Water change amount

[ErosJN]

For you guys that have large tanks, what percentage and how often are your water changes? I'm sure it varies greatly from different people but just trying to get a general idea. I've slacked over a several month period and for the last month or so I've been doing 50 gal changes weekly on a 210. I have around 200 lbs of LR and maybe 250-300 lbs of LS. So total water might be 150 with sump included... That's around 33% water change weekly, am I doing more harm than good?

 

[Safir]

This is a big "it depends," of course.

me the questions would be what salt are you using, do you have anything to maintain calcium, alk, etc, and what ki,d of bio load and what sort of coral do you have?

I'm my 125 (estimated 15p gallon water volume) I fou,d that once I started dosing 2 part water changes starting doi,g more harm than good for my chemistry (my reef crystals had elevated alk) so I stopped doing regular water changes.

In my smaller system (50g water volume) I do a water change of I see chemistry getti,g out of whack (usually all or nitrates in that system)

Moral of the story, let your inhabitants or chemistry dictate changes in my experience

 

[Travis1787]

Dang I have a 210 and I do 15-20 gallon weekly ... I shoot for 20%ish monthly but that's just me

 

[chris.scang]

I was changing 30 gals every other week on my 180g but my water is a little too clean as far as nitrates go. Using a Red Sea nitrate test kit I barely get a color change so I'm between 0-1ppm as best I can tell. Before I start dosing nitrates I am going to do a 30 gal water change once a month and see how it affects my chemistry. I currently dose Alk, Cal and Mag so those parameters will remain stable.

 

[ErosJN]

Thanks for the info guys. I use instant ocean salt and have minimal corals (torch coral, Xenia, Zoas, and palys). I don't dose anything and since it had been quite a while without a WC my nitrates were off the charts. After a month with new skimmer, sugar dosing, and WCs, they are down to 40... Ideally I'd like to get them to 10 or less, then cut down to 25 gallon WCs. I do plan on adding quite a bit of coral next month.

 

[BryanS4]

I change 14 gallon per week in my 125, approx 140g total water volume.

I saw a lot of threads about No3 the past few months, so I bought a kit and checked, yep zero. I just started dosing my tank last week to keep them between 1 and 2. I rather dose than cut back on water changes. Time will tell if sps color up some more.

 

[chris.scang]

I change 14 gallon per week in my 125, approx 140g total water volume.

I saw a lot of threads about No3 the past few months, so I bought a kit and checked, yep zero. I just started dosing my tank last week to keep them between 1 and 2. I rather dose than cut back on water changes. Time will tell if sps color up some more.

Let us know how the dosing goes in regards to your SPS coloring up. I have everything I need to start dosing nitrates but I am trying the one water change per month on the advice of a friend. If I don't see results in a couple of months then I will go back to my biweekly water changes and start dosing.

 

[asbauto]

I've been doing 25% on a monthly basis for a while to get my nitrates up ( Dino outbreak ) seems to let my nitrates get a little too high so I switched to every 3 weeks I do 50 gal on 200 gal system. I would say I have a medium to high bio load ,few big nems and few big tangs this schedule keeps my trates at around 5-10 depending on who feeds the tank. Also I use the regular red sea salt to keep alk down and dose kalk with top off

 

[snake1]

I have been slacking but 10% a week is what I have been trying to stick with so I'm up to 20 gallons a week now

 

[MJNTWise]

I have a 180 and do Zero water changes....

 

[BryanS4]

Let us know how the dosing goes in regards to your SPS coloring up. I have everything I need to start dosing nitrates but I am trying the one water change per month on the advice of a friend. If I don't see results in a couple of months then I will go back to my biweekly water changes and start dosing.

Sure thing. I'll post something up in a few weeks.

After some more reading tonight I'm going to try and keep it around 3. I just dosed a few minutes ago to get the level up.