never done a water change???????????

i love fish

i love fish

Member
i have a friend who has had a mixed reef and fish aquarium for over a year and he claims that he has never ever done a water change for his aquarium, all he does is top up the evaportation losses with aged tap water once a month, and his aquarium is very healthy with no problems.
Is this possible?
One more thing, how much water is "ideal" to change and how often? I have read lots of different ideas on this subject and just wanna know from someone who has actual hands on experience.
I have a 90g aquarium
external canister filter
uv light and skimmer.
1 emperor angel and 1 foxface
No problems with ammonia,ph, nitrites, just algae.
 
sepulatian

sepulatian

Moderator
Originally Posted by i love fish
i have a friend who has had a mixed reef and fish aquarium for over a year and he claims that he has never ever done a water change for his aquarium, all he does is top up the evaportation losses with aged tap water once a month, and his aquarium is very healthy with no problems.
Is this possible?
One more thing, how much water is "ideal" to change and how often? I have read lots of different ideas on this subject and just wanna know from someone who has actual hands on experience.
I have a 90g aquarium
external canister filter
uv light and skimmer.
1 emperor angel and 1 foxface
No problems with ammonia,ph, nitrites, just algae.

You can have a self-sustaining system. You would need a DSB, a fuge, and a few years. It is possible, but the water changes replenish trace elements. If he has a FO system with a fuge and a DSB then it is certainly possible. You are a few years from that. He does need to do water changes to replace the trace elements though. Please tell him that. His rock will be much healthier.
 
puffer32

puffer32

Active Member
He only tops off once a month??? His salinity must be really high, i need to add fresh water to my tanks daily, don't know how he gets away with once a month, his low water level must be noticable
 
yosemite sam

yosemite sam

Active Member
There are people that claim they've gone years without doing a water change. They may have, but I'd bet their tanks would look a lot better if they did.
What are your nitrates and phosphates? Do you use tap water?
I do water changes every 2 weeks, and usually change just under 20% of my water volume.
 
scsinet

scsinet

Active Member
Light stocking, good detrivores, denitrator, healthy fuge... sure. Possible.
Of course it's a gamble. He'll talk up his "strategy" up until the day it fails him.
I have a 120g planted freshwater tank that I do a 30-50% water change on in spring and fall. How do I get away with it? Heavily planted, and about 8 fish in a 120g tank. But I wouldn't recommend doing what I do to anybody.
 
dangalla

dangalla

Member
i have done maybe one water change in over 3 years, they are over hyped and not always needed.
i top off with fresh water once a week, usually add salt every 3 months or so when needed. i also suppliment with trace elements every month.
then again all i use for filtration is two aquaclear hob with the media removed and replaced with crushed coral in mesh media bags. no fuge, no sump
my chemistry is right on point and i have not had an algea issue in over 2 years. my tank is very healthy
 
lexluethar

lexluethar

Active Member
Originally Posted by dangalla
i have done maybe one water change in over 3 years, they are over hyped and not always needed.
i top off with fresh water once a week, usually add salt every 3 months or so when needed. i also suppliment with trace elements every month.
then again all i use for filtration is two aquaclear hob with the media removed and replaced with crushed coral in mesh media bags. no fuge, no sump
my chemistry is right on point and i have not had an algea issue in over 2 years. my tank is very healthy
Again, it is possible but not recommended. You may be able to support a tank without water changes, but for every 1 tank that can pull it off, there are 100 others that can't.
Your tank, your choice. I'm glad to hear it does work for some people though - I'd love to have a tank that I didn't have to change out water on!
 
dangalla

dangalla

Member
also i should add that i use water straight from the tap from a well rich in minerals and lacking the chlorine alot of you need to deal with
this is the only tank i have ever had so i cant say weather or not i just got lucky with this tank because i dont have experience with another one and i am not any kind of proffesional so be sure to take what i say with a grain of salt, because i am just some dude on the internets
but i will say the only reason i found out my tank was ok without them is because i was in a bad car accident and could not get out of bed for 8 months so water changes were impossible.
 
big

big

Active Member
Like someone else here said. You can run a car without changing the oil too. A friend of my would buy a new car every 18 months or so. Run the heck out of it and then trade it in on another new one.......... It still is not a good thing to do. Who in their right mind would want to buy that car....... Same with reef tanks.
I think most would say doing partials is just another excuse for laziness.
 
trigger11

trigger11

Member
I can only say this about water changes.
I have not done very many in the last year and this what I have learned.
If you have corals one needs to be done at least once every couple of months. You need to add in trace elements about once every 2 weeks. I add in one capful. I check my calcium and magnesium levels every two weeks as well.
Now, I can also say there was a point where not doing water change did burn me and that was when I ended up just barely overstocking the tank with fish. And then I had ammonia spikes which unfortunately did kill two fish. Had I been doing the water change that would have compensated for the ammonia for the moment to show up during the next water test cycle where I would have known I was over the limit.
Sooo, in the end IMO it just really comes down to the chemistry in each system as to what is or what is not needed. To be on the safer side water changes should occur regularly.
~Trigger11
 
alix2.0

alix2.0

Active Member
Originally Posted by dangalla
i top off with fresh water once a week, usually add salt every 3 months or so when needed. i also suppliment with trace elements every month.
i have a question, dont mean to hijack... why do you need to add salt if you dont do water changes?
 
big

big

Active Member
Originally Posted by alix2.0
i have a question, dont mean to hijack... why do you need to add salt if you dont do water changes?

Hummmm Maybe to kill everything off
 
triggerz92

triggerz92

Member
I'm making a water change soon and need to know how much i need to take out and put in. I have a 30 gal and this is the first time ive ever done this. Can anyone help?
 
nycbob

nycbob

Active Member
a 30 gallon? change out like 5 gallon. u need to get a refractometer to make sure the sg of the new water is the same as in the tank. as for never ever changing water? i think its possible if all one has r hardy corals like softies and shrooms.
 
dangalla

dangalla

Member
Originally Posted by alix2.0
i have a question, dont mean to hijack... why do you need to add salt if you dont do water changes?
evaporation and salt creep. i dont add much salt very often, just enough to keep my paramaters on par
 
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