How often do you change your water?

[Reefiness]

I think its interesting to watch how the hobby has evolved.

With all of the relatively new husbandry techniques out there like the cheato reactors, the new technologies for maintaining alk levels, the insanely accurate test results of Triton, the dropper heavy zeovit system and so many more... I wonder if and how much people's water change patterns have evolved.

Plus I like polls, think they're awesome.

I've tried putting enough options in there so you can hopefully find something that fits you. If not then just leave your response in the comments.

Feel free to just vote, or to elaborate on your response with anything from mentioning some new changes you made and love, a dosing schedule you follow, what parameters you try to keep, or what salt you use. Everyone here who is keeping their tanks beautiful is doing something right so go ahead and share what you do so we can all learn to take better care of our systems.

 

[Bronx19]

30% weekly here.

 

[jbow50]

I run a typical zeovit system with additives and i do a 10% weekly. However i run a refuge with cheato/culerpa and a skimmer rated much larger than my tanks volume.

 

[Reefiness]

I do about 30 gallons (just over 20%) on the first saturday of every month. Had done no changes for a bunch of years when I had a softy tank, but I wanted to get into SPS so I figured I needed to change my ways. Still not the best I know, but I've been having great success, and when its not broken, I dont like fixing it. I do go through 2 part like water, so Im thinking about switching over to a calcium reactor soon but im not sure I have the space for one.

I did vodka dosing for about a year to keep all the nutrients polished, but then built a DIY cheato reactor which works marvals, so now thats a big nutrient exporter for me.

 

[Reefiness]

I run a typical zeovit system with additives and i do a 10% weekly. However i run a refuge with cheato/culerpa and a skimmer rated much larger than my tanks volume.

get your vote up in there. I dont see it yet.

 

[jrwoltman]

Diligently, 10% weekly.

 

[AllAboutThatWrasse]

20% every weekend with RS coral pro. I run a very small amount of bio pellets with a fuge full of cheato/culerpa and a few other macros. Red Sea Reef foundation additives and 25ML's of phyto every 2-3days I also dose Polyp labs polyp booster.
I keep my parameters at :
Ca - 465
Mg - 1400
KH - 11
No3 - 5
Po4 - 0.16
Salinity - 1.025

 

[AcroNem]

It depends on the system. Some I change 10% every two weeks, others 20% or more weekly, and on up from there to my non photosynthetic system that gets 20% changed every two days. It's definitely a case by case type.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

None for me. I did twice WC (80 litres) 1 year apart when my skimmer poisoned my tank via air contaminant and months ago when I overdosed zinc/iron (DIY formulae ).

 

[RussiReef]

20 % biweekly with red sea coral pro

 

[reefrf]

20% monthly using reef crystals

 

[najer]

Never, mixed reef sps dominated, I have a display refugium, a sump refugium and a skimmer.
I only test alk, when I remember and dose manually every day for the big 3.

 

[lawise]

I was watching a seminar on YouTube from a chemist from another country who has a reef tank and hasn't done a water change in years he says if you get rid of all the garbage in your aquarium and add what you need back in he doesn't think you need to do water changes. I haven't done a water change in over a month but I use a skimmer have a sulfur denitrator and dose element's back in. So far corals and fish are doing awesome in my tank

 

[Hely'sreef1]

Personally I do a 10% weekly. Takes less than 30 minutes and keeps parameters stable....

 

[tdileo]

I do about a 10% once a month lol. I have some SPS but no difficult ones like acros and I'm seeing good growth from them

 

[jbow50]

get your vote up in there. I dont see it yet.

Lol im on mobile and i dont see the poll.

 

[Adam113]

I do about a 3 gallon change in my 29g every Saturday, this is simply due to the fact that my bucket has a easy to hit mark around 3 gallons. Takes about 10 minutes including changing out my filter floss and doing some cleaning.

 

[DSC reef]

20% every Saturday with RSCP salt. Same routine for many years now.

 

[Bdog4u2]

I do it when I need to which is usually after I dose some chemiclean 2-3 times a year. Stinking cyano. I cured some rock that had been dry for 10 years with fresh saltwater outside and it got cyano so it's definitely in the air

 

[Reefiness]

Wow, these results go to show you there are plenty of ways to skin a cat. There is very nice variation between everyone's responses so far, but still seems that the weekly water change is king. Keep them coming.