no water change pico

[raul lopez]

My aquarium is a bit over a year old and I got really lazy around 6 months ago and stopped doing water changes ,testing the water, changing out filter media and filter floss, and even feeding my reef tank, the aquarium has not stopped running, the light schedule has been consistent, and I have an ato and water flow and bio media i even have some chaeto growing in the front of the aquarium, I’ve done zero maintenance but the corals are still well along with some snails, there’s been coral growth even though it’s slow too. How is this possible?

[raul lopez]

I have gsp, zoas, and a couple lsp frags and it’s 4.1 gallon lifegard

[Pjanssen]

Do you have fish, you didn't mention any? Maybe without a bio load the tank stays clean enough. My concern would be replenishing nutrients. Without water changes your corals will or have already used up most of them.

[raul lopez]

4 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

Do you have fish, you didn't mention any? Maybe without a bio load the tank stays clean enough. My concern would be replenishing nutrients. Without water changes your corals will or have already used up most of them.

No i do not have fish and yes that is one of my concerns too but I am surprised that it’s been 6 months and the corals are showing growth and splitting and creating new heads  . Would you recommend dosing or doing small water changes since the aquarium is stable and has its own ecosystem going only question also is should I start feeding again or leave it how it is 

[Pjanssen]

I wouldn’t dose unless you are going to test (alkalinity, calcium and possibly magnesium). Monthly water changes would help for sure. Corals get most of their nutrients from light, but feeding will speed the growth if that’s what you want. But feeding will introduce excess nutrients, which means more water changes. 
 

if you are happy with the way things are going, then do nothing and watch for signs of decline 

[Tired]

Corals don't need a ton of food, and algae grows pretty readily in most conditions. You'll probably be able to go quite awhile without water changes. It would be good to test and keep an eye on parameters, so you have information about what to do next.

 

Your aquarium is not a self-contained ecosystem. Sealed ecosystems with animals are currently impossible to create, and would have to be airtight to count. It's possible to balance an open aquarium (i.e. one exposed to the air for oxygen exchange and getting regular topoffs) so that it needs very little maintenance, particularly when vertebrates are involved. But that doesn't mean it can run forever without water changes. Unles your bioload is very tiny and is good at releasing nutrients back into the water, sooner or later you're going to need to do a water change and/or dose. Corals lock up nutrients and minerals in them for a very, very long time, so eventually their growth will use it up.

 

I would guess that the snails are why this is working. Algae grows, and the snails eat it and release some of it as waste products, which feeds the corals. You would get faster growth if you fed the corals and either did water changes or dosed, but as long as nothing is showing signs of any form of malnourishment or mineral absence, you can leave it alone. I agree about not dosing without testing, that's a good way to crank something up too high and kill things. 

[raul lopez]

1 hour ago, Pjanssen said:

I wouldn’t dose unless you are going to test (alkalinity, calcium and possibly magnesium). Monthly water changes would help for sure. Corals get most of their nutrients from light, but feeding will speed the growth if that’s what you want. But feeding will introduce excess nutrients, which means more water changes. 
 

if you are happy with the way things are going, then do nothing and watch for 

58 minutes ago, Tired said:

Corals don't need a ton of food, and algae grows pretty readily in most conditions. You'll probably be able to go quite awhile without water changes. It would be good to test and keep an eye on parameters, so you have information about what to do next.

 

Your aquarium is not a self-contained ecosystem. Sealed ecosystems with animals are currently impossible to create, and would have to be airtight to count. It's possible to balance an open aquarium (i.e. one exposed to the air for oxygen exchange and getting regular topoffs) so that it needs very little maintenance, particularly when vertebrates are involved. But that doesn't mean it can run forever without water changes. Unles your bioload is very tiny and is good at releasing nutrients back into the water, sooner or later you're going to need to do a water change and/or dose. Corals lock up nutrients and minerals in them for a very, very long time, so eventually their growth will use it up.

 

I would guess that the snails are why this is working. Algae grows, and the snails eat it and release some of it as waste products, which feeds the corals. You would get faster growth if you fed the corals and either did water changes or dosed, but as long as nothing is showing signs of any form of malnourishment or mineral absence, you can leave it alone. I agree about not dosing without testing, that's a good way to crank something up too high and kill things. 

How much water should I change and how often ?

1 hour ago, Pjanssen said:

I wouldn’t dose unless you are going to test (alkalinity, calcium and possibly magnesium). Monthly water changes would help for sure. Corals get most of their nutrients from light, but feeding will speed the growth if that’s what you want. But feeding will introduce excess nutrients, which means more water changes. 
 

if you are happy with the way things are going, then do nothing and watch for signs of decline 

How much water should I change and how often?

[Tired]

You should change as much water as you need to keep calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium steady at good levels, and to keep nitrates and phosphates from going too high, without making any of them too low. There's no way to tell what size and amount of water changes will be appropriate for any given tank, particularly a relatively unusual one. 

 

Test those parameters. If calcium, alkalinity, or magnesium are starting to get low, either dose them or change some water. As for nutrients, you have corals that tend to like or tolerate nutrients, so I wouldn't worry about lowering them unless you see high nutrients correlating with the corals starting to look unhappy. Healthy nutrient levels vary hugely between tanks, whereas healthy trace element levels do not. If you see that your nutrients are getting low, you absolutely need to feed. Low nutrients will starve photosynthetic organisms, and can fuel the growth of the worst reef aquarium pest you can get, dinoflagellates. 

 

For a tank like yours, I would guess you'll only need a few water changes a year. Heck, maybe just one or two. But nobody can tell you anything exact, without parameter data. 

[Clown79]

Anything you change up now should be introduced slowly as to not disturb the balance, that includes waterchanges and filter media changing.

 

Most who don't do waterchanges at all have a system with testing water, dosing as needed, feeding accordingly, and changing media regularly.

 

As corals grow they use up not only nutrients but alk, ca, and mag. Without that being replenished, at some point all will be very low, effectively leading to coral issues.

 

Floss not being changed is a bunch of waste siting on a pad, its surprising it has caused flow issues or blockage.

 

Carbons not being changed is ineffective and becomes a waste ground.

 

Sponges the same. 

 

But any of these now, having not been cleaned or changed in months have become areas of bacteria growth. You will want to change and clean these very slowly and gradually.

 

Same goes for sand that hasn't been vacuumed or stirred. It must be done slowly in small sections. 

[fenderchamp]

I'd like to see a bunch of pictures of everything! 

[Seadragon]

That’s interesting, someday I have to try to cutdown on how many fish I tend to keep.  I went about 1 year 7 months without virtually any water changes, but had a bunch of fish in a 10 gallon.  In the end, I had to deal with a ton of inorganic dust that I ended up having to manually siphon out, clean up the tank, and now I’m starting to do a little more maintenance than I’ve ever done before.

 

I think if you keep hardy corals and little to no fish, and don’t overfeed, it’s a lot easier to skimp out on the regular maintenance that many hobbyists perform on a weekly basis.