Water change poll

[seamonster124]

How often do you change water

 

[Xxero]

10% weekly. :bigeyes:

 

[seamonster124]

10% weekly. :bigeyes:

theres actually a poll but you posted before I was done creating it!

 

[Xxero]

D'oh! :lmao:

 

[BrettDS]

I selected 10% weekly, which is true, but it's done constantly... 53ml every 7 minutes throughout the day.

 

[jason2459]

Daily but not 100%. Some of those are silly. I do around 1% every day through an automatic water change system that spreads that our over 155 times a day.

 

[Wazzel]

I do 10 gallons on 80 gallons of display and frag tanks. Comes out to 12.5% weekly.

 

[ca1ore]

Sorry, what's the point of the poll? Simply to see what folks do? Might be more interesting to know why folks do the % they do.

 

[Dmorty217]

Once every 3 or so months. I don't have a bunch a nutrient sucking corals in my tank so no need to do water changes weekly or monthly. My fish could care less about how often I do or do not perform a water change

 

[Bent]

Good god 100% hourly?

That seems costly.

 

[Green Chromis]

:fish1: Maybe not 100% hourly, but it would be nice to do a 100% weekly trough an open system. My goal is 100% monthly, using NSW collected on a bi weekly schedule. Will be looking for a house on the water soon, so I can keep the boat on davits on the dock. I would love to run an open system doing water changes on the last of the incoming tide, but even the water in the Florida Keys, where we will be buying our house, the water is not suitable for maintaining a reef system without heavy filtration. If you go offshore to the outer reefs, the water is fine. :fish1:

 

[slief]

I agree with Ca1ore. Kind of a useless poll. Especially since it doesn't cover all the bases and really doesn't yield usefull info since every system is different.

In my case, I do automated water changes of 5 gallons a day on a 650g total volume system. Water changes are a necessity for me as I have a heavy load with 60 plus plus fish. Many of which are large 7" plus sized and are very well fed. Dare I say over fed.

Since my tank is a mixed reef good water conditions are very important to me and not something I take lightly. I have a very stable and well established (18 year old) system with several hundred pounds of live rock, a good sized deep sand/mud bed in one of my two seperate refugiums. The combination of daily water changes, biological filtration, lots of soft coral, a great skimmer and nutrient uptake via my refugiums allows me to get away with what I consider to be relatively minimal water changes. The results of all of the above are 0 detectable nitrates & no nuissance algae issue despite my heavy fish load and 3 heavy daily feedings. Like I said, my system has been running for over 18 years now and I've never had any issues whatsoever nor do I recall ever having detecable nitrates but water changes have always been a practice for me. Up until 5 and a half years ago, they were manual but since switching to the current automated approach, my system has become more stable and healthy than ever.

 

[Green Chromis]

:fish1: Hi Slief, how often do you change out, or have you ever changed out your sand/mud bed in your refuge? I get between 10 to12 yrs. in my fuge before I need to change out my sand bed. :fish1:

 

[slief]

:fish1: Hi Slief, how often do you change out, or have you ever changed out your sand/mud bed in your refuge? I get between 10 to12 yrs. in my fuge before I need to change out my sand bed. :fish1:

I've yet to touch my DSB/mud bed and this is after almost 6 years. I don't vacuum it or anything but that refugium is downstream of my sump which as the filter socks and skimmer so detritus really isn't an issue. I think it will be 6 years in January since I set it up. My DSB consists of 2" of live mud that was acquired from the bottom of fiji live rock holding bins from a live rock supplier here in LA. Then there is 2" of live sand and live rock rubble mixed on top of that. No reason to disturb it as it seems to be working just fine in conjunction with the rest of my system.

 

[Windyman55]

W/C Vacuum or not ?

W/C Vacuum or not ?

here's a question I've been meaning to ask fro a while. When doing water changes do you vacuum the sand? I use one of those clear tubes to vacuum the sand as I drain the appropriate amount of water for the change. It seems to get a LOT of garbage out of the sand. particularly around the base of the rock wall. Is this a regular thing for most peeps?
Thanks
Greg

 

[Green Chromis]

here's a question I've been meaning to ask fro a while. When doing water changes do you vacuum the sand? I use one of those clear tubes to vacuum the sand as I drain the appropriate amount of water for the change. It seems to get a LOT of garbage out of the sand. particularly around the base of the rock wall. Is this a regular thing for most peeps?
Thanks
Greg

:fish1: Hi Windy, I use to vacuum the sand bed before water changes, but now I stir up the sand bed an hour or so before changing water, and filtering it thru 2, 200 micron socks. :fish1:

 

[Wazzel]

here's a question I've been meaning to ask fro a while. When doing water changes do you vacuum the sand? I use one of those clear tubes to vacuum the sand as I drain the appropriate amount of water for the change. It seems to get a LOT of garbage out of the sand. particularly around the base of the rock wall. Is this a regular thing for most peeps?
Thanks
Greg

I run a bare bottom system, but during water changes I vacuum up all the crud I can reach. I suspect, in my case, getting the crud out before it can break down is the biggest benefit of regular water changes. In addition to water changes I only use a big skimmer for filtration.

 

[Green Chromis]

I've yet to touch my DSB/mud bed and this is after almost 6 years. I don't vacuum it or anything but that refugium is downstream of my sump which as the filter socks and skimmer so detritus really isn't an issue. I think it will be 6 years in January since I set it up. My DSB consists of 2" of live mud that was acquired from the bottom of fiji live rock holding bins from a live rock supplier here in LA. Then there is 2" of live sand and live rock rubble mixed on top of that. No reason to disturb it as it seems to be working just fine in conjunction with the rest of my system.

:fish1: Thanks for the response, the filter socks make a big difference in the amount of detritus that will settle on the sand bed. My first system without socks lasted only 7.5 yrs. before it started to become toxic. Now with socks, they have lasted up to 12yrs., and I changed the sand only as a precaution to it's age. I live in South Florida and have easy access to live sand from the local reefs here, so it is not a very big deal to change the sand when need be. :fish1:

 

[igot2gats]

10% weekly. Since I do them weekly, it forces me to stay in touch with my tank. I look at all equipment and everything in the tank when I do them; just to make sure everything is a-ok.

Also, smaller water changes will have a less likely of a chance to mess with the parameters.

 

[kinnadian]

I feel like you mean "fortnightly" and not "bi-weekly"?

Bi-weekly means twice a week.