Can u change the water to much

[SOARnTACO]

Is there such a thing as to many water changes. My 55gallon tank almost 3 months old. The parameters stay very constant everything seems right. I us api test kits master and reef kit. But the Ammonia still never reads out a perfect 0 but close to it. I will change the water 1 to 2 times a week about 30%. Everything stays the same. I just got my first frags. 2 trumpet and 1 war coral and a leather I believe. That might be on its way out does not seem happy.

Live stock
2 clowns
1 blennie
1 flame angle
1 royal gramma
1 cleaner shrimp
6 snails
12 hermit crabs


The questions is. Is there such a thing as to many water changes?

Also what’s the true name of this coral and what kind of light does it need?

 

[Old Fritz]

Yes you can do too many water changes and I've had many customers over the years who don't listen to our advice and keep doing water changes ultimately killing fish. The number of water changes really depends on your bio load, tank size, amount of uneaten food, and the age. Doing too many water changes can lead to your tank having to recycle again, and it isn't fun and if it isn't caught immediately, could kill some fish. My problem with the api test kit was I could never get the water right at the dang line in the vial. Also the color spectrum was always a little weird and hard to tell what reading it would actually fall at (the ph test kit is just a bunch of different shades of blue). I can't remember if the api test kit even has a reading for 0 (I know this sounds weird but on some kits the first reading is like 0.2) If you're super worried about ammonia the best way to tell if it is dangerous besides testing is to look at what your fish are doing. If they are active, eating, and their colors are normal then you probably don't have any problems with water quality. With coral its a little more difficult as some corals are less forgiving then fish for ammonia levels.

 

[BedrockIOMC]

You have to remember that every time you change water you are taking out the good stuff as well as the bad stuff and if the water isn't in there long enough to replenish the good stuff you just keep taking more and more of the good stuff away. If it was OK to do a water change every other day all the time you would be better off to do a 100% change and be done with it. I don't even do a weekly water change my self. My Bio Cube 32 has been 2 and a half months sense I have changed any water in it. My red Sea has been about a month maybe a little under. With your fish not only are you taking away the good stuff in the water you are keeping your fish stressed all the time and about the time the get relaxed you change the water again. Relax and if everything is looking good go to every 2 weeks at least.

 

[TheHarold]

What lighting do you have?

 

[WVNed]

No, doing 2 water changes a week wont hurt your tank if the water is correctly made.
But it is time consuming and costly.

Why do you think you need to do so many?

 

[hart24601]

The pico and some nano reef crowds have been doing 100% W/C for a long time now every week. You can find systems that are many years or even decade old now that are growing SPS. I will say for most tanks that large of W/C isn't the desired export mechanism, but if matching parameters it's not harmful either.

 

[madweazl]

The API kits are notorious for giving a false positive for ammonia; at three months old, the presence of ammonia is highly unlikely and I'd ignore the test result.

What salinity are you targeting? What are you using to test salinity? What salt are you using (many have very high alkalinity levels which may be an issue)? Do you have a test kit for alkalinity?

The picture you posted appears to be a toodstool leather. They will do well under a pretty wide range of lighting (low to high which I'd call 50-200+ PAR) and generally aren't too picky in regard to water quality

 

[reefwiser]

What can happen is you can get your Phosphate and nitrate so low that only Dinoflates will survive and then that is another whole big problem.