dillution may be the pollution.
So lets have a good clean debate, not so much on the pollution of fods and SW mixes but on the therioes behind water changes, thier benefits and pitfalls.


have fun.


mike

[Reedman]

Well, I can vouch for the fact that if you have a LOT of excess nutrients in your tank and need to get rid of them in an efficient manner water changes work wonders.

I think that some people overlook the fact that most people are adding new clean RO/DI water everyday (or continuously for those with the automated systems). I believe that this does, in some fashion, constitute a water change and is beneficial to the system.

I also think that the old thinking of 25-30% wholesale water changes can cause more stress to the tank.

I am anxious to hear from some others on this. I am on the fence a bit for the long term effects on the tank.

[karsco]

This is going to be a long rambling post so bear with me...

Well I am throuroughly confused on the effect of water changes, especially since reading Dr. Shimeks articles on OTS (old tank syndrome) Dr. Shimek has theorized that we are adding excessive trace metals which are in the synthetic sea salts which most of us are currently using. The basic principal is that after about 4 years the trace metals have been absorbed by the sand in the rock and they reach a saturation point. When your tank reaches this saturation point, basically it crashes and you start to lose live stock because of the problems the excess trace metals cause.

This scares me in the fact that I have had my tank set up for about 2 years so what do I do? Avoid water changes? Treat all my mixed salt water with an activated carbon for a week before I do a water change to help remove some of the trace metals?
According to many posts by Dr. Ron over on the Reef Central Board he is looking into alternative synthetic salt mixes which do not contain these high trace metals and will keep the Reef Community in the loop when he finds this salt.

I currently do 10% water changes every other week, and find this to work well for my tank. I am very interested in everyone's feedback on this issue. BTW I apologize to Dr. Ron and Reef Central if I have misquoted or misinterpreted any of his theories.

Here is the link that disucusses the OTS..

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...d&pagenumber=1

[Calvinc4s]

I do 30% water changes on my tank to battle NO3. I was using Geo marine, which was easy for vacuuming detritus. I felt the benefit of diluting the NO3 was worth the cons of mineral striation. for this system water change was a must .

I think with the modern biological reef systems today, NO3 isn't the main issue like it was for my tank. With the proper use of carbon, DSB, live rock, refuge and dosing; I wonder if the pros
still out weigh the cons?

I would think every tank is different. If you are chasing nitrates,
you should keep them up. But if you have enough anaerobic bacteria at work, why do it?

[wildthings44]

Ok I will answere, but don't pick on me!
I do a 15% wa change every other week, but I just use tap water. In all honesty I have no idea what my water perameters really are, as they havn't been tested since I moved to the back 40! But I can tell things are much happier after a water change. And this is how I tell the condition of the tank. If my frogspawns and hammers are out (and by that I mean taking up half the tank) and my capenella is standing tall all is good! I have always lived by the water change, perhaps a lasting effect of keeping fancy guppies, and anyone whos had them knows what I mean. These things are impossible to keep happy in poor conditions.... (and now I keep wild ones that don't care if they are swimming in sewage )

I have heard the term "old tank syndrom" but do not know what this means (every time I get on this forum I learn just how much I don't know!) Nor have I heard anything bad about water changes until just last week in the myths section. But I should add that for the first 20 months of my tank's life I used purified seawater out of the seattle aquarium... and then I heard that you had problems keeping the pH up, which I never did. So I guess what I am saying/asking is what exactly is the problem?
thanks
kim

[tdwyatt]

OYS, one of the things that Ron and I don't see eye-to-eye on... I guess I'll have to start worrying about that, as I'm at about 7 years now on the main tank... been changing water all along... always used a Spectrapure unit for RO/DI... my changes are in the range of 10% every 2 weeks, and mostly a non-skimmed collectioin of systems... This week will be the start of the teardown for the move in 3 weeks, and the setup of the new systems now, as we are moving at the end of the week to the new house. I guess I'll have to wait another 7 years to see what happens with OTS...



Wait, Wasn't OTS the guy who always slept it off in the Mayberry Jail while Barney kept an eye on him???

[CatinHat]

Now don't kill me! But I haven't changed any of my water in over a year! I add some trace and buff about every other month. I add some tap water when my sump gets low and thats about it. I keep a bunch of softies, LOTS of inverts, and a handful of fish. Everything in my tank are happy and healthy. For the most part since it cycled two years ago I've just let it do it's own thing. I have 0 nitrates and the biggest problem I've had is cooling it down in the summer. I don't know what the true right or wrong way is but it has worked fine for me. My tank specs are a 90 gallon tank with a 35 gallon sump and about 135 pounds of live rock with a 3 inch sand bed. Just my 2 cents.

[triggereel]

WATER CHANGES

JUST DO THEM even if it is a little bit every week
yeah they are many stories on how people never ever do them for months
but then
the system malfunctions and crashes
oh no what went wrong
i dont know
everything was perfect
oh now go kick yourself for not doing them
hehhehe

[Spanky]

one of the things that Ron and I don't see eye-to-eye on...

of many! LOL

For obvious reasons, we only use NSW here most of the time. There are times when a salt mix is used, but those times are few and far between and short term.
I've probably seen more tanks crash than anyone, it's not metals here. It's bad husbandry of the system and organic build up.

OH, water changes. Massive and frequent. Removing as much detritus as you can at the same time.

[mojoreef]

I think water changes are needed in most systems. Prior to this tank I had not doen a water change for almost 3 years, but I had a lot of checks in place to make this work. Including a very light bioload and a good sized body of water. In regards to the Dr.s latest excapade I do believe it has some merit as do the studies that preceded it with regards to food and additive poluutants. But as always the study was convaluted with sensationalism. Thier are far to many tanks that are old and have not experenced the dire effects that were said to have been just around the corner from the 4 year mark.
I agree that the 2 most important things to avoid crashes are husbandry and organics.

mike

[Jimbo]

I've been a advocate of very small water changes, if any at all. But recently read somewhere that some people are recommending a major water change every six months-to a year vs weekly or monthly changes. I guess the analogy here is to remove most of the water, ie this I guess removes most of the built heavy metals and other accumulated toxins. I wonder if this idea would also apply to a DSB. Remove 1/4 of it everyyear and replace it with new stuff, this would help in removing built up toxins, metals ect...

Of course with small water changes you replace used up elements and it's certainly easier for the beginner than trying to establish a dosing system of the proper balance of elements needed to maintain healthy coral growth.

Just rambling

[Beaches]

I'm no expert, but have been making water changes since I first started this hobby about 3 years ago--and have been following this board for as long.

For my 40g, my routine is a 15-20% water change and "house cleaning" (siphoning sand/rock, wiping down glass, cleaning out filters/jets, etc.) every week to week and a half.

Mainly, I feel this is needed as I have a FWLR tank--which I believe (and reading/researching) needs more "cleaning" than a true "reef" setup.

I may be wrong...but my tank is doing just fine

[Cali Kid]

Originally posted by mojoreef
I agree that the 2 most important things to avoid crashes are husbandry and organics.

mike

Makes for an interesting Discussion of the week.

[Piero]

I do water changes very rarely. But i use RO/DI for topoff, which more important than most realize. I check my chemistry and watch my animals for indications of anything changing.

I think perhaps water changes were more important in the past and with fish only tanks because the natural systems in pre--reef tanks were not very efficient at processing waste.

I still use waterchanges as a first measure when anything looks wrong and can't be explained quickly.

[R1Bill]

i do water changes whenever my corals look like they need it. (usually the leathers, colt and bubble show stress first) then i usually do a 30% change. i was doing this about every 4-6 weeks but ever since i started to run carbon continously my corals haven't shown the stress that made me change the water and consequently i've really cut back on the water changes.

bill