Water change, how often?

[SanDiegoReefs]

I noticed in our "How much time" thread that some people are doing water changes twice/week or more... how often do most of you guys change your water?

I have been doing about 20-30% every week or two. I was hesitant to do more than that because I didn't want to change out TOO much water.

But twice/week sounds like it would keep my water replenished quite nicely, ha.

So let's hear it folks... how often? And be honest. ha

-moore

[JeromeBaker]

On my 60 gallon system I changed 5 gallons every 3-4 days. Everything was super healthy with no dosing because with the frequency of the water changes trace elements are readily available.

[SanDiegoReefs]

JB-- So you don't do anything bigger than a 5g change?

I was thinking about starting to change out smaller amounts more often, and the larger changes less often.

i.e. on my 40g + 10g system...

-20-30% change once a month
-5g change twice a week

Does anyone use this sort of method?

-moore

[colindoug3]

On my 29 I have changed out 10 gallons in the last week. This is not normal for me... This was after my accident with the Prizm overflowing. Im a bad reefer... How much water I change depends on how often I get to the pier. I would like to regularly change out 5g a week... I am going to get a new trashbin from home depot so I can just keep a whole bunch of water in my garage. Once I get that going, I will be doing 5/week.

[PonE619]

I do about 5-6 gallons per week on my 37g

[JeromeBaker]

Moore,

If you do frequent(2 a week) 10% water changes the need to do large volume changes is un-necessary.

Large water changes is a practice that has been brought over from FO, FW, and lazy reefers tanks. The purpose of a large water change is to export nitrates and other "bad" nutrients. We as reefers should be replenishing our trace elements(frequent water changes) so frequently that nitrates and other negative nutrients dont have time to build up to levels where they need to be removed in that volume. Therefore eliminating the purpose for major water changes.

In our small conservatively stocked systems:rolleyes: trace elements(coral food) is consumed faster than "bad" nutrients are able to build up. So you being an expert reef keeper with your focus shifted to giving your corals an adequete amount of trace elements to consume, the exportation of "bad" nutrients is a side effect of your expert practices;)

[JeromeBaker]

Aside from that, a 30% water change creates a major change for your system, that just may have an adverse effect on its inhabitants.

The key to any reefs success is stability. If you and I both have 40 gallon tanks and you do a 25% water change every two weeks(10gallons) and I do 10%(4gallons) twice a week over a period of a month I have changed out 12 gallons more water and my parameters have stayed more stable than yours because I have avoided major changes to my system and at the same time have provided a steady amount of trace elements for my corals.

[colindoug3]

Originally posted by Chap

365: 40-50 gal every week until I get a bigger skimmer, then 50

maybe im missing something, maybe you didnt type right? youre going to be doing more with a bigger skimmer. maybe im just not understanding. im sleepy. goodnight.

[JeromeBaker]

colin, pay special attention to to the time periods;)

[brahm]

I try to change 20% every week, but lately it's been every two weeks.

The holding prop tanks, I try to change 20% every other day.

[TXreef]

My 42 hex I change 6 gallons a week. No special reason I just have 2 three gallon jugs.
Last week I changed 12 gallons because I added a couple of frags and two fish. Did not want to increase bio-load so quickly with such small amount of water.

Question? I have a 42 hex, When you take out the LR and the DSB it only has 27 gallons of water. Is a 10% water change 2.7 or 4.2 gallons?:confused:

[pk-sd]

1.5g water change on 16g. Performed twice a week. And my Nitrates are undetectable.:)

[colindoug3]

Well done JB and Chap. I was really tired, I dont know how I missed that! I read it several times. ah well.

[Dannyboy]

Hey Brahm just curious, but why do you change water so much more frequently in your holding tanks?

[triggerSD]

I just add purified top off water. I havent done a water change on my 60g since I set it up. Maybe 2-3 gallons fresh water a week at the most. I am also running 2 skimmers because I had an extra.

[bler]

I have had great success with doing more smaller water changes, like 5% change 2x a week.. but it is also more time..

in theory, the more smaller water changes you do the better, if you could do a 2% water change a day, that would equal 14% of water changed a week, but instead of a huge change, it would be incremental, helping the transition of new water be less drastic and more ocean-like(also allowing you to change more water).. I don't know all the technical stuff to this, but its like almost any change, the smaller incrementation the less noticable and the...

i'm sure you could hook up some sort of automatic water change to happen every 24 hours to change xx number of gallons..

but to each his own, whatever works for your system...

[brahm]

Originally posted by bler
I have had great success with doing more smaller water changes, like 5% change 2x a week.. but it is also more time..

in theory, the more smaller water changes you do the better, if you could do a 2% water change a day, that would equal 14% of water changed a week, but instead of a huge change, it would be incremental, helping the transition of new water be less drastic and more ocean-like(also allowing you to change more water).. I don't know all the technical stuff to this, but its like almost any change, the smaller incrementation the less noticable and the...

i'm sure you could hook up some sort of automatic water change to happen every 24 hours to change xx number of gallons..

but to each his own, whatever works for your system...

actually it would equal alot less, because rember everytime you do a waterchange your changing out a % of the water you just added as well. There was as study on this in one of the reefkeeping issues, and 20% is the way to go. Once you get to a point where you do enough water changes i don't think it matters as your water your adding is the same spec as the water your removing so you could do daily 100% waterchanges if you did em enough.

[bler]

Originally posted by brahm
actually it would equal alot less, because rember everytime you do a waterchange your changing out a % of the water you just added as well. There was as study on this in one of the reefkeeping issues, and 20% is the way to go. Once you get to a point where you do enough water changes i don't think it matters as your water your adding is the same spec as the water your removing so you could do daily 100% waterchanges if you did em enough.

yah, I do understand that, when doing a lot of smaller water changes, the actual AMOUNT of water that you are changing out DOES go down, because when you do a 5% water change, possibly 2% of that is water that was in the system before the previous change ( so in theory, its only a 3% change )

if you do do enough water changes and the water specs are the same, when you DO do a large change (or in theory a 100% water change), you would remove ALL ammonia, nitrates, phosphate, etc.. or at least remove them to the level of the water your changing with.. _BUT_ at that level, if you are doing changes that frequent you would have little to no levels in the first place..

I'm just figuring that having more new water going through the system over a longer period of time is more benefical then having alot of water changed over a very short period of time... but I have not had enough experience or time to try testing these theories extensivley and maybe i'm wrong :)

I'll lookup the reefkeeping issue so I can know what I'm talking about a little bit better..