What would you say if...

If I told you I haven't done a water change on my reef in over 2 years! (I now duck and run for cover)

Well it seems to be doing fine, here's the system:

90gal with 35 gallon DIY sump/refug, a laguna pond pump for return(dunno the flow rate but seems like a lot) about 100lbs live rock between sump and tank, 4" sand in tank (using...err...sandblasting(silica) sand..) about same in sump but mixed with some crushed coral sand, lighting on sump is 24 hour spiral compact flourescent(about 100W i think) Lighting on tank was 8x40w t12 (4 6500k and 4 actinic) now switched to 4x65w t5 (2 powerglo and 2 marine glow) was running bulbs on 3 stage timer 2 blue, then a blue and white then the rest and reverse for the evening, now just 2 stage as only 2 ballasts (opinions on this? im thinkin i need more light...)

In the tank:

fish and non coral stuff

pair of clowns, unicorn tang, brown tang(cant remember the name of it) sailfin tang, engineer goby, royal gramma, coral beauty angel, blue damsel, 3 serpent stars, 3 or 4 basket stars, 2 longspine urchins, about 6 or so other urchins (red, black short spine, 2 mine or pencils) unknown number of hermits and shrimp ( at least 2 blood shrimp that i see every couple weeks or so )

corals and anemones and stuff

bubble coral (3 years in tank) 5 types of mushrooms, leather of some kind, 2 long tentacle anemone, bubble tip anemone, and i beautiful 10"+ carpet that the lfs almost GAVE me as they've been stuck with it for months, christmas tree coral(kind of ugly..)

thats more or less what it is, i know there are probablly people that wanna trash me for the way i look after my tank(or rather that i DON'T look after it) but it started about 2 years ago when i ran out of cash and let the tank go for a while, yes algae started growing on the rocks and glass, but the rocks dont get "furry" the tangs and urchins take care of it, it kept goin without any real problems, so i kept leaving it alone, now 2 years later it's still going. I do add water from the tap on a town water supply, but i add it to a bucket with kalkwasser powder and drip it through airline tubing, and thats the extent of my tank maintainence.

I cant give any water conditions (ie. nitrate, salinity, etc) as i havent tested anything since i last did a water change. actually decided today to go buy a new test kit just to see, ill follow up later with results.

Only problems that ive had is with my bubble coral, it seemed very healthy but all of a sudden one day the right half of it cam detatched from its base, after flapping in the breeze for a couple days it seperated from the rest of it and now i have about half of what i had, although still seems healthy, just smaller..
and mushrooms werent doing much, im thinkin the 2 year old t12s might have been becomming a problem, will update later on how they do under the new lights.


well, ok that turned out a lot longer than i thought it would, but now you know a bit about my tank. Im sure some of you are shaking your heads at it, and might even be wanting to tear me a new one...but hey, if it aing broke dont fix it, if the worst problem i have is rocks with some algae on em, i can live with that.

Oh BTW, hi! nice to be here, looks like a very informative site

 

I'm not going to tear you a new one, but I think you've been REALLY lucky with all those corals. Hey, whatever works man! God has blessed you with a maint. free tank. Everybodies tank is different in every way. Maybe you found your " sweet spot " ? kudos to you!

 

I have not changed a drop of any tanks water since the mid 70's and a site I go to of old reefers all are the same they never do water changes.. If I saw a benefit I'd do it but there is now Ii see and why bother I have a 55 gallon barrel of new salt water with in 10 ft of my sump . Thats for a just encase problem. (>:

I'll compare my system to anyones for coral polyp extension colors and difficulty if species to keep and over all health and growth rate. The water most drink today was used to flush with last yr.. Its just filtered..

My last system at home is over 14 yrs old and still no water changes my son says its doing fine.

 

Hey tangster why havent you done any water changes since the mid 70s ?

 

Why should I change water ? Only new water I use is for shower's besides someone show me a drop of new water and I'll buy it.. its all been here since day one nothing new has been added since that first day. its just filtered..

 

nothing against what you are doing mate .
just interested .

 

Pretty weird.

My leathers/colts begin to show signs of stress about every 10 days or so, if I don't do a water change.

Expect it has something to do with size of tank, amount of LR, Combination of corals, number and size of fish.

I guess if everthing in balance, no water change would be necessary.

But in my tank, water changes seem to help out.

 

Tangster, What do you do to replace elements and remove nitrates?

J

 

Hi Jason. We have a ton (not literally though) of rock both in the tank and in the sump. We also run a refugium (with a DSB), a Precision Marine Bullet 3 skimmer, a nitrate coil, a phosphate reactor and a calcium reactor. The only things that we "physically" add (sparingly) are Kent's Essential Elements and Kent's Turbo Strontium. We've also been adding Tech M (magnesium) lately to deal with a small bit of bryopsis that came in from our original tank (we have to keep mag levels at a higher level than the calcium reactor can provide to choke it out otherwise we wouldn't have to add it at all).

 

Cool, I have seen a lot of great tanks that also do not do water changes.

Is there a "hump" you have to get over where the system builds to a point were it will start "working". I will assume that without a refugium this type of tank would be a lot harder to have success. and the Coil denitrater plays a huge role in eliminating nitrates. I point this out for the people reading this that would rather not do water changes but do not have a Refugium. It is a key element.

J