Auto water change

[loganzielke]

hello all, I have a 25 gallon cube that I do weekly 5gallon water changes on. My question is that I want to set up a auto water change system. Like 1-2% a day. I’m wondering if doing that if it would replenish my trace elements cal, mag , alk and would eliminate the need to dose!

thanks, Logan

 

[Tankkeepers]

This is a good question I would also like an awnser to

My thought prosses on this as I have a 32 is that it depends on what you have and how big it is

When my tank plan was all soft water changes alone would of been fine and have been for 2 years

But as I move to sps dominate and they get the size of the tank I question a waterchanges ability to replace traces

I think I'll need an apex system running 2 tests a day with an auto doser to keep levels high enoff at this point

I estimate a year or so that water changes alone are going to be ok I do 40 percent every 2 weeks

 

[Tankkeepers]

Also a single large change replaces more then the same in small changes so 1 40 percent vs 40 1 percent the 40 percent gives you a bigger change upwards in traces then the 40 1 percent will

 

[Tankkeepers]

The key would be to constantly increase water change amount to account for losses which would end up costing more then an apex system and dosing long term

 

[loganzielke]

The key would be to constantly increase water change amount to account for losses which would end up costing more then an apex system and dosing long term

I would love to get a apex and dosing system haha just not feasible for me at 17! I have mostly softies with some lps and 2 sps I think I should be able to get away with my 5gallon water changes. was just looking at the option of awc

 

[dwest]

hello all, I have a 25 gallon cube that I do weekly 5gallon water changes on. My question is that I want to set up a auto water change system. Like 1-2% a day. I’m wondering if doing that if it would replenish my trace elements cal, mag , alk and would eliminate the need to dose!

thanks, Logan

1-2% will likely replace trace and mag fine. It will likely replace alk and calcium for a while but you won’t know for sure until you do it. As your tank matures your consumption will likely increase.

I do 1% AWC per day. I dose lots of kalk and 2 part to keep up with demand. Very rarely do I add mag and never trace.

 

[loganzielke]

1-2% will likely replace trace and mag fine. It will likely replace alk and calcium for a while but you won’t know for sure until you do it. As your tank matures your consumption will likely increase.

I do 1% AWC per day. I dose lots of kalk and 2 part to keep up with demand. Very rarely do I add mag and never trace.

Thanks

 

[Tankkeepers]

If your mostly softy with 1 or 2 small lps waterchanges should be fine for a long time

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

As a technical matter, calcium, magnesium, and alkalinity are not trace elements. The word trace implies very low concentration. Trace elements in seawater include iron, vanadium, manganese, etc.

Water changes cannot maintain alk or calcium if there is any significant demand, unless the change is on the order of 30% per day. I show that here:

Water Changes in Reef Aquaria by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

Figure 23. Alkalinity as a function of time when performing very large daily water changes of 0% (no changes), 5%, 10%, 15% and 30% of the total volume EACH DAY. In this example, alkalinity is present at 4 meq/L (11 dKH) at the start and is depleted at a low rate of 0.2 meq/L per day.