Water change routines

[Nanook]

OK, I am looking to see if folks with large tanks/systems can give some honest answers to their water change habits.

How often do you change your water? How much water do you change at a time? What volume is your system?

So, for example, my tank volume is 1200 gallons, I change 225 gallons every month (20%). I am debating if this is enough of a water change considering large number of fish, corals and invertebrates. Also, do you think your water quality is excellent, good, mediocre or bad, how healthy is your system? I know that is a bit subjective.

Thanks for playing

 

[prop-frags]

Approx 425g system.
10% twice a month. Looking for discounts on Tropic Marin.

 

[Atomikk]

650 gallon system

60 gallons every month, which is 9%

 

[keto]

200 and I do 60 gallon every 2 weeks .. i think i go overboard though ...

 

[swanny]

Is 120g total water a large system? I do 20g's a month, less than 20%.

 

[am3gross]

i have roughly 285 gallons.... i change about 30 gallons a month..... i have a light fish load...

 

[Untamed12]

50 gallons per week on a 500 gallon (total volume) system. My gut feeling is that this is more than necessary.

Considering the size of my fish, I believe my water quality is very good. I also have a very large skimmer.

 

[Nanook]

Thanks for the responses so far, keep em coming.

 

[Tater11]

I have a 220gal probably 180water volume I do 25gal a week.

 

[mx838]

I do 60 gallons every other week on my 220 I do about 25 gallons a month on my 92 and the red sea guts a 5 gallon when I have the energy... Maybe 1 time a month. The water parameters generally stays perfect all the tanks have skimmers that are way over rated so this may make my water better in each system.

 

[Paulairduck]

I have a 400 gallon system and I change 60 gallons every two weeks. I was doing the once a month thing and my water quality and corals did not look as happy.

 

[Desertdweller]

I have a 400 gallon system and I change 60 gallons every two weeks. I was doing the once a month thing and my water quality and corals did not look as happy.

That explains the green fish in your avatar.

 

[dahenley]

240tank, just under 300 total volume, and i try to do my 55gal water change every month. (i am also thinking of doing 20-30 gal every two weeks.)

 

[sam08]

Have a 180g tank total about 230 or so, I have a Litermeter III set up to change 8 litres per day or about 60-70g a month. I have a 50 gal plastic drum and use 50gal salt bags, check, buffer cal and mag, water quality is very good especially helps maintain calcium etc.

 

[QuarterTang]

I have a 180 gallong tank, about 220 net gallons total. I change 20 gallons weekly. Also finally got in the habit of checking all water parameters before wc and two days after.

 

[quincy2008]

10% every 7-10 days on my 250 gallon tank.

 

[John Blaze]

300 gallon tank. 30 gallon per week. Everything looks happy.

 

[Eric the half-bee]

500 gallon TV. I change 40 gal about 1-2 weeks. Amazingly, even though my nitrates run 50+, my critters seem to thrive.

 

[oxx155]

450 Gallon tank, 900 Gallon system. I use a Litermeter III to pull 10 gallons a day out and put in a fresh 10 gallons from a 300 gallon storage tank (it does it slowly over the entire day). So, I change 300 gallons every month for about 30% of total volume (although if you take out space of rock, sand, and equipment, I probably get closer to 50% change per month).
My system is extremely stable and doing the water change slowly over the entire month not only benefits the tank, but also saves me a butt load of time. I just use a RODI to refill the 300 gallon tank over a day, pour in salt and mix for another day, then just flip the system back on, it takes maybe 30 minutes worth of work each month and an hour once a year to clean the system.

 

[Orr2003]

It seems everyone changes much more water than I do.
I have a 400g SPS display, 100g sump and 65g fuge.

I do not do water changes like most suggest.
I only do a water change when my sps look like they need it. This could be 3 months in between water changes sometimes less. Even then I only change about 60g. I dont test any of my new make up water for Alk and Cal or Mag. I only adjust to 35ppt salinity. I dont even bother with adjusting the temp of the water. I pull the 60g out of my sump and put in the new water and turn my main pump back on and let it mix with the warmer tank water and it only brings the tank temp down a couple degrees max. Say from 81 to 79.

If I can remember correctly I went through about 3 150g buckets of IO last year.

NO3 is zero and I have dosed KNO3 and added Aspartic Acid before trying to increase NO3. It did not work.
PO4 is .02-.03 with the Hanna Photometer.

I have fed lightly and heavily (lately I have fed 10 frozen cubes daily and a large amount of Prime Reef Flakes) and still cant get NO3 or PO4 to increase.

I do remember when I first set this tank up my SPS (mostly the tri colors) were much more colorful. Mostly the green base of the tricolors, now they are just pale and have been for over a year.

One other observation I have noticed is that when I first set this system up I would get this nice bright green algae on the glass. SPS looked better when this was growing. For the last year I just get this hard to scrape brown algae on the glass (acrylic really).

Over the last year I have had amazing growth of my SPS and my water clarity and quality is amazing IMO. Actually to clean IMO.

So I assume I have the opposite problem of many.