Big system, How much is your water change

sfsuphysics said:
I do about 30g whenever I have the time... which is every month or so on my 200g system (less volume than that).

And to hijack the hijacker ;). Trace elements? What's that? :D Major elements? Hate to break it to you, unless you do a 100% water change every time where you drain all the water then put new stuff in you will never get back all the major elements that were depleted, you need to dose to keep those up. Water changes should be used to keep nutrient levels down, not replenish minerals in your system.
Click to expand...

Trace elements.... such as iodine, strontium, iron, potassium, Boron, chloride, sulfur, Boric Acid, Fluoride, Zinc, manganese, ect .... are you telling me you add all of these??? I do not, and rely on water changes to "replenish: these as well as tons of others found in our mixes that do not come close to true natural sea water constituents (most of them are much higher). If you dose these I hope you test for all of them, and kudos to you for doing so. Please let me know the target ranges as I don't believe most of them have been established or are even known.

I do not do 100% water changes, as that would likely throw the system into shock because there would be such a shift in the concentrations of all the different elements contained in the water as well as plankton, phytoplankton levels, ect. The point of water changes is not only to keep nutrient levels down... if so... why do people running UNLS's still change water they have virtually no "nutrients" (N and P) to speak of....

There have been several studies and hypothesis on what we are arguing right now... some for it,... some total against water changes...reasons for them... ect....take on some reading...many people employing both methods with success. Make up your mind for yourself....I have no further reason to argue the point, I have established my viewpoint, not to argue but to encourage further learning, with an open mind.

An article written by Randy Holmes-Farley
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

http://web.archive.org/web/20030608...om/fish2/aqfm/1999/mar/features/1/default.asp

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/t_brightbill_wc.html

I believe the point of this thread was to establish everyone's maintenance schedule for water changes....I apologize!

:sad1:

~Obi
 
Obi, The point of this thread was to see everyone's maintenance schedule and be amazed at the size system as well as amounts changed. I am new to my 400g system so I have not set a schedule as of yet. I also know in this hobby what works for one may not work for another. On my 120 I used to do 25% every month or 2 depending on conditions, Did I feed heavily, stir the sand, blow the rock, Things like this may have prompted me to do a change earlier.

As far as replenishing elements, I believe that you will replenish them with a new batch of salt, but never to the amount of newly mixed water and the only way to get there would be to dose or do a 100% water change. I can honestly say that I have had a mixed reef for about 5 years with out dosing or even testing. Maybe I was lucky, maybe I could have had better results, but I did have decent growth with pale colors and was happy with it. I actually had better results when NOT fussing over the tank conditions.

Evap water can definitely fool people who may not know better so the comment was a valid one. I have heard too many newbies counting their top off water as a water change. A water change is to export bad things in the water and bring the water params around to better numbers. Simply adding top off water never exports and the dirty water just keeps compounding and I'm sure would eventually crash.

I now have the 400g system with 200 as my display, still mixed reef, but I am striving to better it, Hence this post wondering what others do. Thanks for all of your inputs please keep them coming.

Tazmaniancowboy
 
Water changes should be used to keep nutrient levels down, not replenish minerals in your system.
Click to expand...

And, actually, water changes are a really, really expensive way to keep nutrient levels down. If you have a big tank, you should be ready with big deep sand beds and big algae filters, IMO. Algae filters especially are really good at sucking the nutrients out.
 
Yeah I'm not going to derail this thread any further than I have already :)

And just for the record I'm NOT against water changes.
 
"Umm said:
And, actually, water changes are a really, really expensive way to keep nutrient levels down. If you have a big tank, you should be ready with big deep sand beds and big algae filters, IMO. Algae filters especially are really good at sucking the nutrients out.
Click to expand...

Andy, my tank has 4 inches of sand already, what kind of big algae filters are you talking about. When it all boils down, my personal intent is to see what works for others and to adopt a procedure to keep salt and making of water costs down a little.

Sfs, I am sure you are not against waterchanges, you brought up a perfectly valid point. I do believe this is one of many reasons as to why we post on these boards, to feel out and learn from others.

Taz
 
...with the past few comments....

Currently I use 80% of my sump as a chaeto/live rock filter. I have a 120 gallon I am waiting on a good time to get it plumbed in to the system. It has a 6inch suger fine sand bed and will e used to house sea lettuce, gracillera and maybe some brotycladia. The 120 will drain into a 40 gallon "sub" sump before draining back into the main sump. the sub sump will have nothing but chaeto and the main sump will be changed into LR and frags
only. I hopw this will allow my 45 gallon water changes to be sufficient.

Method of water change: I use a 45 gallon brute trash can to mix Ro/Di with salt and any supplements needed to match display water. currently I have to pump forty five gallons out of the sump and then pump the new water into the sump. When the new sub sump and fuge is online I will utilize the sub sumps built in drain to drain off the water and the submersible pump in the brute can to fill it back up. I did a bad job of designeing the sump by putting it on the floor instead of a platform, makes siphoning hard. Keep this in mind if you plan to put the sump on the floor.

For those of you working with infinite budgets,.... the daily seas is an awesome solution to water changes
 
I'm not sure why i do 160gl of W/C a month, other than IME my tank does better when i do. I believe it must be from adding elements mostly, or maybe it's all in my mind. I'm certainly not exporting much in the way of nutrients that i know of, as my N03 is undetectable and my P04 is less than 0.03. For nutrient export i have live rock, big skimmer, 125gl refugium with 6" of sand and chaeto, a big Carbon rx and big P04 rx. If nutrients were a problem i wouldn't even thik of increasing W/Cs, i'd increase P04 rx changes and maybe add a sulfer rx, or feed my fish less.
 
what kind of big algae filters are you talking about.
Click to expand...

Doesn't particularly matter. Someplace other than your display where life is really, really good for algae. Lots of people use lots of different methods, but it's all really just putting something into your system (like algae) that uses the waste products of animals and of food decay as energy to live on and giving whatever it is a good home (little or no predation and good light for algae, for example). There are lots of fancy "systems" for that, but it boils down to being a really simple concept.

I would also put a DSB someplace other than your display if you can. Do a search for "RDSB" (remote DSB). It's just another place where you can get rid of nutrients, and if there are ever any problems with it you can take it offline and change the sand or whatever. I use a 90 gal. tank in my fishroom for that. If you think about it, a DSB is really just a refugium for things other than algae (bacteria and small critters) that use the waste products of fish and food decay as energy to live. So, it's all just the same concept in the end. Whether you are packing the nutrients into algae (hand trimming) or bacteria for removal (skimming), or even a population of microbrittle stars doesn't really matter. The point is just to constantly get rid of some portions of whatever in your system is storing nutrients, keeping the population of whatever it is in a fast-growth phase.
 
Hi all

I make a 80 gal wc every 4 to 6 weeks for a 660 gal total volume

My refugium is 80gal filled with a DSB and Chetomorfa under direct sunlight (i live in Caracas), I trim a discard over a bucket of cheto a week

Heavy skimming and plenty of live rock does the rest

Nitrates and Phosphate are undetectable

regards

Claudio
 
Hi

What is daily seas?....

Thanks
Mo


obiwanthegoby said:
...with the past few comments....

Currently I use 80% of my sump as a chaeto/live rock filter. I have a 120 gallon I am waiting on a good time to get it plumbed in to the system. It has a 6inch suger fine sand bed and will e used to house sea lettuce, gracillera and maybe some brotycladia. The 120 will drain into a 40 gallon "sub" sump before draining back into the main sump. the sub sump will have nothing but chaeto and the main sump will be changed into LR and frags
only. I hopw this will allow my 45 gallon water changes to be sufficient.

Method of water change: I use a 45 gallon brute trash can to mix Ro/Di with salt and any supplements needed to match display water. currently I have to pump forty five gallons out of the sump and then pump the new water into the sump. When the new sub sump and fuge is online I will utilize the sub sumps built in drain to drain off the water and the submersible pump in the brute can to fill it back up. I did a bad job of designeing the sump by putting it on the floor instead of a platform, makes siphoning hard. Keep this in mind if you plan to put the sump on the floor.

For those of you working with infinite budgets,.... the daily seas is an awesome solution to water changes
Click to expand...
 
In short it automates changing your water. You can control how much is changed and how often or make it continuous all day long.... check out the reefkeeping artical on it:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-04/pr/index.php

One of the tank of the months utilized one, I checked into them when I read the artical back then they ran around $3000 though....neat piece of equipment.

Obi
 
mm949 said:
tank is 1350gls, 125gl fuge, 125gl sump....basicly i drain 80gls from the fuge maybe 3x times a year in needed
Click to expand...

i agree
i change my 30 gallons every six months on my 400 gallon system if that!
soi can used it for my skimmerless cowfish tank.
 
Obi, you are correct. My original post didn't say, but later I say I have a mixed reef. I am curious as to large reef system maintenance/waterchange schedules!

Taz
 
I have a 210 gallon sps tank with a 55 refugium/sump and I do a 80% water change once a year or less. For $80 the LFS will do the water change for me. It's been up and running for a little over 3 years.
 
Love to hear what everyone is doing on water changes.

I have 700 gal reef system with a small handful of fish I change one brute trashcan 40-50gal every 45 days
add 5gal every day for evaporation

I figure with the large volume less water changes are needed
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

M
How everything change and keeps changing
2
Replies
21
Views
517
MCReef1420
M
J
How much calcium is in my tap water?
Replies
2
Views
409
jlongeuay
J
R
How to simplify my dosing?
Replies
1
Views
581
Vinny Kreyling
Vinny Kreyling
D
how often do you feed your tank?
Replies
9
Views
556
Dustin07
D
Paul B
Think like a fish
Replies
1
Views
135
Vinny Kreyling
Vinny Kreyling
Back
Top