The no water change nano experiment

[reefer916]

The daily water changes have done very well for my heavily stocked and fed 24 gallon Aquapod. I've switched to 15-20% weekly water changes in my 95 gallon, since I'm currently moving many of my colonies from my 24 gallon to my 95 gallon. Everything seems to be happy and growing. However, there are many different ways we could have beautiful tanks. Like many of you guys I'm completely addicted to this hobby and enjoy the challenges it offers. Now I want to test another theory going from heavily stocked systems with multiple daily feedings and water changes to a easy to keep nano tank at my office.

 

I've been testing out a new theory that seems to be working. I've actually seen this done before, but it's new to me:) A low bio-load tank with a large amount of macro algaes, live rock, and live sand, as a natural biological filtration system. My intention is to see how long my 12 gallon Aquapod can go without a water change and to see if I could create a balanced self sustaining system. Obviously, top offs, a little food, and some trace element supplementation will be added, but a low maintainence tank. I haven't changed the water in 4 weeks now. Here are the specs of the tank and livestock.

 

Equipment: Basic stuff with nothing fancy. Tank was moved to my office 5 weeks ago and literally had no cycle.

 

12 Gallon Aquapod with filterpads, bioballs, carbon bag. I'll take the filterpads and bioballs out soon.

Sunpod 70 watt with a 20k Ushio bulb. 8hr photoperiod.

Koralia 1 powerhead.

Approx: 20 lbs of liverock. (Cured live rock from my 95 gallon system.)

Approx: 15 lbs of Livesand

 

Livestock:

 

1 Misbar Perc clown

6 hermit crabs

5 astrea snails

I'd like to add a Pistol shrimp/Yasha Goby pair

 

Corals:

10 head frogspawn (Clownfish houses it)

15 polyp Joker paly frag

large rock of zoas

10 heads of nuclear green candycane corals

May add some frags from my other system chalices, birdsnest, monti caps, but no difficult to keep corals.

 

Filtration:

Softball size piece of chaeto

Callaerpa

Halimeda

and a few other macros that I can't remember the names.

 

Daily routine: top off with RO/DI water and a pinch of cyclopeeze and Formula 2 flake food. Dose 2-parts Bi-Ionic 5ml twice a week. The weekends the tank doesn't get fed or topped off.

 

By utlizing the fully cured liverock, sand, and macro algaes I've been able to house the fish and corals from day 1. I did my daily water changes for the first week, but thought this would be interesting. I'd like to create a balanced system that's almost completely self sustaining. The longest I've seen a nano tank go without a water change is 18 months, but it was obviously nothing fancy. However, he did have 9 fairly large RBTA's in his 29 gallon Biocube. His clownfish had a hard time figuring out which one to house...haha

 

I have water already made for a waterchange if need be and am prepared to take the livestock home, if there seems to be any distress. However, I didn't have any diatom, cyano, or GHA bloom at all. The clownfish and corals look awesome and healthy and all of the corals are showing noticable growth. I believe the macro algaes are consuming all excess nutrients and they have literally spread across the entire tank. I've been so lazy that I haven't checked water parameters, since I set the tank up. I don't advise this because I test my parameters in my tanks at home once a month. Alk and salinity is done weekly, but when you have thousands invested in the tanks you get a little more OCD. This one is just my little experiment and my intention isn't to have a office tank loaded with expensive corals because my staff will have to take care of it when I go on vacation. Currently all I know is that my SG is between 1.024-1.025 because that's the initial SG that I started off with and I top off to the same mark in my tank. I'll try to post pics with my phone tomorrow.

 

The main point is that once we understand our individual systems we could do daily, weekly, monthly, or even annual water changes and that one method isn't necessarily the only way to keep a thriving ocean in a box. However, each system has different requirements depending on what your looking for. My tanks at home I'd like to get them to be filled with corals and to be the centerpieces of my home. My office tank gives me a little imaginary get away and doesn't add to my work stress. Anyways, happy reefing everyone and wish me luck on my new little experiment. Post here if you've had successfully kept a nano without water changes and how you did it.

[reefer916]

Well this experiment is going to be postponed because I just bought a new 34 gallon Solana and am going to get rid of my 12 gallon in my office and move my 24 gallon AP to the office. Damn addiction...lol

[blasterman]

Good post.

 

I know that water changes have their own religion, but I'm one of those guys who hates making radical changes to a tank without knowing exactly what's going on. Water changes fall under one of those categories of ambiguity for pretty much everybody.

 

Changing water accomplishes two things; it replenishes nutrients via fresh salt mix, and dilutes DOCs and other things that build up like nitrates, etc.

 

However, your post brings up some obvious questions. That is, what if you simply add the main nutrients back into the tank such as calcium, alk, magnesium, etc., and don't have a heavy bio load or excess nitrate to begin with? I keep my tanks stocked so that I don't need to do water changes to alleviate nitrate issues because I consider this unstable and will result in tank issues because it's not at equilibrium. So, why do water changes then?

 

Good question. As you've demonstrated, you don't need to change 20% of your water per week, and I go through phases where I'll go months without doing mine. Some guys swear by weekly water changes and in most cases it works well. Still, water changes are a PITA, salt mixes aren't cheap and by blindly changing water we don't have our brains wrapped around why we are doing it.

 

Assuming we have stable tanks where were not replacing buckets of water to dilute excess nitrate because of bad husbandry and over stocking it's an interesting dilema. Personally I find DOCs beenfit from water changes more than anything else. I don't skim simply because I can't find a nano class skimmer worth a shi_t, and skimmers do a good job taking DOCs out of the water. Note the color of tank water in a white bucket as you're siphoning it out -vs- ffreshly mixed. So, good skimming is one of those variables in play that will likely reduce the need for water changes.

 

Another theory I'm working is that chemical warfare induced by certain corals is a bigger problem than we think, and these chemicals and possible protein triggers are kept in check by doing water changes. Possible that skimmers help in this respect as well. I've noted that small tanks that have a very diverse coral range seem to cause the most aggravation in terms of sudden die offs, RTNs, and unexplained bad health. Somebody keeping a specific type of coral or softie then could likely not need to be as aggressive about water changes.

[bitts]

I would have to agree that having the tank dependent on water change's would indicate that the tanks ecology is out of balance. Doing large wc to manipulate the chemistry has always seemed a little strange to me, when compared to the idea of replenishing them through dosing. but the argument that its the only way to combat the build up of certain elements (besides nitrogen) appears to have validity to it. still from my own experience, through heavy skimming & strong biology, DOM/DOC can be controlled with out wc. also coral warfare is best controlled through skimming. during my last lease I decided to attempt the same, going 6 months without a wc maintaining healthy levels in all aspects. despite a med to heavy bioload.

[reefer916]

Glad you guys have had success with minimal water changes. It'll be interesting to see the impact of chemical warfare between corals in our systems. Do you have any pics of your tanks?

 

 

My tank upgrade got put on hold until after Christmas because I'm trying to decide between a few different options on tanks, since the Solana I ordered was pickup only in NJ.

 

The 12 gallon AP in my office is still going strong without a water change. It's actually nice not having to worry about my office tank, but it doesn't have the colors and diversity like my tanks at home. However, it's turning out to be a macro algae dominated tank, which consumes the excess nutrients so well that I only have to use my Mag-float once a week. Still no sign of nuisance algaes and the sand is clean, even without Nas or sand sifting CUC members.

 

There is a light film at the top of the waters surface, but other than that everything looks great.

[2nd nature]

We had a guy in our local reef club had a fully stocked mature sps tank and its was tank of the month quality . ?He told me he hasnt changed his water in over a year. I also had a friend that had a mature sps solana 34 . He didnt change his water for 3 months and his system crashed. he did have a heavy bio.

[GokesReef]

As long as you keep up on dosing traces, I can't see why it shouldn't work. Besides correcting catastrophes and keeping trace elements in check, I'm not sure what purpose WCs serve

[reefer916]

I've seen a few large systems that are sell sufficient, but not as many nanos due to the small volume of water. Seems like there's a lot less wiggle room. I still believe in water changes because I've seen excellent results in my 24 gallon, where I do small daily to (3) 5 gallon water changes a week and I've stepped up my waterchanges to 20 gallons a week in my 95 gallon. I haven't found the balance in those tanks, but I feed them a lot and they consume so many trace elements I'd spend more in additional dosing than water changes.

 

However, the small simple tank in my office is running perfectly with it's low bioload of 1 clownfish. I could leave the tank for 4 days and not have to worry about top offs or feeding it. There are so many ways to do this hobby and figured I may as well try this method out too.

[sayn3ver]

to me I'd rather do a water change. Outside of matching temp and salinity, using the same mix should get you close enough to your parameters.

 

My tank water that is removed is always more yellow and hazy then the freshwater going in.

It's also a lot less thinking then figuring out uptake rates, constant testing and monitoring.

 

It just seems easier on a nano to change a gallon or two (at most 5 for the larger nano tanks) weekly or bi weekly.

 

Now, a reef and a planted marine tank are two different animals. If i had a seagrass tank or macro algae tank I would imagine I'd be more inclined to do less waterchanges only due to my short experience in FW planted tanks. But even so, the replenishing macros and micros is still going to be needed and waterchanges are an easy way of doing it.In a planted marine tank you'll probably end up needing to dose N,P,K however but the micros still need to be dealt with.

[lohitha]

I do water change in my BC14 once in two weeks. It has 2 clowns and few snails and crabs. No skimming, no chempure, no phosguard etc. I have fast growing chaeto in the back chamber which I have to trim once a week by removing 1/3. I have ATO which does its thing. My nitrates are always zero. I worry that my chaeto may be exporting more than excess nutrients. BTW, I dont dose anything. I have mostly LPS/Softies - 24 species. Water is crystal clear and I do use mag float once in 2-3 days. My PC lighting way overdue for replacement. No hair algae anywhere. I do a 2 day blackout once a month.

[schriss]

I'm very much interested in the same. Please share results.

 

Here are mine:

I have started my tank (15 gal) 1 year ago, maybe few months more. Since day one I wanted to have self-sustaining system as close to nature as possible. This of course is not possible, but anyway, here is a summary:

Tank 60L

No skimmer.

No sump.

No water changes ever.

Canister filter Tetratec 600 (or 700) filled with live rock. Nothing else in that filter.

Pre-Filter connected in0line before that canister filter. It is called Monarka Prefilter. It comes with sock on intake. inside I have sponge that catches all debris that gets past sock. I clean sock and sponge every 1-2 weeks. Next is Nitrate sponge, then bag of some granules to remove PHosphate, and a bag of Purigen.

UV Filter (it's kind of big one, it was meant to be used with ponds. Not sure the wattage at the moment but 9W at least, wouldnt be surprised if not 15W or even more.

 

The above: UV+Canister_PreFilter are all connected in one single loop which Tetratec is handling.

 

In the tank I don't have any media bags nor filters. There is gravel, 7 poieces of Live Rock and one big one taking quite a lot of space in the corner.

 

Fishes: 1xClownfish, 1xBlue Tang, 1x 3-stripe Damsel, 1xRoyal Gramma, 1xScooter Goby

Usual tank crew.

Couple of corals, the biggest is Leather Toadstool which started to split itself into two entities, at least that's what I think it's doing.

 

Thanks to purigen my water is always very clear, never cloudy, never green.

 

My Phosphate was always near 0.

Nitrate now reads total 0, it doesn't even change color from start blue anymore (previously it would become light pink as top of the chart).

 

I dose BrightWell Aquatics "Reef BioFuel" 6 drops daily. Replenish 2 drops daily. LiquidReef or some other Calcium/Magnesium/Strontioum additive.

When I had problems with PH I used "PH+" with success, it wouldn't affect KH at all.

I also dose MicrobeLift TheraP or Specialblend, whichever I have.

 

My left side glass is now covered with big pink spots, very hard to touch and to scrape. The same covers all my piping and probes and even one Mangroove plant. The same pink spots appear on front glass but I remove these. It's probably Coralline algae, but do I want so much of it?

 

The only problems I seem to have now is KH often dropping, It once dropped to 2.5, but it was me not doing testing, my mistake.

 

The other problem I have at the moment is Algae bloom, which I am going to treat with raised Magnesium. It's not the Hair Algae but the other that looks similar.

 

What else... PH used to be low (around 8.0), then it was fine for few months, now it's back to 8.05, I think it's aeration problem.

ORP is rreading 320 at the moment.

 

Fish seem happy. Royal Gramma lives in a cave in that big rock, it sits there at the front gates, The other fish are playing and teasing all the time and are fun to watch for hours.

Damsel sometimes goes crazy and changes color of her head and does these "signal jumps".

Blue Pacific Tang could eat those pellets I feed them regardless of how much I throw in. Always hungry even when you cvan see his belly becoming square full of pellets. (Marine S Hikari) He reacts to the sound of the bag! I shake it - he is starting to swim nervous near the surface at front glass :-)

[reefer916]

I'm very much interested in the same. Please share results.

 

Here are mine:

I have started my tank (15 gal) 1 year ago, maybe few months more. Since day one I wanted to have self-sustaining system as close to nature as possible. This of course is not possible, but anyway, here is a summary:

Tank 60L

No skimmer.

No sump.

No water changes ever.

Canister filter Tetratec 600 (or 700) filled with live rock. Nothing else in that filter.

Pre-Filter connected in0line before that canister filter. It is called Monarka Prefilter. It comes with sock on intake. inside I have sponge that catches all debris that gets past sock. I clean sock and sponge every 1-2 weeks. Next is Nitrate sponge, then bag of some granules to remove PHosphate, and a bag of Purigen.

UV Filter (it's kind of big one, it was meant to be used with ponds. Not sure the wattage at the moment but 9W at least, wouldnt be surprised if not 15W or even more.

 

The above: UV+Canister_PreFilter are all connected in one single loop which Tetratec is handling.

 

In the tank I don't have any media bags nor filters. There is gravel, 7 poieces of Live Rock and one big one taking quite a lot of space in the corner.

 

Fishes: 1xClownfish, 1xBlue Tang, 1x 3-stripe Damsel, 1xRoyal Gramma, 1xScooter Goby

Usual tank crew.

Couple of corals, the biggest is Leather Toadstool which started to split itself into two entities, at least that's what I think it's doing.

 

Thanks to purigen my water is always very clear, never cloudy, never green.

 

My Phosphate was always near 0.

Nitrate now reads total 0, it doesn't even change color from start blue anymore (previously it would become light pink as top of the chart).

 

I dose BrightWell Aquatics "Reef BioFuel" 6 drops daily. Replenish 2 drops daily. LiquidReef or some other Calcium/Magnesium/Strontioum additive.

When I had problems with PH I used "PH+" with success, it wouldn't affect KH at all.

I also dose MicrobeLift TheraP or Specialblend, whichever I have.

 

My left side glass is now covered with big pink spots, very hard to touch and to scrape. The same covers all my piping and probes and even one Mangroove plant. The same pink spots appear on front glass but I remove these. It's probably Coralline algae, but do I want so much of it?

 

The only problems I seem to have now is KH often dropping, It once dropped to 2.5, but it was me not doing testing, my mistake.

 

The other problem I have at the moment is Algae bloom, which I am going to treat with raised Magnesium. It's not the Hair Algae but the other that looks similar.

 

What else... PH used to be low (around 8.0), then it was fine for few months, now it's back to 8.05, I think it's aeration problem.

ORP is rreading 320 at the moment.

 

Fish seem happy. Royal Gramma lives in a cave in that big rock, it sits there at the front gates, The other fish are playing and teasing all the time and are fun to watch for hours.

Damsel sometimes goes crazy and changes color of her head and does these "signal jumps".

Blue Pacific Tang could eat those pellets I feed them regardless of how much I throw in. Always hungry even when you cvan see his belly becoming square full of pellets. (Marine S Hikari) He reacts to the sound of the bag! I shake it - he is starting to swim nervous near the surface at front glass :-)

 

That's pretty good water quality with such a large bioload for a 15 gallon. There will probably be issues later, once the tang grows because they eat and poop like pigs. I have a 8" one in my 95 gallon and she does enough waste for the entire tank..lol

 

 

Update on my office tank.. I still haven't tested the water, but everything seems to be doing great. I do have a flatworm outbreak, so I may have to breakdown and treat the tank. That would cause me to have to do a water change. However, it's been several weeks without any issues on this basic tank. I'm getting a little bored with it though because it offers very little color besides alot of green..lol

[mbonus]

Off topic, but how to you like the Sunpod 70w fixture on the Aquapod? I just picked up a 20" sunpod 150 and I am a little nervous that it may be too powerful for my Aquapod 12 so I haven't installed it yet. I looked and looked for a 16.5" 70w but couldn't find one. I guess if I upgrade to a 20 - 30 ga tank the 150 will be just right.

[reefer916]

Off topic, but how to you like the Sunpod 70w fixture on the Aquapod? I just picked up a 20" sunpod 150 and I am a little nervous that it may be too powerful for my Aquapod 12 so I haven't installed it yet. I looked and looked for a 16.5" 70w but couldn't find one. I guess if I upgrade to a 20 - 30 ga tank the 150 will be just right.

 

Even with the 70 watt Sunpod the tank runs pretty hot. I keep that tank at 82 degrees to reduce the swings from night to when the MH's kick on. I would think that the 150 watt would be a little too much, but it depends on what kind of corals you want to keep. Acans and chalices will probably get fried, unless you build them a little overhang. You may need to invest in a chiller with that much lighting and heat over the 12 gallon. My 150 watt is over my 24 Aquapod and I have to run a fan over that to keep the temp at 79 degrees. Good lights though.

[reefer916]

Alright guys,

 

This experiment didn't really last very long and got about 2 months or so without a water change. I decided to do a water change yesterday after noticing my macro algae starting to die off. Also, had a flatworm outbreak that I needed to handle. I'm probably going to stick with a 20% water change every two weeks. The water is definitely a lot clearer after the water change and the corals, fish, and CUC look fine. The Jokers did lose a lot of color though, but I think it's due to the 10k lighting over the tank right now. You guys are more than welcome to continue this thread, but I'm going to stick with my water changes these days. That and I want to start adding more corals and livestock to my office tank.

 

The conclusion is that daily and weekly water changes aren't necessary for all reef tanks, but there are definitely some major benefits when comparing my tanks with daily water changes, bi monthly water changes, and no water changes. Small daily has shown the best results for me, but it just depends on what your looking for. Happy reefing everyone and look forward to setting up my new 45 gallon Tech tank this week.

[matt frizz]

I go through periods of time where I do daily 5 Gallon changes for a week on my 50 B but that is then followed by months of few to no water changes.

 

I have found that my tank is very stable as far as nitrates/ammonia go and that I need to watch my calcium levels and dose accordingly since it is not replenished via water changes.

 

Having a good CUC, flow, and lighting schedule is key IMO. The most important part is starting your tank correctly and never letting tap water enter the system. Also, I think that quality of live rock is important as well. The rock from my tank is from my first tank and it was seeded onto dry rock. I've had this rock for around 2 years now.

 

Second most important part is obtaining a good skimmer. I use the SWC Extreme 160 which is rated for a much higher tank then mine but I don't leave it on all the time. Occasionally I leave it off for days at a time.

[Bluntokian]

I have a 10 gallon nano running atm thats about 3 months old. Hasnt had a waterchange in 2 months. Did have to swap substrate because of leftover food issues. No sump No skimmer. Just an Azoo 1200 and a Koralia 1 with a cheap heater. Running 4 26W 6500k CFL's and a 13W actinic CFL in a custom hood.

 

Livestock:

1 YCG

2 Scarlet Hermits

1 Zebra Hermit

1 Red tipped hermit

2 Margarita snails

1 Zebra Turbo

5 polyp zoa frag

Chaeto

Gracilaria

Titan Flame Algae

 

So far my only algae problem is bryopsis but thats because I only have well water available atm so I decided to stop doing WC's. Other than the bryopsis and a small dot of cyano on the heater the tank is completely algae free. It will go at least another month without a WC (until I get my RO unit) then I will do WC's to get the nitrates zero'd out and then it will go without a WC as long as it can. Il probably just dose a 2 part once a week and get a few more zoas maybe a couple snails and another goby. I deleted my pictures off my computer but if your interested the tank thread is on temperate reef.

[thesmallerthebetter]

this is an interesting thread....

 

id like to chime in if thats okay

 

in 18 years or aquarium keeping ive found that there are way more ways to skin a cat than people think.

 

i currently manage 1300 gallons of my public aquarium, and in the years before my arrival there there has not been a single water change of any magnitude to constitute nutrient export. of course, it is toped off, and water that is lost during maintenance is replaced, but thats hardly a "water change". the systems there support angelfish, sharks, halibut, hagfish, you name it. while these are not reef aquariums, there seem to be no detrimental effects tied to the lack of water changes.

 

i have also kept a 100 gallon coldwater reef in the past, and in its 3-4 year lifetime it never got a single waterchange. in addition to nems, gorgs, and worms galore it housed a 4' moray, 2 sharks, and several other "critters". nothing was hurt by the lack of water changes, and i attribute the systems stability (i never did anything but toss in a blender full of food once a weeek) to the lack of water changes.

 

however, now i focus largely on pico reefing when i am not at work, and have found that if i do not change the water for even 3 days on my 1/4 gallon i am in big trouble.

 

i have started a .75 gallon lagoon reef (in my sig) that is going to be mainly filtered through halophytic plants and macro algeas and will have an INSANELY high bioload for a tank this size....NPS corals, daily broadcast feedings, a fish, and a large shrimp. the idea is to feed the macros and halophytes with ammonia directly (which plants find even more useful that nitrates) while allowing the high nutrient load to benefit some of the more seldom kept lagoon animals (mini tube nems, xmas tree corals, chilis, and GONIS)