waterchange routine

[davejnz]

How often does everyone actually do a waterchange?What percentage of the tank's volume do you change out?

[lReef lKeeper]

i do a water change usually once every month, and it is about a 20% change out because i don't keep a lot of fish. in the fish only tank it is about 25% on the same day as the reef tank.

[segraves1]

never......I used to do water changes (since I have no skimmer or "filter" on the 20gal....just ~20lbs of live rock and ~35-40lbs of live sand) but have since noticed that everything seems to be very happy with the higher nutriant levels (feather dusters, macros, etc.) and neither the zoanthids nor even the anemone seem to mind the setup (the nitrate levels are 0).....so why bother......I'll be setting up a 110gal (~180gal total system volume) soon that will have a skimmer but will still rely mostly on live rock, sand, and macros (will have probubly 150lbs of live rock and 200lbs of sand in the total system).....

[jerryc]

I change out 6 gallon each week used to do the one time a month but
seams like ever thing is happier with the smaller changes

[Dirt4dinner]

I do 1 tall drinking glass a day in the nano. And then I am planning on monthly changes to the 70 gallon, some where in the neighborhood of 20-30%.

[Reptoreef]

I'm just too lazy... hardly ever, but Sat I may have time to do a 30 gl... the girls will be on a trip and it's just gonna be me alone.

[Sweetpea]

I want do a water change once a week, but I usually don't get it done that frequently. I voted for every two weeks because that's more along the lines of how often I actually do it.:rolleyes:

I forgot to add if it is the usual 2 weeks, I do a 20-30% change (10-20% for a weekly change).

[perpetual98]

I TRY to change 20-25 gallons in my 120G tanks every other weekend, but sometimes they go a month between changes when I'm particularly lazy. When I'm dialed in, I do the 20-25G change every weekend on one of the tanks. I usually can get a few gallons changed out on the frag farm every weekend too. I generally have about 30G of fresh saltwater at my disposal.

[peregrinus]

The only time i do any water change is when i put water in a cooler to take stuff to the LFS and place it..

[chrisl1]

I don't see a reason if your parameters are good, I think the last one I did was almost a year ago,the less I mess with the tank the better it does, all of my corals are doing quite well, all i do is clean my skimmer add topoff water, calcium, strontium , molybidium and purple up. It seems to be working for me.

[spookey]

i do a 20% water change every two weeks cuz im trying to make my tank a little better every week

[mutts]

i take a little under 5 gal out every two weeks... well that is the plan all though it hardly ever works, it is usulay about once a month

[unleashed]

How often does everyone actually do a waterchange?What percentage of the tank's volume do you change out? my normal water change is roughly 25% weekly along with changing of filter media.although my 300 gal gets about 40 gal water change weekly plus daily top offs of aprox 5 gal per day( my tanks are very heavily stocked)

[graphixx]

I try to keep it to twice a month. the 92 gallon gets 30 gallons changed out. the 50 gets 20 gallons and the grow tanks get 40 gallons changed out every 2 weeks approx.

[jojo22]

2 gal once a month

[davejnz]

I voted hardly ever,alhtough i have seen some positive effects with routine waterchanges.If your not able to keep this routine up than i no longer feel the need to do this.I agree with Chris,the less i do/add to the tank,the better the tank seems.The one thing i do though is to replace all skimmate with saltwater.I feel this replenishes whatever trace elements/salts the skimmer removes.

[segraves1]

The one thing i do though is to replace all skimmate with saltwater.I feel this replenishes whatever trace elements/salts the skimmer removes.

wouldn't that slowly result in salinity going up?

[Reason]

I change about 15 gal with natural filtered sea water every month. I over skim and I use alot of LR. My filter consists of 2200 gph to 300 lbs of LR. I do not use a refugum and I do not dose my tank. Natural sea water seems to be enough. My tank has been matained this way for over a year and four months. Never lost an animal. My advise to all new comers is to study your tank. If you notice even the slitest change find out why. Persistance and patience will pay off in this hobby.

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

On my 125 I change 30G every Sunday. On the 65G sea horse tank I change 15 - 20G every sat. or sunday depending on how the sh tank looks. On my 12G nano, I change 2G every Saturday. On the new tank I'm setting up (erectus tank) 47G I will change 15G every Sunday when it gets to that point. It's still dry though, so I that's 1 less for now. :) My water bill runs 300.00 every 3 months from the RO/di top offs and water changes. Can you guess what my electric bill runs, lol??? ;)

[davejnz]

wouldn't that slowly result in salinity going up?
It has kept S.G. steady for me,its not unusual for me to pull 14-16oz of skimmate a day from my 40breeder.I was curious one day so i decided to test the S.G. of skimmate,ever since i've been doing this.I'm sure the S.G. is highly variable depending on the type/consistency of skimmate.With larger systems or those that do frequent water changes,its probably not necessary to do this.With smaller tanks,S.G. can quickly drop when your removeing approx a gallon a week or skimmate IME

[Tam]

i change 10% every week although i guess i am just being to by the book just now everything seems fine with that so best stick with it.

[dsfdbutterfly]

Ok, I held off responding for as long as I could cuz you all know I get long winded but here it goes.

If you must know I change the water once a week. I don't think the amount of water matters much but I do a 10% water change. The reason I do this isn't because I wasn't of the theory of things are good leave it along. Did that for many years and never had a problem except nitrates actually. The thing is that once I did start doing a weekly water change amazing things started happening in my tank. This was in the fish only too so just imagine what happens in a reef tank when you add new water for all those corals. My fish brightened. The emperor angel began changing colors and at a much faster rate than before. They became more active and "appeared" happier. Now everytime I do a water change almost every one of my fish will take a turn under the water fall. You can't tell me it isn't beneficial just like a spring rain for all the flowers. Is it necessary, probably not but if I don't do it once a week I will get lazy and push it off longer and longer so I have to stick to this schedule.

For my reef tank I have always done a 10% water change and I think it has helped stable my levels as well as lead to some of the growth I've seen in some of my corals. Just a theory as I am new to the reef and not done it any other way. After every change though everything is brighter, happier and healthier. The water isn't off beforehand so I know nothing is being corrected by this and I don't think that anything would suffer if I didn't do these water changes. I do think that things do benefit from them however so I keep to the system.

Angie

[jerryc]

Angie i will go along with that. Is it necessary? no... Is it benafishel
abesalotle........................................ .......................

[tileman]

I change 10 gallons a week in my 65 g. Makes a world of difference.