Doesnt Believe in Water Changes PHOTOS!!

A glass box is a glass box not the ocean. Our tanks don't have near the biodiversity, scale, or even chemical make up of the ocean. You have to remove waste. This can happen in many different ways. Skimmer, macro algaes, water changes, media replacement (gfo,gac,etc) But something has to come out if you are putting stuff in (ie: food, fish, etc)

I have a friend who's tank is a freak of nature... 180gallon tank that only gets water changes of 20 gallons about every 6 months if that. No fuge, no skimmer, no filter socks or sponges... Nothing. And it looks AMAZING. But she is rolling almost all softies, is extremely careful with feeding and has a light bioload. She has also had her tank running for 18 years and is very aware of the goings on in the tank so if something is going downhill she can do a water change and will.

All that said, I would never suggest a 0 export method to anyone. The tanks that are functioning like that are extremely few and far between and they never look as good as they would if you did use filtration and water change schedules.

 

What do you mean how is it not stable? If the tank has been up for 5 years and everything is alive (granted it doesnt have peoples required POP coloration), then its safe to say its stable. Where corals are dead or dying in those pictures? I doubt the coral in the pictures were purchased that size, i'm pretty sure they GREW. Growth means something was done right at some point at least. Does he have growth to the point things are popping out the top of the tank or cracking the glass from the pressure of all the growth? no. Could they be more colorful or could he be getting more growth? Sure probably.

Look at santamonicas tank he hasnt done a water change in like a year & a half and its doing fine.

Not every do-dad & chemical available in the hobby has to be used to have a sucessful tank.

 

That monti looks pretty close to popping out of the water lol

+1 for sure

 

as far as teh tank its self goes, I normally dont do a water change unless somthing is high such as nitrates, nitrites, and phosphates. I dont belive in not testing the water. It has made a huge diffrence in what my tank was and how it is now, but if it works for him then thats fine to.

as for santa monicas tank he outsources things from his tank using an algea scrubber so he may not need to change the water.

I would like to know what the tanks filtration is and to what extent his sucess has been over the last 5 years and what his failures have been to get a comparision of how well this has worked for him.

 

Good idea. That would be nice to know.

 

The corals look healthy to me. The color is most likely an artifact of his lighting and the camera settings. While it is not vibrant like we like in out tanks, it is not all that vibrant in all locations in the ocean either.

 

i dont think water changes are as necessary as most people either. Its been months on my 55 and damn near a decade on my 46 since iv water changed anything. Now are they pristine? no but I have a ton of sps frags that are thriving in low light situations as well. Keep your fish load light and you can get away with alot.

 

ya in most cases our tanks look like a acid trip on another planet compared to what actual reefs in the ocean look like.

 

No Water Changes only get you so far. I think there is a breaking point.

 

+1 to that!