A Water Change A Day...
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Brief overview of your overall thoughts on this please! 
reefwade
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I don't know if anyone has said this (way too many responses to dig thru), but... this statement is not accurate:
Because you take a small portion per day, you need to think about each time you do a change, it remixes. If you change it to a percentage of original water changed, you need to adjust the total a bit... for example, if you had a 100g tank and changed 5g/day, at the end of the week, you'd have changed 5% the first day. So you'd be left with 95% of the original water on day one. On day five, you'd be left with 77% of the original water... so not too far off of 75 gallons (75%). Now, if you continue that thread down to 20 changes - the hypoethetical 100% change - you are way off. You will actually have changed only 65% of your original water out of the system.
So if you consider that you are constantly building up something you want to remove (nutrients? allelophatic chemicals?) - you will be left with 35% of that remaining amount... plus whatever was added during the process.
So in the end, larger relative changes are certainly more useful (eg, a higher % of your tank water).
That said, the constant influx of fresh water would negate the need for reactors and reduce the need for skimming and carbon use.
Because you take a small portion per day, you need to think about each time you do a change, it remixes. If you change it to a percentage of original water changed, you need to adjust the total a bit... for example, if you had a 100g tank and changed 5g/day, at the end of the week, you'd have changed 5% the first day. So you'd be left with 95% of the original water on day one. On day five, you'd be left with 77% of the original water... so not too far off of 75 gallons (75%). Now, if you continue that thread down to 20 changes - the hypoethetical 100% change - you are way off. You will actually have changed only 65% of your original water out of the system.
So if you consider that you are constantly building up something you want to remove (nutrients? allelophatic chemicals?) - you will be left with 35% of that remaining amount... plus whatever was added during the process.
So in the end, larger relative changes are certainly more useful (eg, a higher % of your tank water).
That said, the constant influx of fresh water would negate the need for reactors and reduce the need for skimming and carbon use.
reefwade
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I dug back and found my article which spells it out from 2004: Short Take: Necessary Maintenance - Water Changes ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog
Looking good. I do similar water change regiments on my tanks. My 110g tank gets daily 2.5g water changes, and then every other day I replace 2.5g spread between 3 small tanks that have a total volume of about 50g. I have been doing it this way for about 6 months and I have been happy with the results.
Countrybob
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nice thread. I am considering this method. My only concern however is that I use Red Sea Pro salt and I am worried that the Mg will accumulate and go off the chart. Does anyone use Red Sea Pro frequently
Genesis Corals
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Your levels will never go higher then the water you are putting into the tank, because you are taking the same amount of water out. You will need to watch your dosing when starting this method because you should need to dose less doing more frequent water changes. The reason the levels drop on nitrates and phosphates is because the water you are putting into the tank should have zero.
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berbotty
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I have done 1 water change since thanksgiving I add a little ph here and there - everything looks so much better without my rigid schedule before. I also turned off my reactors and just run an oversized skimmer
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mcarroll
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Since you're being technical with me, the 25% that I put in quotes make it accurate. So really your statement is accurate, but unnecessary.
You should have just dug back to post #15.
(And I guess I should update the front page with that link from post 15...done...to save the wonder and searching.)In seriousness, is someone going to manage an over-stocked, poorly-managed tank with a 5% daily water change schedule? No. Hopefully that much is clear to other readers. Very clear from the diagrams in your article, if it wasn't before!
And after all, please remember that the idea from the outset was that while my tank is lightly stocked, I wasn't doing water changes at all. Maybe monthly at best....but that's about the same as not doing water changes at all. So I did something about it!
And the results speak for themselves.-Matt
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mcarroll
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For what it's worth, the only reason I'd switch back to weekly water changes is to be lazy and only have to change water once a week. I can't see how results could be any better, and I don't think I'd be saving much if any time per week. (This is the same opinion I had the last time I did a water change a day not that long after I set the tank up.) As always, your mileage may vary due to driving style and prevailing conditions!
-Matt
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Keep it up! I love this idea
