No Partial Water Changes Record

[lbaskball]

Can those of you who have nano's post the longest they have gone without doing a partial water change? Please list the size of the tank, the duration you have gone without doing your regular water change and whether anything died or everything went okay. I will start.
14gal Biocube.
I have not changed water in 1 week and 3days.
No top-offs since 1 week and 3 days. (NO WORRIES, I have been monitoring salinity, since I have closed hood, the evaporation is barly any, since my salinity is still the same.)
Water is testing out good.
Corals are doing great.
The reason why I started this thread was because well I will be going on vacation, I want to make sure my corals will be okay without water changes for 3 weeks or so and whether I will need an auto top off. so far, so good, no autotopoff needed since I have a chiller and closed hood system. Just testing the water to make sure how much longer it can go without the tank crashing. I am testing my water everyday to be safe.

 

[gregzbobo]

This will sound bad, but the longest I went without a change and not losing anything was almost 2 full months in my 12DX. My shrooms got annoyed, but I did a few water changes after that hiatus and they are happy and bigger than ever. I DID however keep up with topoffs. small systems like ours change salinity way too much when topoffs are neglected. A large tank (50gal+) can likely handle 3 weeks if its closed off (most aren't), ours are much more likely to crash.

 

[nygel]

4 months 10 gallon. no side effects. Just changed the water cuz i felt it was about time, i believe nitrates were slightly high, but not enough to bother anything. for some reason, my tanks always have great water and such...

 

[lbaskball]

THank you both for being one of the FEW to reply to my thread. I am doing a study on this. It seems like it all depends on the bioload as well. Pretty interesting that you both were able to not do a water change for that long in such a small tank. I wonder how long our big brothers (ppl with big tanks) have gone without doing water changes lol

 

[lbaskball]

Originally Posted by nYgel
4 months 10 gallon. no side effects. Just changed the water cuz i felt it was about time, i believe nitrates were slightly high, but not enough to bother anything. for some reason, my tanks always have great water and such...
4months? wow, what livestock did you have in your tank?

 

[lbaskball]

Originally Posted by gregzbobo
This will sound bad, but the longest I went without a change and not losing anything was almost 2 full months in my 12DX. My shrooms got annoyed, but I did a few water changes after that hiatus and they are happy and bigger than ever. I DID however keep up with topoffs. small systems like ours change salinity way too much when topoffs are neglected. A large tank (50gal+) can likely handle 3 weeks if its closed off (most aren't), ours are much more likely to crash.

What livestock did you have in your tank?

 

[lbaskball]

I got my 14gal biocube to go for 2 full weeks without a water change. I decided to do a water change today. As far as tests go, everything looks good. (ammonia 0, nitrate 0, nitrite 0) salinity was at 1.025 (from 1.024). I did not top off for 2 weeks. Not bad as far as salinity goes. Next time, I will test to see if I can make my tank go for 3weeks without water change.

 

[nygel]

Originally Posted by lbaskball
4months? wow, what livestock did you have in your tank?
two damsels and clown.... eventually they died for various reasons. way after the water change fyi. inland aquatics is known to never do water changes, i forget the theory though... may have to look that up.

 

[gregzbobo]

purple firefish, scarlet skunk shrimp, various snails including a conch, some mushroom anemones, and an emerald mithrax crab. I lost my firefish when it jumped into the sump area and landed on the sponge I had in place after my most recent water change, if that sponge hadn't been there, that fish would probably still be kickin. As it is, I'm going to hold off on buying anymore fish for a while.

 

[blueram]

I didn't do a water change for 2 1/2 weeks and I must say that the water in my tank didn't smell very good. There were also some brown foam on the surface but I must say that the fish and corals didn't seem to mind the lack of water changes. My tank has no skimmer or sump and I could not a water change because I went away on holidays. A friend of mine fed the fish daily but he didn't know how to do a water change so I did when I came back from holidays.
Im really surpriesed that some of you guys have gone for a long time without doing any water changes. As I mentioned before the water in my tank smelled bad and also had brown foam on top.
cheers

 

[nygel]

Originally Posted by blueram
Im really surpriesed that some of you guys have gone for a long time without doing any water changes. As I mentioned before the water in my tank smelled bad and also had brown foam on top.
cheers
i JUST had the brown foam on top today, freaked me out, cuz i just took off my HOB filter a few weeks ago to use on my 5.5g and let my other filter (canister perhaps? is a something R1 either way) but then today i reached in the tank and moved something and i pulled it out and a few seconds later i looked at my arm and it was covered in brown dots so i flipped out and now I'm running a emperor 280 with no pads or anything just to circulate surface water. tank looks cleaner though... more flow = clearer tank.