Water changes please enlighten

jonh5150

jonh5150

New member
I think I need a " newbie corner" to sit in. What is the general consensus on water changes. How often for someone who isn't dosing. I use reef crystal and have a fairly light bio load. My two thoughts are ,,,,more must be better......or..... Less keeps parameters more stable. again I have tried googling for help but there isn't even close to a consensus. What do the smart reefers think?
 
I am not a fan of the once a month %40 changes. Too much time goes buy for thing to develop that can hurt you tank. I'm a follower of the %20 every 2 weeks
 
it all depends on how the tank is doing and tests but generally im on the biweekly water changes @ 20%
 
I've tried only doing one big one per month and also every other week. However, my tank is visibly better with a 10% every week.
 
I do medium water changes on my 55. IMO, water changes are a healthy and simple way of keeping trace elements up and bad things down. However, I know people that have setups similar to mine and NEVER do water changes. They dose trace minerals and aminos and leave it at that, and they have awesome growth and never any issues. On another forum, a guy has 4 tanks, all over 100 gallons, and he hasn't done a water change on any in over a year. He does do water changes if anything changes to help stabilize it.

I still do them, but not as often as others on here, and even then not a large one. I do 15-20 gallons every few weeks on the 55. I'll most likely do something similar on the 110 when its set up, maybe 25 gallons every few weeks.
 
I agree with 10% per week. When I started my tank I was doing 20% every other week. For about the past 3 months I have been doing 10% per week and I have noticed everything seems to be growing more. Every tank is different though.

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i do 10% a week, but ive been checkin out this thread of a dude who is doing 1% w/c everyday on his 40b. basically just dumping water in his overflow, n scooping some out his tank. obviously you have to do a 3g for siphoning n such, maybe more depends on yur settling pattern. but i really like the idea. so stable. i think im goind to start doing 1% a day after my next big one this week
 
I do a 5 gallon refresh on my tank. I just drop my Tunze ATO pump in the 5 gallon jug and siphon out the detritus that collect in a couple spots of my BB tank where there is a "swirling spining" current. My ATO kicks in and pumps the new SW into my sump where the temps equalize around and inside the skimmer and it gets pushed into the fuge. Once my 5 gallon Home Depot bucket is filled with old water the ATO finishes bringing the level back to where it should be and we are all done. The whole process takes less thank 10 minutes.

I like the smaller more consistant water changes because my SPS don't have any shock to vastly different paramaters that a large volume change would bring. If needed, I'll do a second exact water change later in the week, but I have only had to do that twice.
 
Tethered_Limbs said:
i do 10% a week, but ive been checkin out this thread of a dude who is doing 1% w/c everyday on his 40b. basically just dumping water in his overflow, n scooping some out his tank. obviously you have to do a 3g for siphoning n such, maybe more depends on yur settling pattern. but i really like the idea. so stable. i think im goind to start doing 1% a day after my next big one this week
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That just seems like too much work everyday.
 
he would just take a pitcher n scoop outta bucket, then scoop out his tank into a diff bucket there was a vid of him doing it in like 10 sec
 
I have a 200+ gal system and only planning on 10gal water changes a week to replace trace elements. However, I'm running 2 big skimmers, use a refugium, and I carbon dose to keep my nitrates and phosphates low to non.
The current tank of the month on RC is from a guy who has never done a water change in 3+ years!
Each system is different and will require different things depending on bioload and what you want to keep in it.
 
i prefer the sterile filtration. dont want to rely on animals to take care of my other animals. i need to do it. just my opinion tho
 
"i prefer the sterile filtration. dont want to rely on animals to take care of my other animals. i need to do it. just my opinion tho"

That's how it's done in nature: fish makes mess, Inverts/corals/bacteria/algae cleans up after fish.
 
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