How often to do water changes?

[SCreeferGuy]

So my tank is 2 months old, and only have a few LPS corals, few snails and an emerald crab. Have 2 clowns in QT.

So my question is, how often should I be doing water changes at this point? My nitrates have been around 2, no ammonia, and everything seems to be doing OK. Have been ghost feeding pellets daily and giving mysis to LPS a couple times a week.

Should I wait for nitrates to rise, or just change 10 % every 2 weeks?

A second question - had a population of pods running around in tank, but they have disappeared. No chaeto algae in fuge...

Are they supposed to die off, or is that a sign of something I should be doing differently..?

Thanks for the help!

 

[shesacharmer]

There is nothing in your tank right now that's really depleting anything. Keep an eye on your Nitrates and do a change if they rise at all. Unless you are planning to raise Acros and other difficult SPS then having a little bit of nitrates doesn't hurt and may actually benefit other species of coral. I'm surprised about the pods though are you sure they aren't just out of sight? My pods have gone crazy with no fish in the tank.

 

[SCreeferGuy]

I think there must be some still in there too - I used to see them swimming around in the mornig when the lights come on, but haven't lately.

 

[m0nkie]

pods population will bloom and die off.. the # depends on the amount of food they have.

I do water change every 2 weeks. I have a lot of softies and lps corals. got a lot of coralline growing too. They use a ton of Alk. when i slacked off for 4 weeks once, my parameters (alk, cal, mag) were all very low.

 

[Timfish]

I like 5% to 10% weekly.

http://youtu.be/Vs_etaHSOfQ

http://youtu.be/5AnmQXmE8d0

http://youtu.be/_Uf5IyXvajg

http://youtu.be/-eCQSVdqBQA

 

[SFish]

What are PODs? What do they do?

 

[SCreeferGuy]

Pods = short for copepods. They are plankton. Little - like just a millimeter long. Are food for some fish (mandarins), and lots of young fish.

 

[SFish]

Thanks

 

[ampemployee1]

I do a 15% water change weekly. I'll usually put the filter bags on, siphon rocks and sand bed, use a power head to blow detritus from the rocks, let the water clear, then do the water change, then remove the filter bags (200 micron). I don't consider myself an advanced reefer, but over the last 10+ years of keeping saltwater systems, I've had the best results with weekly, partial water changes.

With your bioload, you probably can skip the siphoning, and just stick with water changes. I have my autofeeder feeding my fat fish 4x per day. They poop alot :eek1:

 

[lllesley]

I do them every 4-6 weeks and do 250 liters (20%.) I dose for the big 3 to keep everything stable. I test all parameters once a week and if all is good that is my schedule. I always have 250l of water ready to go just in case of emergency but crossing fingers haven't had use yet. I honestly think it depends so much on your stocking levels & system you running that there is not one answer except do what works for you.