low riderr
New member
pros vs cons anybody?
continous waterchanges
- Thread starter low riderr
- Start date
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
Pros
- can be hands off
- represents the ultimate in stability, as levels will more or less remain constant (or at least, change at constant rates) vs. changing in large amounts with each water change
Cons:
-Will be slightly less efficient in terms of salt/water use, you're basically "throwing away" some of your new water.
-Not, IME, a full replacement for "traditional" water changes where you manually siphon water from the system
-Depending on your system design, there are lots of opportunities for this sort of technique to caue major problems (equipment failure on one of these systems can mean disaster).
The second "con" is really my biggest gripe. I did a nearly continuous auto water change system on my big tank for a while. It was nice becuse it was hands off, but I found myself having to manually siphon detritus, algae, cyano, etc. out on a regular basis anyways so it kind of made the automation a moot point. I guess what it boils down to is understanding exactly why you do water changes. If your system lets you literally do them to change the water, then go for it. But if you have a system where detritus builds up under rocks, or on the sandbed, or anything like that, and you're currently siphoning it out during manual water changes, you'll probably still have to do that anyways.
- can be hands off
- represents the ultimate in stability, as levels will more or less remain constant (or at least, change at constant rates) vs. changing in large amounts with each water change
Cons:
-Will be slightly less efficient in terms of salt/water use, you're basically "throwing away" some of your new water.
-Not, IME, a full replacement for "traditional" water changes where you manually siphon water from the system
-Depending on your system design, there are lots of opportunities for this sort of technique to caue major problems (equipment failure on one of these systems can mean disaster).
The second "con" is really my biggest gripe. I did a nearly continuous auto water change system on my big tank for a while. It was nice becuse it was hands off, but I found myself having to manually siphon detritus, algae, cyano, etc. out on a regular basis anyways so it kind of made the automation a moot point. I guess what it boils down to is understanding exactly why you do water changes. If your system lets you literally do them to change the water, then go for it. But if you have a system where detritus builds up under rocks, or on the sandbed, or anything like that, and you're currently siphoning it out during manual water changes, you'll probably still have to do that anyways.
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