water changes

[sweeTang21]

i think is foolish not to do water changes. so many benefits to doing water changes, why not just do them. id rather not spend a lot of money on all of the these diy deals, and save more money for stock. By doing water changes im also increasing my chances that my expensive/rare fish stay alive. I see that as a win win.

 

[FLESHY]

If you go to the algae scrubber site he has a more detailed description of his set up, including what to dose when not doing water changes. It made me assume he no longer did them.

This goes back to my point about nutrient depletion. I do the same thing. Because I only do water changes every other week (Ive been thinking about going to once a week), some nutrients get depleted in my system. So the weekend that I dont do a water change, I dose my tank with things I prove deficient through water testing.

This guy may be doing water changes very infrequently. So he puts nutrients back into his tank this way. As sweeTang said...I wouldnt recommend it. And...its probably easier to do a water change then build that piece of machinery and keep it clean and running. My waterchanges take me maybe an hour and a half...every other week. Plus I clean all the powerheads, vaccum the gravel, scrape the glass, clean some parts of my protien skimmer, and all sorts of other things. People just need to stop being lazy.

I think its a cool DIY. In large public displays where water quality sometimes cannot be kept pristine, they are used to keep algae levels down ect...I dont think its really worth it for a small home display.

That being said, I maintain 2 colonies of calurpa in my 75g reef. It helps remove the bad stuff, and keeps my tang happy. My .02

 

[sweeTang21]

i agree. water changes are constantly argued over. Is america just that lazy that you cant change 2 five gallon buckets of water once a week or whatever your percentages amount to? An algae scrubber is just that, its intended to prevent algae buildup by removing nutrients but its not really a solution to water changes. I hate spending more money and time on things then are needed, but when your investing this much in stock, why not just do it right.

 

[The1and only]

For me it is not an issue of being lazy or not. I like messing around in my garage and have at least 5 projects at anyone time going, so a scrubber is a cool idea and I would like to see if I can reduce the amount of water changes to once a month and have a happy healthy environment.

Also if your line of though is it is mandatory to do water changes why not ditch your skimmer and regulate the environment with nothing but daily water changes. My point is everyone uses some sort of artificial thing to manage their water change schedule. So what if some of us are trying to find ways to do it only once a month or two.

 

[FLESHY]

Also if your line of though is it is mandatory to do water changes why not ditch your skimmer and regulate the environment with nothing but daily water changes. My point is everyone uses some sort of artificial thing to manage their water change schedule. So what if some of us are trying to find ways to do it only once a month or two.

Because you have obviously never had to "skim" manually. I had to do this when I had a ****ty seaclone, and then finally it broke. Not wanting to buy another pos seaclone, I started manually "skimming" it takes forever...and you end up doing way more than a 5g a day. Just not worth it, stressful to the inhabitants.

I love DIY too. But you should focus on something more worthwhile. DIY calcium reactor or the such. A scrubber is basically a zoo application as far as Im concerned.