Is there anything wrong with doing major water changes less often

[danieljones8623]

I’ve been on weekly water change routine of around 20%. I don’t really have a problem with my water parameters or anything at the moment. I’ve mostly kept freshwater fish and I’d do a 50-75% water change every few weeks. Doing 20 % every week on my new marine tank honestly doesn’t feel like I’m doing much to export nutrients. That being said, would doing a 50% WC say every two to three weeks be too much?

 

[blaxsun]

I'm doing 10% maybe every 2 months.

 

[Uzidaisies]

As I understand, the problem with that would be larger swings in parameters. An increased accumulation of nitrates, with a sudden drop.

 

[austibella]

I’ve been on weekly water change routine of around 20%. I don’t really have a problem with my water parameters or anything at the moment. I’ve mostly kept freshwater fish and I’d do a 50-75% water change every few weeks. Doing 20 % every week on my new marine tank honestly doesn’t feel like I’m doing much to export nutrients. That being said, would doing a 50% WC say every two to three weeks be too much?

Reason your perimeters are good is because your doing your water changes. I do a 35 gallon water change every 2 weeks or if I cant get to it i do a 70 gallon water change every month. I'm curious to see what other people say

 

[danieljones8623]

How big is your system? I was doing weekly 20%, but maybe I can cut that back a bit just based on the fact that my skimmer has finally got broken in.

 

[mindme]

This question really depends on a lot of factors. What kind of coral do you have? What is your system like? How big, skimmer? Fuge? etc.

I don't do water changes on my 180g. Instead I dose everything it needs while using algae growth to export the nutrients. It's going on 1 year old now, with the original water. I could have gotten more coral growth over the year if I had done water changes, because I had to learn some lessons the hard way. Such as - trace elements will deplete much faster than you think. But I've gotten those things down for the most part now, and growth is good. Luckily I never really had much coral loss during the rocky times, I lost 2 total, a monti and an acro. Most of my tank is LPS/Softies and were just surviving rather than thriving. Now they are back to thriving. Was not easy, but water changes on a tank that size add up, and it's less work and more cost effective.

On my 29g anemone tank, I do a water change every 3 or 4 months. It's only a tank with anemones, some pulsating xenias and 2 clownfish. I let the algae grow in it all over,some might would think it was ugly, but I do not mind. I don't worry about trace elements in it, I don't worry about alk, calcium or anything. It has a hang on the back skimmer, and that is it. Every now and then I'll pull out the algae as nutrient export, just when I feel like it needs to be thinned out to grow better, and every now and then I'll

So is there anything wrong with it? No. But you'll need to examine your needs and what alternatives you'll have as a result.

 

[mdb_talon]

As some others have said it really depends. I would not do a WC that big under normal circumstances personally, but if you match your parameters pretty close i imagine it can be done with minimal stress to livestock.

Main reasons i dont normally do large WC are water alk, temp, and ph. I dont test my ph of replacement water but assume that sitting in a 50g barrel with minimal aeration drops the ph.. I dont heat it so it is usually 7 or 8 degrees cooler. I use a salt mix that averages around 12 dkh and keep my tank at 9dkh. Those big parameter differences have little impact when i do a 10% change. If I was doing a 50% change that is going to put a significant swing in my parameters.

 

[outhouse]

Been doing monthly 100g water changes, on a 300g system. So 1/3. Everything is growing like weeds, Just use a Ca reactor and kalk reactor, a little monthly carbon and gfo. and weekly 30ml vibrant. Tank has never looked this good with my DSB being this old.

I used to do the chaeto and truf scrubber and fuge, didnt do a water change once for 2 years, growth outstanding.

Million ways to skin this cat, most depends on how much you feed, that is your bio load. I do a few pinches of flake twice a day.

 

[danieljones8623]

I haven’t had it set up but like a month, but I guess I’m just to a point where I really want to feed more. A cube of Mysis shrimp last me several days. Mind you, I only have two small clown fish. Is that too little?

 

[austibella]

I haven’t had it set up but like a month, but I guess I’m just to a point where I really want to feed more. A cube of Mysis shrimp last me several days. Mind you, I only have two small clown fish. Is that too little?

I would think that's fine if you only have 2 fish you can feed more as long as they eat it.if you have clean up crew I would feed more so they can eat also but don't overfeed or your water chemistry will change

 

[Buckster]

I have a 180 and do a 20% water change every 2 weeks. I don't want to do weekly water changes and I don't have enough storage to do anything larger than 20%. I have 5 tangs along with 12 other fish. The tank is also full of corals

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

I’ve been on weekly water change routine of around 20%. I don’t really have a problem with my water parameters or anything at the moment. I’ve mostly kept freshwater fish and I’d do a 50-75% water change every few weeks. Doing 20 % every week on my new marine tank honestly doesn’t feel like I’m doing much to export nutrients. That being said, would doing a 50% WC say every two to three weeks be too much?

No. I do 20% once every month or two. Get a protein skimmer, UV sterilizer and don’t sweat it

 

[1fastfxr]

I have a 90 gallon tank that is only 3 1/2 months old and holds 89 gallons of total water volume with the sump. At present, I only have 3 fish in it ( clown, firefish, royal gramma) and have been changing 20 gallons of water per week. This water volume was because I purchased an ultimate refugium starter pack from Algea Barn when I 1st set up the tank. I now think that was a bad idea to add the included cheato so soon. It immediately died, even with proper lighting, good water parameters, and flow prior to adding it 3 weeks after the tank was set up. So, I believe that caused my water parameters to go haywire. My parameters now seem to have settled down again.. As of this week, I began doing a 12 gallon water change and will see how that works out. I also have a diamond goby and another clown fish that will be coming out of quarantine and going into the main display in 4 days.

 

[andy241261]

On my old 1000 litre reef tank I used to 25 litres everyday, having said that it was pretty much automated so it only involved opening and closing taps. It was so easy and that's why it got done so regular and with no water parameter changes.

 

[GillMeister]

I feel smaller, more frequent water changes provide the most stability but they don't export as much of the tank 'pollution'. I do a 30% exchange every month and make sure my alk, Ca and temp are all matched before doing the change.

 

[Just a Wrasse.]

This question really depends on a lot of factors. What kind of coral do you have? What is your system like? How big, skimmer? Fuge? etc.

I don't do water changes on my 180g. Instead I dose everything it needs while using algae growth to export the nutrients. It's going on 1 year old now, with the original water. I could have gotten more coral growth over the year if I had done water changes, because I had to learn some lessons the hard way. Such as - trace elements will deplete much faster than you think. But I've gotten those things down for the most part now, and growth is good. Luckily I never really had much coral loss during the rocky times, I lost 2 total, a monti and an acro. Most of my tank is LPS/Softies and were just surviving rather than thriving. Now they are back to thriving. Was not easy, but water changes on a tank that size add up, and it's less work and more cost effective.

On my 29g anemone tank, I do a water change every 3 or 4 months. It's only a tank with anemones, some pulsating xenias and 2 clownfish. I let the algae grow in it all over,some might would think it was ugly, but I do not mind. I don't worry about trace elements in it, I don't worry about alk, calcium or anything. It has a hang on the back skimmer, and that is it. Every now and then I'll pull out the algae as nutrient export, just when I feel like it needs to be thinned out to grow better, and every now and then I'll

So is there anything wrong with it? No. But you'll need to examine your needs and what alternatives you'll have as a result.

 

[Bruce Burnett]

If you are worried about problems with big water changes look over info on nano tanks. Like 2 gallon or less. They control evaporation as much as possible and do 100% water changes about once a month. They mix same amout of salt to same amount of water every time they just make sure temp is close within about 10 degrees. They are doing this with sps corals only one or two very small fish or none.

 

[UK softy bloke]

I’ve been on weekly water change routine of around 20%. I don’t really have a problem with my water parameters or anything at the moment. I’ve mostly kept freshwater fish and I’d do a 50-75% water change every few weeks. Doing 20 % every week on my new marine tank honestly doesn’t feel like I’m doing much to export nutrients. That being said, would doing a 50% WC say every two to three weeks be too much?

I've kept marines for 35 years with mainly 15-20% water changes a week, on occasion I have done 50% for a few weeks, I can't say the corals looked any better or worse after the big ones.

 

[Naso180!]

So I've been keeping SW tanks of some kind for about 30 years. I typically do 10% weekly on all my tanks that range in size from 20g to 110g. However after my recent move as well as previous moves over the years I do notice that everything looks and grows alot better initially since I usually have to change about 50% when I move. I'm now considering changing 50% on all my tanks maybe every 6 months. Interesting post, following along.

 

[Paul B]

I have always thought, and still think people do way to many water changes and I think it is detrimental to a tank. Older water, to a point is better IMO. If that were not so, why do new tanks with all new water look so lousy.

I change about 20% of water 4 times a year in my 100 gallon fifty year old system.