SPS and water changes only

[blasterman]

I know it can be done, and I've seen great looking tanks from time to time (typically smaller ones) where water changes are the sole calcium / alk / mag replenishment system.

 

Wondered if we could have some of you doing it this way and getting nice SPS growth could chime in with your choice of salt mix, trouble-shooting, and any other experiences.

[dtitus1]

I'm also interested in this. Just really want a birdsnest as the only SPS for a nice centerpiece.

[flypenfly]

Most birdsnests are fairly hardy for SPS but if you want to get by on just water changes, you'll need a mature tank with pretty stable parameters.

 

Frequency of the water changes should be high and volume of water will be low.

[Micro-Reefs Aquariums]

I have a 6 gallon SPS acropora tank only! My LFS has asked me to stop using Bionic #1, #2 and just do water changes for their growth. I have thought of doing that but am having good results with the bionic.

 

If I start to balanc it out by doing water changes one week and so forth I will chime in.

 

Have any of you come over to the AIO section and seen my thread? If not, please come and see it!

[Chadf]

If I 'were' to do this, I'd be using esv or salinity.

[dtitus1]

Only problem I have with dosing is the kits to measure and their price tags. I've contemplated just adding a drop of kent marine in each water change (25% weekly) but from my cursory observation on the topic it's probably bad to do this no?

[Chadf]

Only problem I have with dosing is the kits to measure and their price tags. I've contemplated just adding a drop of kent marine in each water change (25% weekly) but from my cursory observation on the topic it's probably bad to do this no?

 

A drop isn't going to do anything, or hurt anything. I use 3 capfuls of part 1 and 3 capfuls of part 2 daily, that's only in 26 gallons. If you were to dose blind, which I don't recommend, do it midway between your water changes. No point in dosing fresh sw.

[dtitus1]

Lol makes sense. Looks like you have a bunch of sps though.

[Nano sapiens]

I used just water changes when I started up had just a few small stony coral frags. But as stony corals grow, and likely more are added, there comes a point where WCs aren't enough and there will be a decline in Cal, Alk and Mag. Without testing, the only way to know is when the corals stop growing and start looking sickly. This is not a good place to be.

 

If you have just a few stony corals, and don't want o spring for the test kits, at least have your local LFS check your water every once in a while to see if WCs are keeping Cal, Alk and Mag in the proper ranges.

[dtitus1]

This including lps? Mine grow pretty slow but steady.

[Oakleyguy89]

I use only waterchanges on my 23gal. I used regular instant ocean at first and I was getting good coraline growth and my stonies were growing pretty well too (3 different types of stylo, bi-colored hammer, frogspawn, and spongodes) and I was doing 5gal weekly which is probably overkill. I since have switched to reef crystals and I saw a pretty big increase in their growth rate and I am happy with the reef crystals.

[Nano sapiens]

This including lps? Mine grow pretty slow but steady.

 

LPS, SPS, Coralline Algae, Halimeda Algae...they all use it up. LPS generally look like they are growing more slowly, but it's a bit deceptive since they often have a more massive/dense skeleton than most SPS. But SPS such as Acros have high metabolisms and likely use the most.

[blasterman]

Common sense tells you that a heavy SPS tank would be limited with no suppliments because a salt mix would have to start with nearly unstable amounts of alk/calc and magnesium to keep up. So, nutrient depletion would always be on the negative side.

 

Still, I've seen several awesome looking 'tank of the month' on here and RC with superb SPS growth, and only water changes. Just not the norm. Owners often are shunned in the regular forums, and I don't think we've had enough discussion on the topic.

 

Not that I'm against dosing and I've always been lazy with water changes, but when somebody has good SPS growth with minimal fuss I like to 'shaddup and listen' :-)

[jedimasterben]

Don't forget clams. Big clams can use ludicrous amounts of cal and alk daily to build their shells.

[dtitus1]

Well my tank sucks now because I was using bad water (started working at target so I started getting it there cause of the discount) and algae is terrrrrible in my tank now, it's actually a lot worse than I thought as I did my weekly cleaning just now. Know it's the water cause as I've done more and more water changes it's gotten 10x worse, had a thread about it but anyways getting off topic.

 

Once I get everything back under control and move everything to another tank I think I will try a single green tip birdsnest for a centerpiece with just lots of water changes with GOOD quality water and see what happens.

[nystang]

It can be done. I didn't dose for a year until January of this year and my birdsnest grew from a tiny 1" frag to a large colony, about 6" across with only WC. I've used Red Sea Coral Reef Pro salt mix. All the corals grew and WC was not enough and I started dosing Ca, alk and Mg with BRS dosers.

[buddythelion]

Yup, everyone's hit the spot on water changes. I used to do only water changes when I had about 2-3 very small frags. But then as the frags increase in size, they would consume more elements. I would do water changes once a week, but with more and more sps pieces, you will need to dose.

 

It's hard to just keep one type of SPS, it's an addiction just like every other coral in this hobby lol.

 

As for Salinity, I gave up on that salt. It's just too much trouble mixing it. I go with Microbe-Lift now. 10% Water changes 1x a week but I still dose daily.

[nystang]

I've switched from Red Sea to Instant Ocean now, only because of the price. Everything still looks and grows the same. But this is another topic.

[jedimasterben]

I've switched from Red Sea to Instant Ocean now, only because of the price. Everything still looks and grows the same. But this is another topic.

Nearly all of the massive, beautiful reef tanks (and TOTM winners) around the world use regular IO, and most, if not all, public aquariums that mix their salt use it for their giant reefs. People think they need really expensive salt mixes because 'things just look better', but it's all in their heads. Again, for another topic.

[x3thelast]

I recall a Singaporean fish breeder had a tank that did only water changes. It was using NSW tho...

[flypenfly]

NSW has relatively low Ca and alkalinity compared to what most heavy SPS tank keepers maintain.

 

Not dosing would be just too much of a pain in the ass if you want fast growth and high coloration.

[markalot]

The answer, of course, is yes.

 

The question is how often.

[blasterman]

I'm currently setting up a 10gallon that is going to be nothing but SPS to test this out. I want to regulate everything that goes into the tank to keep maintenance as low as possible, so I'm not going to even bother testing nitrate or phosphate. We'll see how this goes I guess....

[Veng]

You can use any quality, high dKH salt mix (~12 dKh), for systems of ANY volume, as long as you are on the 75%+/ week water schedule and you'll see amazing growth. The down side, is that if you screw up a 75% water change in salinity or temp, you can cause some real damage. That being said, I did it for about a year till I moved to the 20L, GFO over dosed, and killed my prized birdsnest. (yeah, tell me about it. ) But, there are pictures in my thread about the kind of growth you can get with large water changes. Mind you on a 100Gal, 75% water changes weekly could be a touch expensive.

[Red_Blenny]

It's possible yes if you have small frags. But once you have a good amount of SPS, you might have to dose to keep up the Alk/CA. I run a 12 gallon nano and I dose about 0.5ml of alk to keep my alk steady by 0.2dkh every 2-3 days.

 

I'm currently setting up a 10gallon that is going to be nothing but SPS to test this out. I want to regulate everything that goes into the tank to keep maintenance as low as possible, so I'm not going to even bother testing nitrate or phosphate. We'll see how this goes I guess....

 

Since your starting out real small, SPS loves stability. A 10gal gives you very small window to find/deal with the problem if your tank decides to go south. I'd say it's nice to test your nitrates/phosphates first to see where your nutrient level is at before adding a frag.