"atomweaver" wrote in message ...
His original comments were a bit irresponsible and overstated, but when
pushed for details on the specifics of his comments, and treated with a bit
of respect, he's the same reasonable kind of human being that we all can
be.

How can you say this, if he did not provide any details asked for ?
He did not tell us how many fish and what kind of fish he keep
and what is the size of his tank... He did not provide pictures,
so we do not even know he actually has a tank... and what is its
condition. He recently ordered Xenia - this was his first coral...
He claims he owns an anemone, but he did not state what species.
I am betting his "anemone" is an aiptasia anemone :-))

4) There _might_ be some underlying scientific reason behind water changes
(and thus, a motivation other than 'herd mentality', or the Grand Water
Change Conspiracy by Fish Store Owners to Sell More Products). Some
reasons might be; to export dissolved nutrients, and/or to replenish trace
elements.

Water changes are THE CHEAPEST and the simplest method of
nutrients export, when you consider the price of phosban,
phosban reactors, activated carbon and oversized skimmers
costing easily 400 USD and more.
Abucket of Instant Ocean salt costs little more than $30 and
you can make almost 160 gallons of clean sal****er with it.
Trace elements & calcium in a bottle - all these costs money.
150gram of phosban costs almost $20... same for carbon...
These amounts of phosban/carbon will not last long time.
And you have to mess with ugly filter bags or reactors...
For the reactor you need to spend money on reactor/pump.
And carbon/phosban are only working on specific compounds,
water changes do refresh water composition with all ions.
Including ones which concentration you CANNOT measure, so
you cannot know if you need to add or remove it from the water.