water change
- Thread starter kiznile
- Start date
cubuffs
Member
It could be ok if your levels are stable. In most circumstances, more water changes is usually better. I do 80 gallons each week for my tank, and it seems to be fine.
Overall, you will need to monitor your system to make sure that your tank can sustain the amount of water changes. Best of luck!
Overall, you will need to monitor your system to make sure that your tank can sustain the amount of water changes. Best of luck!
wetWolger
New member
why would you do so frequent? IMO you don't want to get too frequent due to the stress you put on the fish. Myself I do a 10-15% every other week. You would in total be doing between 20 and 25% every other week.
If you don't have a skimmer though I would say yes, that is fine.
If you don't have a skimmer though I would say yes, that is fine.
"Umm fish?"
Premium Member
I tend to do mine at about 3-5 gallons/day for about 2.5 weeks until I run out of water, then I take a week off as I'm making new water. Here's my reasoning: 1) 5 gals./day is easy for me. I run the auto top-off to fill the sump completely, then I add 5 gals. to the refugium that displaces water out of the sump to the house drain. It takes about 20 seconds. 2) A small amount daily means less shock to the system overall. Plus, adding water to the 'fuge dislodges copepods that help feed the tank daily.
The reason I take the week off is that I haven't found room for a second mixing reservoir yet.
By the way, my total system volume at the moment is around 200gal. So, changing 3 per day is a pretty small percentage, but adds up to 10ish percent per week.
The reason I take the week off is that I haven't found room for a second mixing reservoir yet.
By the way, my total system volume at the moment is around 200gal. So, changing 3 per day is a pretty small percentage, but adds up to 10ish percent per week.
Last edited:
cubuffs
Member
Larger water changes keeps the parameters stable. In addition, it is also convienant for dosing purposes as well. If you have a well stocked tank like mine, then a larger water change is necessary. Nevertheless, a good skimmer will aid this process, but if you don't have a great skimmer, then a larger and more frequent change will be necessary.
"Umm fish?"
Premium Member
Well, I am talking about ~30%/month. I just do it a little every day.
Yikes - 80 gallons a week on a 180? Anything over maybe 5-10% a week seems like overkill to me. What is either a) polluting your tank, or b) getting depleted in your tank, so fast that you need to change that much a week to fix it?
Normally I don't do water changes at all unless I'm getting unusual measurements of something that needs diluting, like nitrates. But even then I'll look first for the reason the reading is high and try to fix that (like maybe something died behind a rock) and wait a little while to see if the levels come back down by themselves.
Larry
Normally I don't do water changes at all unless I'm getting unusual measurements of something that needs diluting, like nitrates. But even then I'll look first for the reason the reading is high and try to fix that (like maybe something died behind a rock) and wait a little while to see if the levels come back down by themselves.
Larry
rmougey
Chair, MACNA 2014
Interesting topic,
Small regular water changes are great for trace element replacement and minor husbandry (light detrutus removal). They are almost always helpful as long as the source water is clean. However, small regular water changes don't aide in reducing nutrient load or other contaminents we may hope to eliminate.
Large water changes are quite effective in reducing contaminents, but can introduce drastic change to the environment.
I have found it effective to do regular small changes (3-10%), with quarterly large changes (30% or more depending on tank). It isn't uncommon to to a 50% change in my 175 fish only tank. My reef on the other hand, usually doesn't get more than 25 gallons (100 reef + 30 fuge + 15 sump) or so on a big change.
There are many that advocate no water changes.... and I must say that sometimes my tanks have followed that method due to travel and time resources, but I must say that I don't agree with that idea. Your reef critters are in a small box that differs greatly from the environment in which they originated. The ocean basically performs 100% water changes on a given reef every minute, depending on how fast the current is running. ;-)
-Rob
Small regular water changes are great for trace element replacement and minor husbandry (light detrutus removal). They are almost always helpful as long as the source water is clean. However, small regular water changes don't aide in reducing nutrient load or other contaminents we may hope to eliminate.
Large water changes are quite effective in reducing contaminents, but can introduce drastic change to the environment.
I have found it effective to do regular small changes (3-10%), with quarterly large changes (30% or more depending on tank). It isn't uncommon to to a 50% change in my 175 fish only tank. My reef on the other hand, usually doesn't get more than 25 gallons (100 reef + 30 fuge + 15 sump) or so on a big change.
There are many that advocate no water changes.... and I must say that sometimes my tanks have followed that method due to travel and time resources, but I must say that I don't agree with that idea. Your reef critters are in a small box that differs greatly from the environment in which they originated. The ocean basically performs 100% water changes on a given reef every minute, depending on how fast the current is running. ;-)
-Rob
pappadow
New member
Look at your parameters if they are ok, and you aren't building nitrates. Leave it alone. I change 15 gallons on a 75 gallon system every 3 months. But, I have a fuge and am "in balance" so I'm not building nitrates or anything.
Depends on your setup.
If you are doing changes to correct a parameter, I'd say go big. It's more effective. My corals have never been stressed by a big water change. It takes them about 6 hours and then they are back to normal. I've done 75% changes before trying to kill off dino's and hair algae.
Depends on your setup.
If you are doing changes to correct a parameter, I'd say go big. It's more effective. My corals have never been stressed by a big water change. It takes them about 6 hours and then they are back to normal. I've done 75% changes before trying to kill off dino's and hair algae.
artful-dodger
New member
I won't offer an opinion on whether to do frequent/small vs. infrequent/large changes. I would like to make the point, however, that changing 10 gallons a day is not the same as changing 70 gallons a week.
Somewhere I have a spreadsheet I built that does more accurate calculations, but for a simple example:
Assume a 100 gallon system that generates 10 "units" of bad stuff a day.
After a week (with no water changes) the tank would have accumulated 70 "units" of bad stuff. If you did a 70 gallon water change (70%) at that point you would remove 49 units, leaving 21 units now diluted.
At the end of the next week it would have generated another 70 units (for a total of 91) but another 70% water change would leave a little more than 27 units to start the third week. The point is that whatever that bad stuff is (and whatever units you use to measure it) the concentration will build up even though you are doing regular huge water changes.
Okay, what about the other approach of changing 10 gallons per day? The first day you'd generate 10 units and remove one, leaving 9. The second day the tank generates 10 and you remove 1.9, leaving 17.1. The third day would end with 24.4 units; the fourth with 34.1; the fifth with 39.9; the sixth with 45 and the seventh 49.5.
Net, both approaches will accumulate whatever waste is being produced (the same math also works for the calcium or trace minerals being consumed/replaced unless additional supplementation is done). The big weekly changes, however, will accumulate much more slowly than the small daily changes.
Extending this model out over a longer period of time increases the effect.
The challenge, then, is to make your water changes most effective (larger but less frequent) but not to delay them so long as to induce dramatic chemistry changes/shock (at or close to 100% change).
How long that is depends upon your tank, its occupants, your feeding, etc.--your "units"--but the graph inevitably looks the same. I'd suggest that, for most of our tanks, daily is too frequent to be effective and that quarterly is too long. Somewhere in between is lkely to be optimal.
(Of course, the other alternative of doing larger changes more frequently is great if you aren't constrained by the cost. Fifty gallons per day would keep everything nicely stable...except your checkbook.)
Somewhere I have a spreadsheet I built that does more accurate calculations, but for a simple example:
Assume a 100 gallon system that generates 10 "units" of bad stuff a day.
After a week (with no water changes) the tank would have accumulated 70 "units" of bad stuff. If you did a 70 gallon water change (70%) at that point you would remove 49 units, leaving 21 units now diluted.
At the end of the next week it would have generated another 70 units (for a total of 91) but another 70% water change would leave a little more than 27 units to start the third week. The point is that whatever that bad stuff is (and whatever units you use to measure it) the concentration will build up even though you are doing regular huge water changes.
Okay, what about the other approach of changing 10 gallons per day? The first day you'd generate 10 units and remove one, leaving 9. The second day the tank generates 10 and you remove 1.9, leaving 17.1. The third day would end with 24.4 units; the fourth with 34.1; the fifth with 39.9; the sixth with 45 and the seventh 49.5.
Net, both approaches will accumulate whatever waste is being produced (the same math also works for the calcium or trace minerals being consumed/replaced unless additional supplementation is done). The big weekly changes, however, will accumulate much more slowly than the small daily changes.
Extending this model out over a longer period of time increases the effect.
The challenge, then, is to make your water changes most effective (larger but less frequent) but not to delay them so long as to induce dramatic chemistry changes/shock (at or close to 100% change).
How long that is depends upon your tank, its occupants, your feeding, etc.--your "units"--but the graph inevitably looks the same. I'd suggest that, for most of our tanks, daily is too frequent to be effective and that quarterly is too long. Somewhere in between is lkely to be optimal.
(Of course, the other alternative of doing larger changes more frequently is great if you aren't constrained by the cost. Fifty gallons per day would keep everything nicely stable...except your checkbook.)
This article also gets at the same thing Gary points out:
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php
Larry
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