An informal poll: water changes (how often/how much)...

[Anonymous]

25% every other week.

 

[purple_tang2001]

1g on my 20 3g on my 55 every week

 

[Vins Fins]

in my 180 i use the skimmer to pull out 1 gal
of junk every day, once a week i adj my salt levels, why remove the good water when your skimmer takes out a much higerh % of bad water,this save me a bundle on salt.

 

[danmhippo]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Vins Fins:
<STRONG>in my 180 i use the skimmer to pull out 1 gal of junk every day</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

1 gal of skimmate for a 180G tank? WOW!!

What kind of skimmer is it? I hardly gets 1 cup of really dark skimmate a day!


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Oh, never mind, I saw your description of the setup on the other post. Sounds *****'n

[ August 02, 2001: Message edited by: danmhippo ]

 

[Vins Fins]

danmhippo , I use the aero foamer 830, i do not set my skimmer for dry foam, i let the bubbles rise to the top and pop out foam on the sides of the cup, this gives me a wet foam which is tea like color, and i get a gallon or more a day. I found this way works best, this is the quickest way to remove oranics from the tank caused from feeding or fish waste.

 

[yznhmr]

i admit that i do my water changes so frequently to try to syphon off all the algee off my rocks.. it works but has to be done every 3-5 weeks, my creatures seem to be very happy after a WC.. i have a AQUA-c ev150 skimmer with a rio 2500 pushing it, im not reall happy with the skimmate, it only pulls a gallon a month if that, have tried diff settings of water leval and to no avail.. any one have one of these and what can i do to modify it?

 

[mattf0124]

I change a little water here and there when it looks like it needs it, every year or so I break out the 25 gallon garbage can and drain the tank till theres just enough water for the fish to stay wet and of course fill it up with fresh clean water, it sounds extreme but I've had very good results doing this, it works extrememly well for "tired" looking tanks

 

[lawndoctor]

10% water change every two weeks. Tropic Marin salt.

 

[nala]

I change 20g weekly on my 90 w/36g sump/refugium

I change 15g weekly on my 75 w/36g sump/refugium. I change 5g weekly on my 30 no sump.(I broke down my Nano's after I received a 263.00 electric bill

) I could probably get by with less. However, as all my tanks are running skimmerless...I would hate to report a crash on a technicality like not changing water

[ August 03, 2001: Message edited by: nala ]

 

[zandar_tem]

30-40% every 3-4 months

 

[2poor2reef]

No damnhippo, you get no credit for replacement water. Evap leaves all salt/trace elements behind and make up water (hopefully) is pure replacement so that's not a change.

I confess I don't do them regularly but I average two and a half gallons monthly on my tanks and my systems are all 10 to 15g tanks.

 

[MontanaRocknReefer]

Ok I try to do about 15 gallons water change every month since my tank is only 8 months old but will start maybe 15 gallons every 2 or 3 months as my tank matures.
I don't believe there is any set in stone rule for this and it is what ever you feel will work for your tank set-up. Johnny

 

[Anonymous]

Here's an interesting question:

Does anybody use water changing as a primary filtration method?

Ie instead of bending over backwards to provide heavy filtration & supplementation, why not just do 2 25% water changes per week? (unless of course you have a huge tank, in which case the expenditure on salt will kill you...)

I've never tried this, but I'm contemplating it for my next major reef system (along with DSB, LR, and some modest skimming...)

With, say a 200 gallon system, salt costs will probably run you $25/wk => $1250/yr, which sounds like alot but it's probably the best "filtration" money can buy...

 

[FishHead1]

If you never change any water, don't your nitrates build up after a while?

 

[coyoteman0]

You know it would have been better to ask water changes how much/often and what do you keep in your tanks ?

I never do it the same, some time I change 5 gallons a week in my 55, then I will let it go for a month without doing any and then change 30-40%, then go back to 5 gallons a weeek for a while, when I do 5 gallons a week I see really good water quality .

 

[jdeets]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by smcnulty:
<STRONG>If you never change any water, don't your nitrates build up after a while?</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not if you've got a system that harbors denitrifying bacteria and has other means of nutrient export. A deep sand bed is one of the best places for denitrifying bacteria to colonize--and they will convert the nitrate into nitrogen gas. A refugium full of caulerpa and other macroalgae in the system will use the nitrates to grow, and when you remove the caulerpa from time to time, you're removing the nitrates that they used up.

So, water changes aren't really necessary for nitrate reduction if your system has the features that will allow denitrification and nutrient export.

 

[Anonymous]

About six gallons a month on a 55 gallon. I did go waterchangeless for about four months. But I realized that changing is better.

Dan