water changes, or the lack thereof

[flower]

Quote:
Originally Posted by reefkprZ http:///t/392423/water-changes-or-the-lack-thereof/40#post_3486942
why? because it works for me and for some reason I have had the fastest growing frags to sell in the area for a several years now. if "all it does is stress everything" I would have to say that would not be the case.
my serpent stars all live through it and they are extremely sensitive to osmotic shock, if there was a serious shock factor they would show it. I match temp, specific gravity, and ph for the 100% changes. IF some one didnt then they could very well shock everything even kill stuff.
corals dont care if there water parameters change at all the only thing they care about is temp. fishes and inverts are far more sensitive and for some reason they all seem to survive my madness, even thrive in it.
UMMM...LOL...This is only a thought:
You might be onto something with the frags growing like crazy. Maybe when a coral feels stressed (imagined not any real danger).... it might stimulate growth. Plants are like that, you trim the leaves a little, or dig around the roots a bit...or let it get real dry before you water it (any of those) and it just grows like crazy.
Maybe if you stress a frag when you drop the water down like that it stimulates it to grow as fast as possible because it thinks (figure of speach) it has to in order to survive.

 

[reefkprz]

if so its stress I can live with so apparantly can the corals.
more important is the evidence of the ophiuriods (sea stars) they are super sensitive and seem to do fine both the micro brittles and the regular full size ones.

 

[deejeff442]

i would say fish , inverts and corals all react different. doing a small waterchange compared to a big one.i heve never seen a difference in fish. a big waterchange and yes my corals have always grew and blown up faster. if i had a frag tank i would stilll do smaller waterchanges 10-30% but i would supplement with iodine,calcium and coral accel.since i dont feel any salt out there caters to corals as much as fish and inverts.i aint saying a huge 80-100% water change aint bad for corals.just a waste of money. adding supplements seems to me like adding steriods to people in my experience all inverts are alot more tolerant than we read .a sudden change in temp or a slight change in salinity i have never seen an invert die .

 

[reefkprz]

I've done water chagnes a lot of ways over the years,I have done 5g every day on my 45g, I have done 50% once a week on my 75, I have done 100% once a week on my2.5 I did 30%bi weekly in my 60g, I even did 20% monthly on my 20g.
and like I said before 30% every 3-4weeks seems to be about the magic number for evening out the curve of consumption and pollution build up. its a good number for most people. I'm not saying everyone should do as I do. if you want your corals to grow rampant and out of controll fast in your reef feel free to try my method for a year and see what happens. most tanks will do just fine with 30%ers.
you also have to take into account my feeding habits to go with the water changes. 3 to 5 times a day every day various foods from pellets to home made to cyclops to frozen mysis....... and on and on. I feed a LOT of foods a lot of the time, in small amounts. I try to keep food floating around my tank as much of the day as possible, in small amounts just like a natural reef. and it does seem no other filtration can keep up with me except my water changes.
I cant say whether it is the foods or the water changes or a sheer combination of the two that make my corals grow speedily, but since most of our tanks are half starved in my opinion I would say its the food availability in conjunction with the clean water. NO coral is fully photo synthetic they all feed in some manner, the more they can eat the faster they can grow. of course the more you feed the more you pollute your tank... see where I am going with this.