Water changes

[thetedinator]

I'm curious about everyone's water change regimen.

How often and how much water do you change?

Do you change water as a prophylaxis (preventative measure) or do you change water when your tank doesn't look right? Or both?

What changes in your tank do you attribute to the water change?

I'm asking because I've been thinking about the presentation last week by Jim Wolfe. Water changes could be considered "disruptive" and maybe part of the benefit we see from water changes is a result of the "disruption".

Ted

[Konadog]

Ted, I do mine every 4 to 7 weeks, 30 gallons of my 100 gallon tank. Some say thats to much, I just say I suck out alot of junk. Sometimes I do it over 2 days, but usualy all at once.

[Freed]

45-50 gallons every other weekend. This helps keep alk, calcium, pH, magnesium all in balance. Takes out alot of dissolved organics as well. Freed

[thetedinator]

Ken,

Does the water change have a perceptible affect on the tank? Do your corals open more, etc.? Do you vary between 4 and 7 weeks based on how the tank looks?


Ted

[thetedinator]

Originally posted by Freed
45-50 gallons every other weekend. This helps keep alk, calcium, pH, magnesium all in balance. Takes out alot of dissolved organics as well. Freed

Freed,

Does your 180 have a high bio-load so you need to change 25% every 2 weeks or are you changing that frequently to stay ahead of trouble?


Ted

[Konadog]

Originally posted by thetedinator
Ken,

Does the water change have a perceptible affect on the tank? Do your corals open more, etc.? Do you vary between 4 and 7 weeks based on how the tank looks?


Ted

Yes it does. It takes 2 or 3 days, but it really looks better after that for 3 or 4 weeks. It declines very slowly so you don't even notice until you do a water change. I think I have gone 3 months without one before (vacation, work...) and really noticed a difference after a water change. Its kinda like when you lights slowly go bad over months and months, when you change them, its a huge difference.

[Freed]

Yes, high bio-load with numerous large SPS, LPS, softies, fish, inverts. Mostly have to change the water to keep my pH from plumetting. Helps keep it in the 8.05-8.3 range. Thanks, Freed

[thetedinator]

More thoughts and questions on water changes:

Do you try to minimize the impacts of the change (so to speak) by adding water at the same time as you are removing water or do you remove the water and then replace it?

If you are adding water while removing water the mixing action of the water is reducing the volume of water you are replacing. I would think this is less impactive, sort of like when we add tank water to the bag of the new specimens when we acclimatize them.

I would think that removing a volume and then replacing it would be more "disruptive".

So, how do replace your water?

Ted

[Konadog]

Ted, I can drain about 15 gallons before I have coral poke above water line. So I drain 15 gal, add 10, drain 5, add 10, drain 10, add 10 and start tank back up.

[thetedinator]

I drain about 25 gallons off then replace it and then start the tank back up but am thinking of varying that.

[Freed]

I drain about 40 gallons and have my two 12" wide green acros sticking about 6" out of the water. I then top off with the 40 gallons of fresh change water. Takes about 15 minutes at the most. Freed

[cali_reef]

I do about two water changes a year, too lazy to mix the salt.

But Dave B will tell you I do involuntary water changes because I give a lot of water away with my frags. :p Dave B does water changes when he have a plumbing problem, he usually adds 200 gal to his system when the pipes comes apart between the tanks.

[nanocat]

In my nano world, I change 20% weekly. I usually follow something close to konadog's method (drain a little, pour a little, drain a little more), but on a smaller scale. Since the change (NSW) is so frequent the corals look pretty much the same every day in my tanks. I never thought I'd have to start fragging on LPS I've only had for 6 weeks, but I'm blaming it on the LiquidLife pump Coral plankton :D

Dave has how many hundreds of gallons all plumbed together? A bird could land and die in a frag tank and I'm not even sure it would change the chemistry. :)

[thetedinator]

Thanks everyone for responding to this thread. I'm still thinking about intermediate disturbances and water changes and re-reading EricHugo's thread Maturity Issues (http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=249112) .

While my tank was going thru it's initial cycle I was changing water trying to keep the ammonia levels down and maybe save some life on the LR and LS. The initial cycle is complete and the water parameters look good. It's been almost 3 weeks since I changed any water and everything is going well (with the exception of the appearance of some bubble algae). So I'm thinking I'll change 25gallons this weekend and at the same time scrub the two rocks that are infested. I'm thinking of trying the "drain some, add some" method so I'm not changing as much but maybe I'll start changing more frequently. I'm counting the rock scrubbing as part of my planned intermediate disturbance.

Ted