Maintaining a nano with daily water changes?

[mochajungle]

I have a 5 gallon nano, and seeing how I’m very new to this hobby I probably shouldn’t have gone with such a small tank but I don’t have space for anything much bigger

anyway I don’t have a way to test my alkalinity and everyone is telling me that after your tank is cycled, alkalinity is the most important parameter

anyway I was wondering, if I do daily water changes of say... half a gallonwould my parameters stay in check

 

[SPR1968]

You need to get a test kit, as without one, and tests for the other parameters you will run into problems from the very start and yes alkalinity is a vital element to keep stable

Water changes may help if you use something with higher foundation elements levels (like Red Sea coral pro for example) but you will still need to test at some point

 

[ZoWhat]

First off .....waterchanges do two things:

1) reduces NO3/PO4
2) recharges major and minor elements

I wouldnt think a 5g tank would benefit from the two things listed bc you couldn't possibly have that much NO3/PO4 build up in 1 day NOR have depleted elements in 1-day.

I would do a 25% WC every 10 days.

Daily WC ? ...imo....youd be putting good SW down the drain for no good reason

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Daily water changes can maintain alk. But in a high demand tank it might take 20% daily.

 

[mochajungle]

What would you recommend for a alkalinity tester

 

[Woodneers]

Hanna! Super easy to use and cheapish to test.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Salifert test kit is fine.

 

[Auquanut]

Just a thought. With daily water changes, it might be a bit harder to keep track of evaporation. You might want to keep a closer eye on your salinity to ensure you're not replacing evaporated water with salt water and driving your salinity up. Just a thought.

 

[ahiggins]

Also-what are you keeping in it?
If it’s not sps or a ton of lps, you don’t even need to worry about alk. Also if you don’t keep those corals, you don’t need the reef salt, only regular salt. (Reef salt has higher alk, cal, mag so you can get out of balance super easy if you miss or double dose a water change). I’ve kept tons of pico and Nanos and never used reef salt. My biggest was about half lps and it still didn’t warrant using reef salt because it didn’t use/uptake that much of the alk and calcium.

For my 3 and 10 gallon tanks I do 10% water changes weekly and they thrive. The 3 gallon has softies so minimal if any uptake.

 

[Snuggs]

Just a thought. With daily water changes, it might be a bit harder to keep track of evaporation. You might want to keep a closer eye on your salinity to ensure you're not replacing evaporated water with salt water and driving your salinity up. Just a thought.

YES. I have a 4 gallon nano that I top off twice a day. It amazes me how much evaporation can happen in a few hours. I will eventually get an ATO if I decide to keep this tank running

 

[Rybren]

I ran a 3G pico for 5 years with softies and a couple of monties. I'd do a 50% WC every 5 or 6 months, but otherwise just topped the tank off daily. Once in a blue moon I'd add a bit of Bio-Calcium.

 

[ahiggins]

YES. I have a 4 gallon nano that I top off twice a day. It amazes me how much evaporation can happen in a few hours. I will eventually get an ATO if I decide to keep this tank running

the top off struggle is real! My toadstool will get ***** if I miss a day of top off in my 3 gallon