Waterchanges, how much and how often?

[gomle69]

Hello

I have a 14 G tank that I am considering setting up as a FOWLR nano tank. I plan on having only a couple of small fish, 11-25 lb. of liwerock and no skimmer in the beginnig. I also have an external Eheim filter that I can use for particle- and carbon filtration. How often do you recomend I do a waterchange, and how much?

 

[silver17jo]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=794065

 

[Agu]

I'm just starting out trying the small daily waterchanges.

Previously I've done about 10% once a week and that's worked well for me. However doing that on three tanks gets to be a bit of a project.

 

[Cutiewitbooty]

i think about 20% a week is usually the norm

 

[icenine2005]

I've done large scale water changes on a weekly basis with good results. It's one of the advantages of having a nano. Change out as much water as you possibly can (50-90%).
The only thing you have to be worried about matching is PH,SG and try to get as close as you can with temps.

 

[Agu]

The only thing you have to be worried about matching is PH,SG and try to get as close as you can with temps.

That's part of the reason I'm trying out the small daily waterchanges. Parameters have to be very close if you do large waterchanges or there's a risk of unnecessarily stressing your livestock.

 

[aural]

i have a 12g nano and i change 2 gal/week. (there is actually about 8 gal of water in the tank after you take sand and rock into concideration, so i do about 25% / week.)

 

[Paladin]

12g Nanocube, no skimmer--2g per week water change.

 

[TypeSH]

I am doing 5 gallon water changes every week on a 12 gallon nano tank. My nano tank is close to 2 years old, and it's been doing great. The great thing about nano's as icenine stated is the large water changes that you can easily do.

For reference, I have a nano cube and when I drain 5 gallons, the tank is basically empty. My main tank area only holds about 5 gallons of water with all the sand, rock, coral etc. the back compartments hold probalby 2 gallons?

HTH,
Sam

 

[All Delight]

I have a 24 gallon, and I like to do small changes twice a week. I do about 3 gallons on Wed., and 3 gallons on Sun.

 

[Mikeeal]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6899684#post6899684 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Agu
That's part of the reason I'm trying out the small daily waterchanges. Parameters have to be very close if you do large waterchanges or there's a risk of unnecessarily stressing your livestock.

That's a good point. I change 25% weekly on my 20G and the last WC I did, everything matched exactly, and my SPS closed up for a couple days. Kinda had me worried, and thinking about doing something different.

 

[gomle69]

Thank you for all the answers. I see there are lots of ways of doing this and get good results.

 

[ficklefins]

I am going to put a fork in this road. What about the issue of evaporation? I get 2.5% evap daily! That means that I would need to compensate for the topoff for my water changes. So my water changes every other day would be 2gallons with 1 galllon of 1.025 water and one gallon of RO/DI water. Or I could do .5 gallons of RO/DI and .5 gallons of SW.

 

[Jim Z.]

I change around 7 gallons of water per week for my 30 gallon reef. My tank is still recovering from a skimmer failure so I have been doing changes every couple of days and the cyanos are starting to slow down. New skimmer is working great.....Jim Z.

 

[piberoptikz]

10% weekly.