Water Change vs Additives

[coconut3]

Is water change weekly enough to compensate the lost elements?

or adding additives is enough?

or must do both?

[aStRoBo|]

i did both.

[terryansimon]

you can dose additives till the cows come home, but its still recommended to change the water instead.

off hand I can only think of nitrate dilution as one reason to do a water change.

[woonming]

Is water change weekly enough to compensate the lost elements?

or adding additives is enough?

or must do both?

It all just comes down to what ur tank is stock up with, and the intake.

Water change alone to replace calcium level isn’t enough for even a LPS tank... which again tank size does play a part.

Thus i would also agree with terry that both are equally important.

Ming

[Achilles Tang]

The tricky thing about trace elements is that it is very hard to test for each and every one of them.

Coupled with how each reef tank is different in terms of the livestocking which consumes these trace elements in different amounts and timing, the reefer is quite hard pressed to know how much trace elements are take up, what's still inside the tank in what amounts and how much to dose back.

The overdosing of trace elements have been pointed out to be a factor in heavy metals accumulation in sandbeds and LR which can result in Old Tank Syndrome.

Trace elements are important and the basic way to replenish trace elements is with every water change as the saltmix will contain trace elements.

Bottled trace elements have been used for ages by reefers, esp. the Germans. The US reefers tend to scoff at the use of bottled trace elements.

[ben]

I top up addictives as water replacements waste lots of time. But no idea if its worth as additives is needed alot hence money waste on these things is alot too. Maybe water replacement is lot cheaper.

[coconut3]

so the conclusion is i shld do water change and use additives as well...???

[shiraz]

conclusion is to do both dude... u take away the diluted nitrate(terry) replace unknown lost trace elements(AT), u don't know how much trace elemets to add so just do a change(woonming)... see u satisfy so many conditions... just do both lor..