Water change?

I do a 30% WC every 2-3 months. If everything is fine, 3 months. Every once in a while (like once a year) my polyp's tentacles start to shorten up around the 2 month mark, so when that happens I do the WC then. Within a day their tentacles are fully extended again. Usually it takes 3 1/2 to 4 months for that to start to happen, so I just go 3 months between changes so their tentacles don't start to retract. I wish I could get it to the point where I never had to do one. Maybe someday...

 

I did them often in the beginning. Nowadays I do them maybe 2x a year. And I'll do about 20%. I've only done it once in 2010 so far... I might not again this year... I also change about 5% by default whenever I take my skimmer down for a cleaning - that's about 2x a year.

So technically, water gets changed in my tank occasionally. But I still consider myself someone who "doesn't do water changes". I think some folks take that too literal, but I'm not too far off from literal.


Water Changes serve two purposes. To add elements and dilute pollutants.

Detritus, IMO, is the purview of my CuC. I keep a nice sized crew.

I have an automatic doser that takes care of my elements and my corals grow. I've tested 0 on nitrates and phosphates for a couple years. Therefore, IMO, neither of the two purposes of a WC apply. So I deem a WC to be an extraneous hoop to jump through.

I wouldn't think doing WC hurts, but I find them to be a band-aid.

 

Well I have never had an issue with my water which is why I dont harp on the water changes. I just picked up a 125g a few weeks ago and will be putting in a stand pipe for a set level where its just the turn of a valve for a wc as I think that would make it much easier and more likely to be done frequently.

I just wanted to get a serious idea of who does them on a reg bases. Granted I dont have many corals but thats also because my lights wont support much.