Water Changes

Nitroq2

Nitroq2

New member
Anybody else here hate water changes? I know now why its probably been 8-9 months without a change. Today I decided since I was fighting that crazy brown jelly, that I would try to vacuum as much as I could in the sand. So that meant moving about 20 frags out into another container as I have just had them laying on the sandbed, while I figure out what to do. I want a frag tank wife says she don't see a need, LOL. But I do see one in the future maybe I can start begging early for stuff to make up a 40g breeder frag tank. But back to the change, I decided today that I am smarter than this, and that I will develop a better plan. My plan is to get me a couple of garden hoses and quick connects for those and maybe a valve or two along with a couple of pumps. Drill a hole into the floor close to the aquarium and put me in a 3/4 pipe that goes under the house and off the mountain. And put a ball valve at the end outside (this will keep out critters and maintain water in the pipe therefore it will maintain vacuum. Then the next time I am ready, I can open the outside valve then the inside valve and Voila there is my autostart to my suction on the vacuum wand (dont know the name of it but the clear stiff tube used to vacuum sand. I was then thinking about running a 3/4" pipe up the back side of the aquarium and elbowing it right at the top and installing a ball valve and just passed it a Garden hose quick connect. Then take about a 5 foot piece of garden hose and connect that to my Vacuum wand. So within a couple minutes I can easily do the cleaning and draining of the tank. So the only part that is left is figuring out what to do about the refill container. A good pump will easily handle this, so thats really not a problem. My problem now is the mixing and storing container and where to store it. I remember being at a meeting with NARC at Will's (8balls) place and I think he was working on installing one up in his attic but I think he has specially designed bracing for that. Hopefully your reading this will and will chime in as to whether you finished that project and how well it is working. I guess I could just use a 40g rubbermade trash can and move it in close to the tank the night before and fill it but was really wanting to do something that was more permanent and I could setup my RO/DI to automatically fill the tank and keep it full. I don't have the room in the house and don't have a fish room per say like Will. Maybe later I can add a small room on that side of the house outside and put the sump refugium and this contraption I want to build in it. But one things for sure, If I am to do these water changes its gotta be faster and easier. I come from the work smarter not harder generation, LOL. If anyone can picture what I am talking about, I would appreciate some feed back. You would think I have a 1000 gallons but alas its only 90 gallons but I would like to eventually set it up to pretty much auto change.
Thanks for reading my gibberish rant.
Allen
 
Allen, yea water changes can be a pain but once you streamline it they are much easier and take only about 10min for the whole process. I have a 35g trash can in the washroom that I have RO/DI water it and mix. The trash can is on the "trash can rollers" that you can buy at Lowe's. I just wheel it into the sump room to pump the water right into the sump. The vacuming is easy with kind you can hook up the sink for suction. My sump room is right next to my bathroom so I can just just suck it all straight from there to the sink. I have planned it all out that way that I would only have to do water changes and chemical work in the sump only. This saves a lot of time and clutter not messing with the display.
 
Kwajrocks has an automatic water change system (she uses it as on-demand/semi-automatic if I'm not mistaken.) It's really neat to have it done that way.

I don't mind doing water changes. I do it biweekly on my 120. I used to do it weekly for my smaller ones. I use a Python to drain the salt water (just to get the siphon started) and a battery operated pump to fill the sump from a 21 gallon container on a little red wagon. I got it streamlined so that a water change is very easy and quick.

Tomoko
 
Thanks Nicole that guy is my hero. LOL I am in that Lazy Reefkeepers Club for sure. But wow after reading that a mind is a terrible thing to waste and he surely hasn't wasted his. So you folks with the python just connect it to the kitchen or bathroom sink and then it pushes water through while suctioning water from the tank. Is there anything to prevent that faucet water from backing up into the tank? I seen on it where it says you can use it to refill as well, how does that work? Thanks for everyones tips, I knew yall would come through. How far do you think that Python could pump the water, and could it pull it from the tank to the floor and from the floor back up to the sink? I almost bought one but decided to look at something else.
 
Anyone reading this ever use there magnum 350 to clean the substrate in there tank? I have seen where people use it but that thing has such a suction what would keep it from just sucking up the sand and putting it all in the cannister. Also I seen these little battery powered and wonder if anyone uses them.
Only one or two in the reviews on amazon didnt like it the others were all over it. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cu...tchen&customer-reviews.start=1#R1FMP4WK59IOX5
 
I connect my python to a bathroom sink (20 feet away from my 120) and start the siphon. I turn off the faucet and let tank drain by gravity. When I drain a tank placed lower than the sink, I keep the water running from faucet and use the python like a jet ejector pump to create a suction and drain water from the tank. Water does not come into the tank unless you engage a valve at the end of the part that connects to the faucet. The valve changes the water route by closing the outlet that discharges water.

You can refill a fresh water tank with a python but not a salt water tank.

As for a small battery powered pump to refill the sump, I use something like this from Home Depot that costs approx. $7.00:

safetycentral_1963_195812683


However, I don't vacuum my sand bed. I let my nassarius snails, tiny worms and a fighting conch to turn and clean the sand bed.

Tomoko
 
I have a shallow /faux sandbed (2inches) whatever you call it and recently I notice alot of buildup in the sand. If I stir deep in the sand I get alot of Dietris floating around.
 
Humm, I have a shallow sand bed in the front of my 120, but I don't have the detritus problem. I have quite a few nassarius snails and a large fightening conch as a sand bed clean up crew. They cruise around the sand bed everytime I feed the tank and keep it very clean for me.

Tomoko
 
I need to get some more clean up crew in there as well, I have some nassarius maybe like 10. How many you got in that 120?
 
I have not counted them lately. I always had 10 or so of them ahd they kept the bed very clean. I added 24 or so tiny ones in the early summer last year from Aquatic Island when we did the group order. A lot of them seem to be still there. I believe that they are N. vibex. I also have two larger N. distortus.

Tomoko
 
Yeah my tank in the attic works pretty well. I put the tank over my Equipment room in the garage.. So the weight is supported from the walls in the Equipment room. I also doubled up the studs in the corner of the room since I new the tank would be above it. But really your only talking about 450lbs.. Alot of weight but nothing standard wall couldn't handle.. My only real problem with this setup is the water gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter since its in the attic. I haven't found a simple fix for this yet. I have an idea to fix it though...

The 3 min water change is a kewl idea, But I do like to suck out any crud in in my Frag tanks and in my sumps when I do a water change.. So a fixed drain wouldn't help me alot.. Not to mention I'm on a septic tank out here in the country.. I drain my water out to the gravel area beside my garage.. Infact thats why its still gravel there lol... I do a 10%-15% every month now. I use to almost never do them. I do think they help though. Not sure exactly how long it takes me to change all the tanks.. I went to homedepot and bought about 50ft of clear 3/4 hose and a few plastic hose pipe repair ends.. I also bought an adapter that connects a hose to a 1/2 NPT and one for 3/4.. This allows me to thread my hose onto a mag 7 or a mag 12 if I'm in a hurry. If I'm not in a hurry I just stick the house onto one of my closed loop outlets or a powerhead for a few seconds to start a siphon then I just clamp the hose onto the side of the tank and let it drain.. On the other end of the hose I set a trashcan so I can keep up with how much I'm taking out.. This also gives my trashcans a rinse once a month lol.. Probably my biggest issue right now is I only have a 33 gallon trash can for my SW.. I had planed on buidling a 45 gallon acrylic tank for a shelf I built in my Equipment room.. But that shelf has a ton of crap on it now lol. I might just get a 44 gallon trashcan to replace my 33. I use the top of my trashcan as a countertop so I think I would miss it if I took it out of the room anyway.
 
Another thought for detritus is the amount of the water flow. I have a lot of flow in my tank because of the three large powerheads. I do have some detritus build up behind my rocks/inside my rock work where water is a lot slower. I was considering a HOT magnum to clean up the buildup but I have not acted on it, yet. I also thought about putting a smaller diameter rigid tube at the end of the python, temporarily removing the gravel cleaner, to reach behind rocks to suck up the detritus there. I have a long clear tube that fits. I suppose some people use a filter sock and a turkey baster or a small powerhead to clean the rocks and the things hiding in the rock work. I may try that first. I just need to get busy, stop being so lazy....

Tomoko
 
I was going to say it, but Tomoko beat me too it. If you have junk settling on your sand bed, you have a flow problem. Instead, keep this stuff suspended with good laminar water flow and let it collect in your sump, get eaten by fishes and corals, or pulled out by your skimmer.

That may not mean MORE flow, it may just mean you need to tweak the flow you have to make it more effective.

Changing 2 gallons a week takes so little time, the hardest time I have is remembering to shut off the RO. Hmmm, why is the microwave time beeping at me, I'm not cooking anything...?

But when I used to do changes on the big tank, I left a powerhead with a hose under the tank. When it was time to do a change, I turned off the auto-top-off, put the powerhead in the hose hose in the bucket, flipped the switch and let it pump into a couple of buckets. Turned off the switch, dumped the water (checking for snails and such) and then carried in the buckets of new water. Switched the pump and hose end and voila!

Easy compared to slow mincing work with a tiny rigid tube and a filter in the larval tanks, then setting up the new water to slowly drip in.
 
I think its pretty hard to keep any Detritus from buidling up.. Like tomoko said if you keep the front sand bed clean you just blow it all to the back of your rocks.. lol my frag tanks have something like 60x turnover in one and 85x Turnover in the other.. This is also taking in account the pumps aren't putting out their rated GPH.. Even with that and almost no rock I still get detritus around the base of the corals. Depends a little on your Corals IMO.. If you have nothing but SPS and a BB tank it can be done.. But with sand rock and soft corals you either need a good clean up crew or just stir up the tank real good when you do a water change.. I even have a Eheim canister filter that I run sometimes between water changes.. If I knotice andy crud I'll put some filters in my Eheim then start it running.. I then take a large pump and spray the sandbed and all the rocks.. I'll do this several times over and hour or so then I just let it sit till the water is crystal clear again.. Remove the Eheim clean it then do it to another tank if needed..
 
I really don't think flow is an issue in my tank, I have two Seio 1500s on a Seio Controller. Also I have the mag 9.5 turning water, and the mag 350 moving water as well. I dont think I have any dead spots, none that I see. And to be totally honest I didn't think I would have issues stuff being in the sand. But after speaking with a few folks about my brown jelly and all of them saying to much nutrients and one saying make sure I was sifting the sandbed, I decided to check it. And much to my surprise when I dug deep into the sand and stirred it up there was all sorts of trash released into the water column. I will look at maybe changing the directions of my flow, but currently I have both mounted on the back wall about midway down and about 8 inches from the side walls. The are both pointed at a slight angle toward the middle of the tank to bounce off the front glass. Any suggestions on a better setup would be much appreciated. Nitrates in my tank run less than 5, and phosphates are not readable on the salifert. Water is crystal clear and I run Carbon in the mag 350 24/7 with a filter on it to collect debris. The carbon and filter is replaced every other week. I think my main issue is the lack of water changes, I have fooled myself into thinking its working why do the changes. The only issue that has came up with not doing the water changes is this brown jelly disease and I am still not sure thats what is causing it in my tank.
 
I often saw John Newby use a Fluval canister filter in the past to get rid of the detritus between his water changes, too. I recall old timers used to use diatom filters to polish tank water (fw and sw), too. A diatom filter does "polish" water including green water (by trapping phytoplankton.)

I am getting inspired to do the detritus cleaning behind rocks. Hopefully I stay inspired till I get home....

Tomoko
 
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