Water changes make you nervous ?

[Stlouphil]

Am I the only person that despises water changes? Not the mechanical part, but the having to worrying about some unknown parameter change that is going to wipe out all your SPS's. I will toss and turn all night and run to the tank in the morning to make sure everyone is ok. Repeat in six weeks. Lol

 

[brad65ford]

For some odd reason not with nano / pico tanks i've own/owned, success doing them seems 100 percent. But yes for some reason it seems weird things happen on larger thanks when I do water changes.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Opposite, I always think I should do more water changes. But I still do 10% weekly as always.

 

[Stlouphil]

When things are going good, I hate to change anything. Including water. Maybe it will get better. They say experience breeds confidence. This is my first SPS dominant tank.

 

[ryshark]

As long as I know it is temp matched, alk matched and mixed properly, I have no worries.

 

[maikoa02]

I'm actually happy and relieved when I do water changes because it brings back stability ( ie: helps keep nitrates and phosphates low, I siphon out detritus, helps supplement the basic 3, etc.). It's when I neglect to do water changes, over a week, that I get nervous because some corals start to not look as good. Make sure your water that you use is the same parameters as your tank and don't go too long between changes.

 

[Stlouphil]

I'm actually happy and relieved when I do water changes because it brings back stability ( ie: helps keep nitrates and phosphates low, I siphon out detritus, helps supplement the basic 3, etc.). It's when I neglect to do water changes, over a week, that I get nervous because some corals start to not look as good. Make sure your water that you use is the same parameters as your tank and don't go too long between changes.

Well, I change water every 4-6 weeks. I had few fish so my problem has been my water is TOO clean. I just upped my fish load so probably will have to increase water changes. I use Salifert test kits and phosphates and nitrates never show up

 

[lynchmob3000]

If your tank has a low alk say 7 and you mix up most of these brands of salts to a salinity of 1.025 your going to stress your system and see Ill effects. at 1.025 sg reef crystals alk is 9 ish so your spiking your alk. Big no no to most sps. Same thing with your calcium. Keep it closer to 450 all the time. All this about keeping your tank clean with water changes is just not true. A 10 percent weekly wc just keeps parameters stable. A 40 percent wc will take out a little n and p but most is leaching daily from rocks and sand. If your tanks too clean don't run gfo or carbon and feed your corals some kinda sps food every few days. when I see browning corals I don't blame that on nutrients anyways. It's usually high or low salt levels or calcium is high or low.

 

[lynchmob3000]

The reason I despite water changes is bc a week is only 7 days and I don't have a good easy method of doing so either. But when you find that love zone for your sps you'll learn to love them.

 

[Dog boy Dave]

Dilution is the solution. Find a salt that matches the parameters you want to keep or match yours to a convenient salt. Mix up at least 24 hours in advance, keep it moving in mixing vats. Change as much as you can afford consistently.

 

[Paul B]

The 4 or 5 times a year that I change some water are no concern at all as I have no test kits and low blood pressure so I never worry about anything.

 

[lynchmob3000]

There's more to the numbers then just the numbers. You run a low dkh your ca will naturally wanna drop out and never wanna be at 440 450. My problem for years. buffered it to 9 and boom my ca won't go under 400. that's the fast growth spot.

You run high salt all your numbers will be higher. Low salt low number. CA can just dissappear if the chemistry is all outta wack.

I would try to stay as close to nsw as possible.. makes stability and long term health much easier to attain. Julian sprung has some good info on water chemistry.

 

[Bpb]

I don't like water changes because I don't like changing things. I was really irregular on my last tank with them. Sometimes I'd go months without a water change, then I'd do 10% a week. At this point on my 90 gallon I'm gonna try to do 5 gallons every two weeks for reasons of trace element replacement. Thing is I've seen great tanks that swear by 20% a week and other fantastic sps dominant tanks that will go a year or more between water changes.

 

[Aquattro]

I love water changes. I did 50g every 2 weeks on my 180, and now that I've down graded, I'll do 50g in my 100g once a month. I match salinity and top up Ca and Mg in the new water, temp is close just from the mixing pump.