Doesnt Believe in Water Changes PHOTOS!!

I think the tank is awesome(I REALLY like the monti and clam) I don't think yellow tangs are "round" in the wild either but hey what do I know? and nearly all these comments should have a IMO at the end of them.
IMO

 

This is just my opinion, but somehow I would imagine that if someone came on here and said "here are some pics of my tank" without telling you that he didn't do water changes, some of these responses would be different. What I mean is, I feel like most of you would compliment his coral growth and say how nice his tank was. But I think as soon as some of you read the title you subconsciously make up your mind about that tank and try to pick at things to criticize. Personally, I think the tank looks great. You really can't judge the colors of the coral unless you see it in person or under different lighting. Lighting effects on the camera and color temp in the bulbs will greatly effect the appearance of coral, that doesn't mean they are unhealthy. I went about a year without doing water changes and experienced great growth and healthy corals and fish. Just depends on your filtration. I ended up doing water changes more frequently (every 3 months) because I got tired of testing for and dosing trace elements. You can read about my water change experience on my blog are water changes necessary.

Just my 2 cents

 

Reasonable assumption, but again, we don't know. Water changes are to replenish something, or to remove something. If you do not know what you are removing or replenishing, then what is the point. Better yet how do you determine what is "effective"? 10% daily, 10% yearly... new water every 5 years??? So while we can say it is good insurance, making claims that it much be done at this much of a rate is nothing more than a guess. And I know you are smart enough to make educated guesses, but you know what I mean. Lots of stuff is perpetuated in this hobby without a shred of data or evidence to back it up.

 

...and you do realize that some of those compliment would just be people trying to be polite and not offend right?

I do agree though that pics on the web do not accurately represent what is in real life, but that is all we have so that is what is commented on.

 

Couldnt of said it better myself.

 

"Yes... some, but we don't even know what these "some" are we are talking about."


Exactly, so, regressing back towards the mean is a reasonable educated guess, for a reasonable value of each. Anything else is a random walk.

That is not true, GAC takes up both, and not just because a hydrophobic compound is attached. Skimmer only get hydrophobic unless some others just get caught up... GAC removes by chemical attraction.


Randy and Ken Feldmen discuss such topics often. Just looking quickly, here are two quotes from Randy:

From here: How does carbon work? - Reef Central Online Community
"GAC works by providing hydrophobic spaces for organic matter to bind. It also provides some other sorts of binding, but hydrophobic binding dominates. So proteins and many other hydrophobic (like oils) and partly hydrophobic organic materials (like soaps and proteins, etc) will bind to it. Since many metals (like copper and iron) are bound to organics, these too can be bound as the organics they are attached to bind to the GAC."

From here :
Carbon stripping - Reef Central Online Community
"The organics it won't remove are any that are completely hydrophilic with no hydrophobic portions, as the hydrophobic interactions are largely how GAC binds organics. Oxalic acid, vitamin C, methanol, glucose, sucrose, acetate, etc are unlikely to bind significantly. "

So, it seems reasonable to guess that there are hydrophilic things that will not be removed "effectively" by carbon. Maybe not much, but again given enough time it is reasonable to assume that they can accumulate.


"And 90% of dust is made up of dead skin. Point is what ever is organic will be dealt with through biological processes. What is inorganic will need to be dealt with."

10% or even a fraction of a percent, exponentiated over time can be a lot. Also, I could guess hydrophillic molecules may be less likely to bind to your hands due to oils. However, once you put your hand in the water, they should be attracted to the water nicely. I agree though, "most" organics will be dealt with, inorganics are tougher, but could also result from the breakdown of organics if not completely dealt with. Again, the problem is time. Over time even uncommon things can slowly accumulate.



"And there is the kicker... what is "mean" salt water? Do you trust your LFS water to not have contaminates? How many contaminates do you introduce to a tank through water changes using your own water? If you get your sea water naturally, then how do you know it is not contaminated, it is close to shore and man? And using synthetic is just a man made mix and yes salt mixes have had impurities and nutrients... and no it isn't the same as natural pristine sea water. So we do not even know if we are contaminating our tanks with a process we think is cleaning them."

Yes,, I would certainly never trust an LFSs water LOL. However, a company with resources and a reputation to uphold, such as IO, has a stronger motivation to provide consistent results. They do have the means to test and provide a formula that works reasonably well. Certainly it isn’t "saltwater" in a pure sense, however, there are good odds that things will grow and live in it. As you randomly change that composition, the odds decrease. There is certainly some chance that perhaps the composition, over time, could shift to something more favorable, just as there are odds that all the air molecules in the room could suddenly shift to one corner, but I wouldn't bet on it...



"Reasonable assumption, but again, we don't know. Water changes are to replenish something, or to remove something. "

I'd phrase it that "they are to regress the values of all parameters, back towards a set of values, which provides reasonable results, based on years of testing".

"If you do not know what you are removing or replenishing, then what is the point. Better yet how do you determine what is "effective"? 10% daily, 10% yearly... new water every 5 years??? So while we can say it is good insurance, making claims that it much be done at this much of a rate is nothing more than a guess. "

The rate I agree with. For that I can only go by my anecdotal experience and the knowledge that smaller changes should result in less instability.


"And I know you are smart enough to make educated guesses, but you know what I mean. Lots of stuff is perpetuated in this hobby without a shred of data or evidence to back it up. "

Yes, certainly it all comes down to educated guesses and there are more than one way to skin a cat... Generally though, in the long run, I have not seen many, if any stunning "no water change" tanks. Some are quite good though for sure though, many are not. In my own experience tanks I have not done water changes on, have slowly withered away and came back strong when I started doing water changes again. Certainly I'll be the first to admit this is anecdotal however. Regardless, I haven’t seen an argument or evidence yet to convince me the presumption is incorrect. Maybe others have though....

 

This tank looks nice to me,
wish there was more details about the tank and how he keeps it, and less debate over water changes.

 

I agree. Can we get some more pictures and info on the tank itself. :

 

Well, now, this is the OPs thread. The OP said "This is my friends 75g, Says he "doesnt believe in water changes" nor does he believe in testing his water.. " and then asked "How do you guys feel about that??"

So, the debate would appear to be at the request of the OP

I agree with you otherwise though