100% water change

[charlie h]

Just wanted an opion from some pro refers about 100% water change. I'm going to do 4 x 25% in a week. and i'm wondering if this will have a good long term effect on my cyano or bad effect overall.
I no i'm not putting to many excess nutrients into the tank but i still can't can't kick this problem.

[yellowwatchmen]

How old is the tank?

[James77]

how old is your tank and what kind of flow do you have in there? Have you testing for nitrate and phosphate?

[charlie h]

tank is 9 months old, and had the cyano for 6 months. Nitrates and phosphates read 0.
tank is 110 galons and i have return pump 1645 gph, p/h 1200 gph, p/h 1000 gph, p/h 200gph. Which works out to be about 35 times tank volume per hour.

So what am i doing wrong

[Justin James]

Well actually doing 4 x 25% water changes over the course of a week should do no harm to your system. It should help considerably.

Now lets think about this... There is no way to do a "100%" water change in 4 seperate changes. There is no way of doing it even with 2 seperate changes since there is no way of removing "only" the remaining water that you didn't change on the last water change so therefor your removing some of the new water that you put in the tank on the last change along with somemore of the old water. The only way of doing a "100%" change is to drain the tank and fill it back up which is a very bad idea. If you did a 25% change every day for the next 2 days and then continue to do so every 3rd day for two weeks and then keep doing a 25% change every week as a rule you should have a very clean tank. IMO

[charlie h]

yes sorry i see were you coming from. I'm not doing 100% water change but rather diluting the tank water untill i've change 100% water volume.
so if i do this do you think it will help with the cyano.

[Justin James]

Yes. Removal of nutrients (water changes) is the key to eliminating cyano.

[Frick-n-Frags]

there is a technique of overflowing your system with new saltwater as the overflowed water goes to the drain or container etc. In spite of the mixing, you only fall a few % short of the intended proportion(ie a 25% volume overflowed will result in ~22% waterchange, 100% overflow would result in~90% change.

so to change 100%, mix like 115% and overflow it

If you do this over a period of a few good hours(6-8), you can bust a 100% waterchange in one shot

[TomZogas]

Even if you could do a 100% water change by overflowing your tank (seems kind of risky to me), wouldn't it be very detrimental to the inhabitants?

[jeweldamsel]

Overflowing is a good idea for a massive water change. If you don't have much inhabitants yet, either way is fine IMO. But, it may not solve your cyano problem until you figure out the root cause. Well, at least it won't hurt to try.

[Frick-n-Frags]

not if you do it gradually

:D, it would be risky if you weren't setup to do it.

fortunately ALL clever reefers have an emergency overflow drain hose hooked to their sump, speaking of risky.
Oh? you don't? Now THAT sounds risky :D well anyway,
a drain hose an inch below the top of the sump comes in really handy for this sort of thing. a floor drain right by said hose is double-handy, and a 100gal aggie tub completes the "trifecta of handiness" :D

[TomZogas]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11357106#post11357106 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Frick-n-Frags




fortunately ALL clever reefers have an emergency overflow drain hose hooked to their sump, speaking of risky.
Oh? you don't? Now THAT sounds risky :D

The 75 gallon tub taking up all my closet space begs to differ.

[charlie h]

thanks you lot. (just worked out that i've only realy been doing about 6% weekly water change). i don't think i'm going to do the overflow option as i'm not that bothered about doing a 100%water change but more 100% volume of water change. Even if this only adds up to 65% of a true water change i think i will have a dramatic effect on my nutrient problem.
But if my readings are all spot on how am i going to tell if it's worked, or have i just got to trust that it will.
I think my nutrients are coming from all the dead cyano over the rocks or the coraline algae that is dying off from getting smothered. When i blow it down with a powerehead there is so much stuff within the rock it is unbelivible.........
I'll post again once i've doen the water changes and tell you how it goes.

[Joshsreef]

Water changes are not a bad thing but I would be cautios of doing too many too fast. After I added both a yellow and hippo tang to my 75 gallon that was roughly three months old my tank recycled. I set forth to change 50% of the water out daily for a week with ammonia never going down. You have to let nature take its course in my opinion. Since what you have is a nutrient problem my philosophy may not work in your case? Could an expert chime in ?

[saltycreefer]

Josh-I dont believe adding 2 fish (appropriately sized) To a 3 month old tank would cause it to spike ammonia. You mayhave had another unnoticed issue.
As long as you're adding well mixed seawater at the proper temp and parameters you could do daily water changes, if that was your thing, with no ill effects to the tanks inhabitants.

[charlie h]

not sure what cheme is but if your refering to chemi clean i have looked into this. From what i've found it's $10 for the stuff and $90 to get it her and i really don't want to pay that for somthing that dosn't work.....
We have a product called poly ox which is an oxidiser but i have been told by a few english forums that it's not good stuff and to avoid it......
This cyano is driving me to the edge of giving up as it's making me think i'm not cut out for this hobby. just hope i can get rid of it soon cause i do love my reef.....

[Anemone]

This stuff works.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=4121&Nty=1&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=All&N=2004&Ntt=red%20slime&Np=1

At the very least, it will kill all your cyano, and if you then do your large volume water changes, you will be starting with a tank free of cyano.

Kevin

[charlie h]

once again mate it's not finding the product over there cause you lot seem to have loads of choices for marine, it's gettiong it to england at a resonable cost and like i said before every thing over her people tell you to stay clear of even my lfs.
But i'll keep looking

[charlesr1958]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11362579#post11362579 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by charlie h
not sure what cheme is but if your refering to chemi clean i have looked into this. From what i've found it's $10 for the stuff and $90 to get it her and i really don't want to pay that for somthing that dosn't work.....
We have a product called poly ox which is an oxidiser but i have been told by a few english forums that it's not good stuff and to avoid it......
This cyano is driving me to the edge of giving up as it's making me think i'm not cut out for this hobby. just hope i can get rid of it soon cause i do love my reef.....

For those of you in countries that do not carry such products as Chemi-clean, you can do the next best thing. Buy the main ingredient of those products at a pharmacy.
Having gone through a stubborn cyano outbreak myself due to high nutrient levels (my fault - tap water) and not wanting to wait six months, I flushed out my system with "new" water and then used Erythromycin to kill the cyano. I did so by turning off the skimmer and removing any carbon that was in use. Then having bought 500mg tablets at the pharmacy for about 16 cents each, I plopped a few into my system and within the week, all cyano was gone. I then did more water changes until the skimmer was running normaly and put the carbon back into use. After another week, I changed out the carbon and have not seen cyano since.
Not knowing the "dosage" I beleive I went far overboard with how many pills added, since then I found out that one 500mg pill per 100 gallons of water will do the job as others have tried it as well. I never saw any issues with any other parameter and any and all inverts, pods, worms, corals and fish never missed a beat and came through it as if I had done nothing.
Please keep in mind that this should be a one time thing and not to be relied upon as a constant or frequent use method.

Chuck

[drives300]

My reccomendation

Do a 20 percent WC

Shut lights off for 3 days. Cyano will be gone. No corals will be harmed.

Anthony

[Macimage]

Kevin,

Do you know why the red slime remover you posted is not for sale in Calif.?

Just curious,
Joyce

[Anemone]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11366215#post11366215 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Macimage
Kevin,

Do you know why the red slime remover you posted is not for sale in Calif.?

Just curious,
Joyce

Nope. I've gone to other sites and seen it advertised without the California qualification. I've also bought it at a LFS, so I don't know where that "not in California" qualification came from.

Kevin

[useskaforevil]

one more time:!

" just a heads up, doing 4 25% water changes isnt a 100% waterchange. its more like a 68.5% water change. lolz kthnxbi."

[Justin James]

About the 3 day water change idea... I did this and it actually did kill a couple of my sps and harmed many of my corals. I recommend a 2 day lights out. The third day seems to be a breaking point.. well at least in my system anyways...

[pdfb55]

I wouldn't think that 3 days with no light would kill your corals. There was a thread of the month a while back and some people said they were doing 5 days with no lights with no ill effects. Maybe your ph could have dropped with the lights off? If it really was the lighting I wonder if 2 days with no lights followed by like a week or so with only a few hours of light would work.

Another idea could be increasing your magnesium slowly. I remimber reading another thread where the guy increased his magnesium to around 1350 ppm if I remimber correctly (i would search for it but you guys know how that goes... i really need to get a premium membership). I know high magnesium supresses some algae but i'm not sure about cyano. Look in to it, it may work.

[datablitz]

you can also dose maracyn, followed by a water change 3 days later. use the freshwater version. dose according to the package. you skimmer will go nuts, but it is fairly effective.

[taku]

just my opinion... I've had my 120gal reef running since 2001... but about every 10months I replace my 250w halides... and about at the 9 month mark, I start getting cyano growing with no different feeding habits or variations in water and what not. Each time this happens I log into marinedepot.com and order replacement bulbs and within 2-3 weeks the cyano is gone after I insert the new bulbs.

A lot of things cause cyano bacteria, in my case my tank is stable with no inhabitant changes etc and and to verify my water wasn't causing it I recently (3 weeks ago) replaced my RO/DI unit filters/cartridges. The cyano is increasing. But like clockwork, it'll be gone in a few weeks.