how do you change your water

[reeferlover]

i did my first wc tonight and it wasnt fun. i have added some equipment and just didnt plan well. my tank is young and i plan on just having sps. i shut off return pump and took 10gal of water from the display. i heated and had a mag 7 in my new salt water. got temp and sal to match. then turned the return back on and added the new water to the sump to mix with the display. how does everyone change their water? do u pull from sump or display and where do u add the water. im thinking about setting up a way thats much easier and i dont want to shock my tank especially with the sps plan

 

[Patrick Cox]

I just use a gravel vac and buckets. Would love a more automated way if possible. Will tag along!

 

[SpinyReef]

I plug a maxijet in my auto-topoff outlet and drain the water from the main tank. As I drain water, the maxijet kicks-in and fills the sump. Doing that is much more simple, but you end up removing a bit of your newly mixed water, but you're certain you won't overflow your sump.

 

[DopeCantWin]

I'm building a 210 system. Under the 210 there's a 125 split into 3 compartments. Sump(85g), New Salt Water(20g), Used Salt Water(20g). There are pumps between these compartments in order to do the water change. In the end I envision it will take 5 minutes of work and some sitting around to do a water change. No bucket lifting. The used salt water container will also be used as a quarantine.

 

[jda]

Mix up 33G in a Rubbermaid Brute. Mag 12 and a garden hose to drain tank to the "33G down" line (marked on the glass with a sharpie). Put the Mag 12 into brute and fill up tank.

Easy as pie for the tanks in the basement. In the tank upstairs, I pass the hose through a floor HVAC vent right next to the tank. The Mag 12 can handle the 12-14 feet, or so, of head.

 

[jda]

...oh, and if my shop vac is not otherwise indisposed, I let the return pump drain the sump into the tank and I vac all of the junk/debris out of the sump. Every few months, I vac the inside of the skimmer bodies out too.

 

[reeferlover]

oh ok. i like the idea of plugging in a large pump to my ato. but i was worried about losing new water. hmmmmm. keep this going guys. it was very stressful. my sump filled up and my skimmer went nuts. then filling my waste collector it was a disaster. haha i am going to setup a 15gal i have lying around and i have a large pump like a rio of some kind. i was going to have the saltwater run for a day or so before i change. i dont need too much water. im trying to keep my satibilty and large changes cause quick swings. so i was thinking 15gal tops on my 100 gal system

dopecantwait can you post pics?

 

[dotcommer]

Interesting, I like hearing about the different ways people do it.

 

[dankreef]

Do yourself a favor fast. Buy a pump and like 50-100ft of hose. Put the pump in your tank/xternal is better & pump out set amount to ta trash can sitting next to another trash can of ready salt water. Take out as much as you made. Take pump out of tank put in new water trash can put hose in tank turn pump on and relax. Next best thing is even if its a 10gallon tank get a auto top off you will never regret it. 200$ tunze setup comes with everything you need.

 

[reeferlover]

ok i have a ATO with the JBJ ato with a BRS 50ml/min pump. the ato is all good. i have a brute trash can 55 gal for my RO top off water. I usually make the water and have it pumped and heated til clear and temp matching for WC. my question is how to make the water change, change as little as possible about my water. the alk cal and mag mainly. i know my parameters and they stay stable. working to get my mag up a little though. i want to know how people do water changes on large systems. my tank is in the basement but my sump is just outside the room through the wall. so no matter what i have to carry water up the stairs.

 

[jda]

I drain the water off of the top and fill back up into the display. If you change water often enough, and otherwise supplement as necessary, then the water params will be very close. The coral should not retract or slime when you do it. Every few changes, I pump the sump nearly dry (into the tank) and wet vac it.

 

[damac20]

I have half inch drain that I plumbed a piece of PVC that Is measured sl it will drain only 30 gallons from my display tank which I have on a ball valve on the bulk head. then there is a union that is hooked up to a hose that I run out to the drive way and just let gravity do the work. Once it's drained 30 gallons I have a mag 9 that pumps the new water back to the tank. It's about as automated as I can make it, I love it and since I made this I haven't used a bucket for a water change.

 

[alazo1]

My set up is semi automated. 2 brutes in the laundry room with a mag 5 pump.
3/4" pvc plumbed to display (about 60'). The display is against an exterior wall so I plumbed a 1 1/2" abs to drain outside in a gravel bed on the side yard.

As for the pictures, the first is the laundry room with the 2 brutes. There's only one pump on the flexible line so I can drop it in either brute. Ball valves direct to either go to the display or the other brute to make salt water. The pump is controlled with a remote switch I got from a local hardware store.


Second picture. The incoming pvc line is tied into the drain.
1. Water from laundry room enters
2. Water goes to sump
3. Used to bleed stale water to drain
4. This one is connected to a powerhead that drains the tank water
5. Connection to drain (see other picture for detail)

Albert

 

[AdamDeMamp]

I have a 55g and when I do mine I shut off the ato, return pump, top powerheads. A dj rack makes this easier. I drain 10g from sump and 10g from display using a siphon into a big trash can. I have new water in 5 gallon water jugs ready and I just pour new water into the sump and turn everything back on. Only takes 15-20 mins to do everything.

 

[keithhays]

I have two 55-gallon plastic drums. One is RODI and the other is saltwater. The two are plumbed together with a pump in the middle. The RODI is ATO with a float. The saltwater tank is connected to two BRS 50ml pumps that are controlled via a reefkeeper which turns both on for 16 minutes every hour. Roughly every two weeks I refill the saltwater tanks from the RODI and mix new saltwater. This does roughly a 50% water change per month on a a little over 300 gallons.

 

[reeferlover]

see i like the BRS pumps for changes. maybe i could do something like that. i like the automation. i will be getting another brute can. and go from there loving these ideas though thanks alot everyone. of course i was on my way out of town right before the WC so extra stressful. lol. i had recently had a small tang disappear and didnt want any ill effects dont know why it died it was very healthy my first loss

 

[dotcommer]

I have my tank in the basement as well. Right now the system that I currently use. I have my salt water mixing station in my garage it consists of two 55 gallon drums. One drum holds Rodi And the other drum holds saltwater. I have an internal pump inside the salt water drum. I have 100 feet of hose with 100 feet of extension cord cable attached to it. At the end of the hose I have a switch that allows me to turn the internal pump on and off.

I turn off my skimmer, I turn off my sump return pump and let the water drain from my tank into my sump. I have a sink next to the tank that i siphon the water into. Then i pump the water from my garage to the tank.

 

[RickMartin]

For sps I have found it important to remove as much detritus as possible. I use a gravel vac and siphon into a brute trash can with the wheel adapter on the bottom. The brute on wheels is a real time saver and can't imagine not using it. As soon as the return starts blowing air I unplug it, skimmer turns off when level in sump gets to high via Apex. I pump the water out into the toilet and take the can outside to rinse out the solids.
Fresh saltwater is pre mixed in a 55g drum. For the tank close enough to premix station I have a 50 ft polyethylene tubing with a mag pump and fill to desired level. For tanks farther away I use the rolling trash can and fill it up to approximate level of the water that was removed.

 

[keithhays]

see i like the BRS pumps for changes. maybe i could do something like that. i like the automation. i will be getting another brute can. and go from there loving these ideas though thanks alot everyone. of course i was on my way out of town right before the WC so extra stressful. lol. i had recently had a small tang disappear and didnt want any ill effects dont know why it died it was very healthy my first loss

It does make sure the job gets done. The one thing I did have to account for is that when most people change their water they are sucking up any detritus when they do it. The automated system of course will not do that, so I had designed the whole system with this in mind. Which means I have next to no sand in my tanks, all of the filters are way over kill, and once a week there is an automated storm in all tanks including the sumps so that the physical filtration and protein skimmer can do their thing.

 

[droth335]

We have a semi-automated system that at least eliminates carrying any buckets since we do a 25gal/week water change and use about 15 gal of top off (that would be 8 buckets per week).

To do a water change we have a python vac with a 50' hose and use that to remove tank water. We have 2 brute trashcans - 1 with RO water and 1 with saltwater. For adding new SW to tank and RO water to top off we have a pump with 15' head and 50' of the braided flexible hose and use a remote outlet switch to be able to turn the pump on/off from the tank. We rinse the pump out by pumping 5 gallons of tap water through it after it has been in saltwater. This works well for us since our fish room is in the basement and 210 is on main level and was not an option to have a basement sump (my first choice).