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Water changes
- Thread starter joeb558
- Start date
Really I think to answer that question you need to know how much your corals are depleting your trace elements and the only way to do that is by testing your water.... Some corals like Sps will deplete these faster then softies & Lps so every tank is going to be different...so after 2 weeks if your parameters are changing a lot doing a bigger water change may swing the parameters possible causing more bad then good... I am by no way an advanced aquarist this is just my thoughts maybe others will chime in to confirm.
How does your tank look?
When we had our smaller tanks (57g and under) we were pretty religious with %10 weekly changes. Small and steady can only help you in this hobby. Now that we have a 400g system with a calcium reactor we don't have to be quite so crazy. We do 65g every 2-3 weeks depending on our schedule.
When we had our smaller tanks (57g and under) we were pretty religious with %10 weekly changes. Small and steady can only help you in this hobby. Now that we have a 400g system with a calcium reactor we don't have to be quite so crazy. We do 65g every 2-3 weeks depending on our schedule.
Thanks All for the reply. The tank looks good. The only reason I asked is I actually calculated the amount of water I have been changing. I originally thought I was doing 20% but came to find it was actually 30%. I am in the process of gradually switching salt brands from Reef Crystals to Aquavitro so was forced to do some calculations. I may switch my regiment from 30% every two weeks to 10-15% every week. I'll have to think about that. Thanks for the links Jim. Good read for sure. I'll need a while to digest all of that.
I actually just changed to a smaller weekly water change. Overall it will be larger monthly thou. I am going from 30gallons bi weekly to 20 gallons weekly.
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malulu
NJRC Member
I've been using a LitterMetter-III ( dosing pumps ) to do auto water changes for more than 2+ years...
- total of 400g of water
- (pump-1) It will draw 3 gals daily to the drain - spread out to ---> 3 gals / (24 hours * 60 mins) ==> 0.002 gals per minute.
- right after the water drain, (pump-2) the same amount of fresh salt water will be re-fill back in
- all i need is refill the 40g fresh salt water every 2 weeks.
- at the same time the auto-top-off of fresh water are running all day long.
- total of 400g of water
- (pump-1) It will draw 3 gals daily to the drain - spread out to ---> 3 gals / (24 hours * 60 mins) ==> 0.002 gals per minute.
- right after the water drain, (pump-2) the same amount of fresh salt water will be re-fill back in
- all i need is refill the 40g fresh salt water every 2 weeks.
- at the same time the auto-top-off of fresh water are running all day long.
I don't think you can do too many gallons on a water change. Personally I do about 5 gallons a week(about 10%), just enough to siphon up as much detritus as possible.
I was thinking of changing to a weekly regiment. I am a bit of a maintenance freak so it works for me. My concern is how long the salt mix can stay in the pail. I keep it covered in my garage. Typically I'll make the ro add salt and agitate and heat the water for a day or two prior to the water change . I guess the question is could i mix a large batch and keep it in the pail for 3-4 weeks without any ill effects.
How do you automate this? This is something I would love to do.
You can not use a float switch because that would interfere with you autotop off, Right? correct?. OOO I AM EXCITED TO HEAR YOUR METHOD!!!
I have thought about this a couple times and could not figure a out a way to do it where I would add to much salt water....
Most tanks thrive with weekly water changes.
There are four major things that I think you would need to be aware of here:
1. oxygenation
2. evaporation
3.temp
4. precipitation
These are solved pretty simply.
1. Mix in a bucket with a lid. Keep lid on. (Eliminate evap problem)
2. Keep a heater in the bucket constantly. (Eliminate temp problem)
3. keep a powerhead in the bucket constantly. (Eliminate oxygination problem and most of the precipitation problem)
Alternatively, mix your water, use your weekly portion, unplug the heater & powerhead. Put a top on that bucket. 6 days later, take the top off, and plug in that heater and powerhead. This should work just as well, just remember to give that water enough time to get up to temp and to get oxyginated again. That said, we mix salt water, and pour it into 5g jugs for our water changes on our 12g. 1 jug takes about 1 month to empty. We leave the sealed jug in the room where the 12g is, and we don't circulate that water or add in a heater. Keep in mind that this is a BAD idea, we have been lucky that our lazyness has not hurt that tank.
That's sounds like excellent advise and I will absolutely follow it. I'll start this weekend and let you know what the out come is after a month or so. Glad to here I can store the water over an extended period. BTW. This is all in preparation to start trying my hand at some acros. Right now i have mostly LPS in my tank and they are all thriving. Fingers crossed.
I went from every other week to weekly and have been very happy with the results. I make the water through my RODI, into a container with a lid, heater and power head. I have a hose on the powerhead that i clip to the top of the bucket to create oxygenation and mixing of salt. I usually make the water, get it to temp, add salt and let it sit overnight, water change the next day. For me a weekly change is what is in my sump so I stop my return pumps and drain the entire sump, clean it and then refill it.
I plan on going to the automated system with a liter meter that others have listed just have not done so as of yet.
I plan on going to the automated system with a liter meter that others have listed just have not done so as of yet.
I like the idea of changing water through the sump.My problem with that is I have a corner tank and can only fit a 10 gal tank under the stand. At most after the tank drains I only have about 6 gallons in the sump. My skimmer takes up half the space or more. The good news is I still having great results with such a small sump and I really like the corner tank.
malulu
NJRC Member
How do you automate this? This is something I would love to do.
You can not use a float switch because that would interfere with you autotop off, Right? correct?. OOO I AM EXCITED TO HEAR YOUR METHOD!!!
I have thought about this a couple times and could not figure a out a way to do it where I would add to much salt water....
- the LitterMeterIII pump i got have 3 pumps... i only using TWO of them.
- they are high precision pump, so when i set it as 3 gals a day they would be pretty much accurate... ( they should be recalibrate every six months or so, only took about 5 mins to do)
- pump-1 connect from sump to drain
- pump-2 connect from fresh salt water to sump
they are nothing special about it...
Peter (fisheye) convince me that the auto top off with floating switch would not make the water more salty or less salty ( same salinity )
one more advantage to doing it constantly... i don't need to cares about the fresh salt water being too cold, as it only draw 0.002 gals of water to exchanged per minutes... not like big water changes, you will need to make sure the new water are the same temperature as your tank water.
if you would like to stop by to check it out or need more details, PM me your contact info, i can call you to explain.
i lives about 3 miles away from OceanGallaryII and/or RedSand (now called FengReef)
Do you pump water in first so it does not effect your ato? Then pump it out?
Or do both pumps work at the same time?
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Or do both pumps work at the same time?
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Litermeter pump systems calculate the amount you want added or taken out over a 24 hr period. First one pump turns on and when finished, the next one will. As Malulu stated his is doing .003 gallons a minute. Or 3 gallons a day. With a 130 g sump, there is no way the Litermeter will trip the top off because it is such a minuscule amount of water being pumped. If you think about it, you can probably take a whole gallon out of that big of a sump and hardly see the water level drop. Hope you understand......maybe Malulu will explain some more
I may try this.. I have a dosing pump that has 6 pumps total and am currently only using 3 of them. Not sure what the max amount of water I can have it do. 2-3gallons would be nice.
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Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
malulu
NJRC Member
