Can you water change too much/often?

[Jojo92]

Well can you? lol

 

[cshouston]

Yes. Too much: you risk shocking livestock if the parameters aren’t close enough to the water you’re removing. Too often: you can starve the tank of nutrients which are beneficial to biological processes, and invite overgrowth of pests like dinoflagellates.

That being said, you can have an automatic water changer doing large daily turnover as long as it’s slow and sustained across a lengthy period of time.

 

[wolfthefallen]

imo, no.. It is generally a catch all option when things go sideways. Only thing it cannot really help fight against is pests and parasites.

 

[ScubaFish802]

It depends on so many things. You have people doing changes every day and people doing them never haha

 

[Jojo92]

It depends on so many things. You have people doing changes every day and people doing them never haha

I’m seeing all sorts of diff opinion online. I haven’t had my tank that long, but once I added fish I started doing 20% once a week, twice I’ve done 50% spread over several days because I was paranoid after over feeding. Lol I think the largest I’ve done at once is somewhere around 30-40%. A few days later I did an additional 10%.

kinda wonder if I’m being neurotic, and if the fish might appreciate a break. Lol

 

[Miguel Negron]

You don’t got to stress it like that. Simply go with the flow and do a water change every week or two weeks

 

[Jojo92]

You don’t got to stress it like that. Simply go with the flow and do a water change every week or two weeks

I haven’t done one this week yet and I feel guilty lol

 

[Miguel Negron]

Lol nah don’t feel that way, they not gonna die

 

[The_Skrimp]

My tank has some dinoflagellates that I’ve been keeping in check with UV but every time I do more than my usual weekly water change, the dinos explode. Water changes definitely take nutrients out that other things need to compete against the dinos so in my case there definitely is such thing as too many water changes. I also feel like my coral doesn’t color up the way it should when my nitrates and phosphates are at zero.

 

[Miguel Negron]

I agree. You don’t want your tank too clean because you’ll get Dinos. I got Dinos for not having nutrients and constants water changes.

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My tank has some dinoflagellates that I’ve been keeping in check with UV but every time I do more than my usual weekly water change, the dinos explode. Water changes definitely take nutrients out that other things need to compete against the dinos so in my case there definitely is such thing as too many water changes. I also feel like my coral doesn’t color up the way it should when my nitrates and phosphates are at zero.

 

[jeffrey750750]

I agree. You don’t want your tank too clean because you’ll get Dinos. I got Dinos for not having nutrients and constants water changes.

I second that

 

[Leah Ryan]

I agree. You don’t want your tank too clean because you’ll get Dinos. I got Dinos for not having nutrients and constants water changes.

I agree with this completely. I was just about to ask how old/mature is your tank? Too many water changes to a young tank can actually cause your nutrients to bottom out, and that's when you get dinos. @Jojo92 That's a VERY time consuming battle!

 

[Leah Ryan]

I don't really have a set schedule for water changes. I do test a lot, and will do a water change when I feel the tests show that I need to, but I don't just do a water change because it's Thursday or whatever.

 

[Susan Edwards]

Right now I'm doing a water change every 2-3 days in order to remove the sand bed and high nutrients. Since end of Sept. I've done 5, each is about 20 % or a bit under. I have 1 more to go and most of the sand will be gone. I was hoping with so much water changed--got to be 100% now, that my po4 and no3 would be a bit more reasonable.

Once all sand is gone, I'll go to once a week, and if my numbers come down, maybe every other week or 2 x's a month. That is my goal, but might have to do weekly for a while and hope new sand doesn't mess things up

 

[TonyD1988]

I do an 80 gallon water change once every couple months on my 300 FOWLR with 15 fish, 11 of which are tangs, with no issues. Granted it is FOWLR.

 

[Robbo1972]

Best thing to do is buy some test kits to see if your nutrients are high or low. if to high do a water change,

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Well can you? lol

This is a lot more complicated question than it seems, but I think, in the extreme, yes, it would be a big problem to change 100% with artificial seawater every 5 minutes. With natural seawater, I do not think there is any limit. That is like current flowing over a natural reef.

I don't consider nutrients to be a problem since they are easily dosed into new salt water (if needed), but other things of a far more complex nature would come into play. Like the complexation of trace metals (or not) by organic matter, and the potential to precipitate calcium carbonate (which is a problem in new salt water but not in an aquarium or natural seawater). Also, removing food that filter feeders consume.

A much more pertinent question is if water changes are useful, and for what, and how much does it take to accomplish what you want to accomplish, and if there is a point where large changes are less useful or beginning be be detrimental.

 

[Scott Halseuy]

Well can you? lol

YES! you can mess up your Chem's in your tank and end up with high nitrate and nitrites causing algae grow to go way off the grid

 

[Hugh Mann]

As long as the temperature other perameters match exactly, or very very close, you should be able to change as much and as often as you want. The only risk you run is bottoming out the nutrients. If they're too far off, then yes. Think of it almost like the process of acclimation.

 

[kev.2013]

Yes you can over do it.

tanks low on nutrients, well doing more water changes is only going to deplete those nutrients.