Exchanging water between nano and big tank

[Anonymous]

My main reef tank is about 400g and is pretty stable (efficient skimmer, large refugium, etc). I have just set-up a 12g Nanocube to play around with. I assume that the water quality in the 400g system will tend to be superior to that of the nano.

In view of the above, I plan to swap 1-2 gallons of water between these two tanks every week or so (maybe more often, maybe less often). I believe that this approach is superior to traditional water changes with freshly mixed saltwater.

Any comments?

 

[Anonymous]

Comments?

heh, no problem..

If you're going to be exchanging water with the main tank why not just go full-bore with it and mod the cube to plump it directly in? If you make up an overflow and punch a hole for it there should be enough room in the back to drop in a durso overflow in that otherwise useless space..

Heck, Oceansmotions even has a slick new 4-way called the OM Squirt you could pop onto the return to change things up with the water flow on the return. Here's some pics.. - You should even have enough room left in the back even after both of those that you could leave a heater and the stock pump in place for a tiny little closed loop in case you want to shut down the overflow/return.

Why stop with those slick mods though? - Nab onto a custom hood and drop the puny 24w PC (or dual 24w if you're getting one of those new ones) and instead opt for a 70 or 150w DE setup and put the 24w(ers) to use as actinics only instead?

IMO, in for a penny, in for a pound..

 

[Anonymous]

I agree that taking water from the big tank for the nano will probably accelerate your nitrogen cycle and give you better inital water quality, but why would you do the reverse and take water from the nano to the big tank? Especially if you are putting new, uncured liverock into the nano, you might be introducing toxins into the big tank. I'm sure at 400g, it won't be significant, but I'm not sure I see any benefit there either.

 

[Anonymous]

Comments?

heh, no problem..

If you're going to be exchanging water with the main tank why not just go full-bore with it and mod the cube to plump it directly in? If you make up an overflow and punch a hole for it there should be enough room in the back to drop in a durso overflow in that otherwise useless space..

Heck, Oceansmotions even has a slick new 4-way called the OM Squirt you could pop onto the return to change things up with the water flow on the return. Here's some pics.. - You should even have enough room left in the back even after both of those that you could leave a heater and the stock pump in place for a tiny little closed loop in case you want to shut down the overflow/return.

Why stop with those slick mods though? - Nab onto a custom hood and drop the puny 24w PC (or dual 24w if you're getting one of those new ones) and instead opt for a 70 or 150w DE setup and put the 24w(ers) to use as actinics only instead?

IMO, in for a penny, in for a pound..

I have thought about interconnecting the two, but I want the nano to be separate from the big tank for a number of reasons. One of which is that I may give the nano tank to one of my kids after I get done playing with it.

 

[Anonymous]

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I agree that taking water from the big tank for the nano will probably accelerate your nitrogen cycle and give you better inital water quality, but why would you do the reverse and take water from the nano to the big tank? Especially if you are putting new, uncured liverock into the nano, you might be introducing toxins into the big tank. I'm sure at 400g, it won't be significant, but I'm not sure I see any benefit there either.

The nano was set up with live rock from the refugium of another well established tank (a 175g), and was seeded with sand from my 400g. All of the water in the nano came from the 400g as well. I don't expect much (if any) of a cycle.

As far as dumping the nano water back into the 400g, I figure it won't have any impact. Plus, it prevents any decline in salinity in the 400g, which would otherwise result from replacing the removed saltwater with fresh water via nightly top-offs.

The biggest advantage I get from this is avoiding the neeed to mix up fresh saltwater every time I want to do a water change in the nano. It is so easy to swap a few gallons between the tanks that I am sure I will do it a lot more often, probably twice per week.

 

[Anonymous]

It's going to be difficult plumbing it inline anyway now that it's all setup. But if you wanted to, you could drill a single hole in the back and then easily seal it off later.

I wouldn't do water changes quite so often, at least not a "few gallons" twice a week. Maybe just one gallon, otherwise you're running into that issue of messing with the stability of the tank by changing so much so often. Personally I would do a gallon a week.

 

[hail_sniper]

ive been doing this for mos. instead of doing water changes id put about a gallon of my nano's water and put it in the main and put a gal of the mains in my nano

i'd do that every few days, so it gets all of the supplements and benefits, oh and my nano is roughly 5 gal and my main 60