water change in a sumpless tank ???

[Ozzy]

Hello RC
I have a 46 gallon sumpless tank with no plans for one,I cringe every time I do a water change in my tank cause i now it must be very stressful on the tank to drain out 10-12 gallons to add the new water, and was wondering if anybody has come up with a good way,or better way to do this.......
thanks

[cloak]

As long as the perameters of the new water match those of your reef, I wouldn't worry to much about it.

It's probably like a breath of fresh air.

:)

[Ozzy]

I just dont like the idea of exposing everything to the air and then,dumping water into the tank....
the only thing I have now that really gets exposed are some zoo's but in time I'll have alot more in this tank,the water level when changing gets kinda close to my frogspwn that is about mid way in the tank

[seahawkjohnny]

try doing smaller WCs, if you have a 46 gallon tank, and if you have a DSB, you probably have about 30 gallons of water in the tank minus the LR, so 10-12 gallons is a pretty big change...you really dont need to replace more than 10% at one time...if you do them regular basis

[Rick O]

I agree with seahawkjohnny. I would do just 5 gal water changes every other week.

[Nuuance]

I totally agree with seahawkjohnny.

Just do smaller water changes, and be quick about it for less exposure to air if you are concerned about it. You can always move some of the species lower in the tank for the change if they are movable. That's a pretty big water change for that tank anyway.

Bottomline is, water changes are a necessity, so you do what you have to do to best make it work and be as least disruptive as possible.

[Reeefer]

My only tank that has a sump in my 100FOWLR. All my small reef tanks don't. My water changes don't seem to cause my tanks stress at all. If anything, it's when I have my arm in their cleaning the glass. All I do is syphon out the water. I have the new water ready to go so the moment I'm done draining, I begin syphoning in the new water. I place the returning water at the back top of the tank. Now if you are just pouring the water back in, I could see that stressing out some animals. This I would definitely not do.

[Ozzy]

thanks for all the replies,I suppose I'll just cut my changes in half and not worry so much about it......

[ccd]

Exposing the corals to air doesn't cause undo stress to them. To change water on my own system which is an 80 and a 60 sharing a commmon sump the return into the 60 is shut off and that tank drained almost completely (within 1" or so) and then re-filled and then pumping the remaining water in while siphoning out. Using natural seawater by the way. Ussually everything is opened back up within 45 min or so, none the worse for the wear. Even the tempurature doesn't unduly brother them.