What actions can I take to reduce amount of water changes?

[sernger]

15 gallon tank. Stocked potentially with live rocks, live sand, cleaner crew, and a few fishes. What can I add that will allow me to do fewer water changes? 10% weekly water changes are what I hear is best. Can I decrease amount of water changes to like every 4 weeks or so ? If it is possible...what would I need to add to allow this to occur?

[tinyreef]

just stop.

 

i got fed up with the whole wc schmeal and caved into my lazy nature and just stopped. now this assumes your tank has stabilized tho. (i.e. no new additions and LR/LS have matured) it usually takes around six months for a nano to reach that ime.

 

keep an eye on the nitrates in relation to your inverts and eventually the wc's won't be needed. (you'll have to dose tho) you could wean yourself off too. (i.e. 10%/week, 9%/week, etc.)

[Crakeur]

true tiny but you have to keep an eye on salinity. adding water for top offs never seems to bring the salinity back to where it should be. always a bit too high or low. Plus you need to dose chems which can cause problems if not done correctly.

 

I'm not saying you can't do it. Quite the opposite actually as my 7 had one water change in 6 months before I dismantled it.

 

The lazy approach of planning no water changes isn't the way to get into this. A tank that is running without water changes needs to be watched very carefully, water tests regularly etc. and a tank that gets a 10% water change a week should become less of a concern with regards to the possible missing elements etc.

[jojopus]

Adding a good skimmer to your setup will allow for greater time between water changes. However, you have to remember that skimmers take out good stuff as well as bad so dosing may be necessary and as Crak said if it isnt done right you can do some damage, especially in a small system that reacts more quickly to changes .

[LakerFan]

Get a good skimmer, dose consistently. I've only done one water change in my tank since I set up the new one in january.

[sernger]

I'll have to condier this, thanks for your comments

[Pikelet]

The 10% WC recommendation is there in an attempt to make management pretty much foolproof. Some people have tanks that do better subjectively w/o weekly changes while the tanks of others are a mess without them. As usual, it all depends on a myriad of interrelated factors and I can't be bothered going into them all.

 

Just work out what works best for your tank.

[sernger]

Ah okay, I'll experiment around and find the optimal amount of water change necessary for my tank. Thx

[Pikelet]

Originally posted by sernger

Ah okay, I'll experiment around and find the optimal amount of water change necessary for my tank. Thx

 

If you're just starting out, buy a good test kit and go with 10% per week at first. You can't experiment without getting accurate feedback through visual inspection and valid water parameter measurements. Seachem makes good test kits.

[Dennis_said]

Do Refugiums help this subject any?

[Raise]

I havent done a wc in nearly 5 months now.

I dose every day 1ml of each part of B-ionic and top off manually twice a day. I soon hope to get a physh1 top off and will also dose kalkwasser

[Pikelet]

Originally posted by Dennis_said

Do Refugiums help this subject any?

 

When set up with the right macro algae, yes, but you must continually export a considerable quantity of macro algae for it to work like a turf scrubber in my experience. A refugium is really a different concept entirely. The fact that it uses some of the nutrients is really incidental.