I have an answer

Over the years I have read several threads posting the question, "How long can I go without a Water Change?" Well for myself at least I have an answer. 4 years.

In Jan of 2012 I transferred the contents including the water from my 2 year old 75 gallon reef to my 110 gallon flat back Hexagon. At that time I replaced my sand bed as well. Since that time I have had not done a water change, and only ran an algae scrubber for filtration. My tank was thriving for years, everything had great color and was growing, fish were happy.
Around April of this year, things started looking a little off, everything was just not as vibrant. I run a calcium reactor for trace elements my calcium and alk levels were consistent with what they had always been.
It was summer and my tank always does get less attention that time of year, and with a fully stocked (I would say packed) reef, I had lost interest as there was not much to do with it.
When my Monticello caps started turning grayish brown, I knew something had to be done.
Without test I added some magnesium in June. Bam! SPS started to RTN. I lost several nice large colonies within a week. After pulling the dead dying skeletons from the tank the flow improved and things started getting better, but not like they used to be.
Then my wife decided we need to replace the carpet and she wanted me to move the tank to the basement. As many of you know, that can be a real pain in the A$$. Instead of moving the tank I decided to just setup a new system and move the contents. This time I would use all new water and sand, thereby doing a massive water change at the same time. Although things were getting better in my tank, it was clear something was missing or over represented in the water, typically I had always needed to clean my algae screen weekly or the growth would create a lot of noise in my sump. Over the summer growth slowed dramatically, I was going 3-4 weeks between cleanings and the growth I would scrape off was minimal.

I completed the transfer 2 weekends ago, I tossed a lot of the corals that were not fully healed from my early summer ordeal and plumbed a 50 gallon Refugium type tank to the main 120 to house most of the rock. (I want to see my fish more in this tank)

Everything I transferred is looking good now, colors are getting better everyday, and I actually have room for new corals again, which is awesome. Throughout everything, I lost all but 1 of my favorite sps corals which is a real bummer, but only had one fish / invert fatality. A small black clown goby which I had for 2 years and bought from an existing system died the day after the transfer. It could have been a system shock, but it could have been age related, as I have heard the are not exceptionally long lived.

All in all, the setback did re-commit me to the hobby and I do spend more time enjoying the tank than I have the past couple years. I still have a canopy to build too, which I look forward to doing this weekend.
I also went with a shallower sand bed this time around and plan on vacuuming it monthly with a small water change. The amount of filth a white sand bed hides is unbelievable. When it comes to not changing water, I think if I had not lost interest and continued to monitor the water like I had the first 3 and a half years, continued to frag corals and not let fast growing sps like monti caps grow to a size that they severely restrict flow, and NOT added a few squirts of tech M as casually as I had, the tank could have gone longer without a change. But after this reset, it is not something I am going to try.

Old tank around January.


New tank last weekend.





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I need to scape it and place corals but I like it. The stand is 48 inches tall so I get the same type of view a little kid gets at a normal tank.


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