Way To Cut Out Water Changes?

[quantumnerd]

Like WD said: It's experimental. It takes space, it's sometimes untested, yadayadayada. Basically, live with the water changes. The alternative is like having a lab doing experiments on nitroglycerin 24/7.

For those of you who don't know what nitroglycerin is: If you drop a tube of nitroglyceryin liquid, you'll wish you had bought explosion insurance.
Lots. Of explosion insurance.

 

[OldMan47]

One of the big attractions of the El Natural method of fish keeping is the promise of far fewer water changes. It is a method that I have been trying in one of my tanks but am not sure that I could advise waiting 6 months for a water change as the converts recommend. I have been waiting as long as 2 months so far and have seen no adverse effects in that tank. The remainder of my tanks are on a more conventional regime until this method can prove itself to me. If it can't, I will suffer damage to a single population of Xenotaenia Resolanae but the rest of my fish will be unaffected. Until I have spent enough time in this experiment, I will not recommend it to anyone else. As with most things, the proponents of a particular method of doing a thing make claims that are at bexst unsubstantiated, and yes, Andy, I own a copy of Ecology of the Planted Aquarium by Walstad and have read it from cover to cover. A book being printed also does not make its contents gospel.

 

[Corleone]

Another point with low maintenance tanks, it's not an easy setup, just easy maintenance. If you get it wrong, things could go south very quickly with the Walsted method.

The best way to reduce water changes without complex and advanced methods is to reduce stocking - stock 1" per 2 gallons, which is half to a third of the recommended, and up to a quarter of what some people run mature tanks at.

 

[andywg]

I must confess that even though I read that there should be benefits for freshwater setups from algae turf devices, I can not recall what the main benefits (for freshwater) might be. Most of the discussion in the marine section had to do with A.T. setups replacing Protein Skimmers and perhaps some other marine gear. I could imagine these units helping to reduce ammonia, nitrates and adding oxygen. Are those the main points for freshwater and is it better at some than others Andy?

The main point of an ATS is to reduce nitrates and phosphates without resorting to water changes. The reason this does not cross over to FW too well is because water changes in FW do not cost as much as water changes in SW due to not needing salt

Even if the AT scrubber does a great job with certain water parameters, how would we know that it didn't just alter the picture for trace metals and other things we don't normally measure, still leaving us with trouble building up from no water changes? Surely this methodology is still too new and experimental for us to know whether some slightly altered form of "old tank syndrome" might still occur.

Old tank syndrome is a high nitrate level and reduced pH due to the acidic nature of the nitrogen cycle. Algae (like higher plants) prefers ammonia so you bypass the entire nitrogen cycle. There is the prospect of effects on KH and pH (though I don't expect it) but these can easily be monitored.

trace heavy metals are a problem which comes from tap water. Assuming you dechlorinate the water then it is fairly hard to see where such a product will come from.

One thought that might prove interesting though would be whether these units in combination with a planted tank might indeed create a situation needing fewer water changes and less disturbance to the substrate, which can be a problem for plants and can be an algae trigger.

The downside is that the algae will be competing with the plants. Further, the ATS system relies on having the water draining across a screen into a sump. This will create further off-gassing of CO2 and so could affect the plant growth.

Another aspect of the A.T. scrubber that would have to be weighed by the hobbyist is whether the maintenance of the algae screens, more extensive tubing and light bulbs, including any heat issues with the bulbs would prove less vexing than water change hoses, dechlor and temperature matching. Clearly for some individuals in the threads in the marine section, the sheer fun of trying out a new cutting edge technology was an energizing factor.

The algae screen maintenance is a weekly affair normally. There is an element of pipework, but no more than a standard sump set up. The light bulbs do not have to be anything special and algae is less bothered about correct colour temperatures than plants.

With regards to normal water changes all you really need is a hose and dechlor. Temperature matching is not important until you are changing int he region of 40-50% of the tank.

Anyway, seems a fun thing to learn about. I for one would like to understand from anyone who knows, more about its water chemistry benefits.

~~waterdrop~~

I daresay a lot can be learned from SantaMonica who posts regularly in the SW section about these.

 

[waterdrop]

trace heavy metals are a problem which comes from tap water. Assuming you dechlorinate the water then it is fairly hard to see where such a product will come from.

As an offshoot to the discussion, this part interests me. Most good dechlor products are supposed to handle "heavy metals" in the tap water. For instance, my bottle of Seachem Prime, even though it does not make this claim on my small 250ml bottle, does in fact have the following claim on the Seachem website: "It will also detoxify any heavy metals found in the tap water at typical concentration levels."

This seems a pretty neat trick, wrapping up any and most heavy metals and rendering them unable to participate in typical reactions in a tank from then on. I assume its a single well-known technique chemically, but I don't know what it is. It also may be completely effective, but without knowing for sure, my skeptical side wonders whether it might be the case that some of the "wrapping up and rendering detoxified" might wear off, given enough time.

Of course, it is true that we'd hope our water authorities are not letting us be exposed to many heavy metals in our drinking water. Addition or subtraction of heavy metals via water changes would probably be "a wash" statistically, because tiny variations in the amount of a given metal coming in would vary slighty above or below the tank level probably.

Like so many other subjects, the truth on this subject just seems to quickly go beyond our readily available literature, am I wrong here?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[andywg]

I am sure that the chemical used to bind to heavy metals has been posted before, but cannot find it now. I would expect Bignose to know it.

On the potential for problems with heavy metals, this could be helped by fewer water changes. Dissolved Organic Compounds are often cited as a potential risk to a tank due to their build up over time, yet they bind (or at least some of them do, the exact sceince of the matter is not known to me) to heavy metals reducing their toxicity.

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah, the whole heavymetal/dissolvedorganics/waterchange thing might make for a fun little round of discussion in the Scientific section if its not already been treated thoroughly and I'm just not informed about where. You and I will have to look around for it and start up a thread there if we don't see existing info. Then perhaps Bignose might see it and have some interesting insights.

To my mind the list of trace heavy metals would be long and separately the list of dissolved organics would be long and it seems simplistic to think one chemical would react with all of them, bind them up safely and then keep them bound up indefinately in the tank environment. But that's just me dreaming up a scenerio without knowing any detailed background of the topic within the hobby. It could very well be that there are -not- so many heavy metals or organics typically worried about and that yes indeed the problem is effectively taken care of by on particular chemical and process.

~~waterdrop~~