So I have a 5 gallon pico reef stocked and I was wondering if they’re is any hazard with doing too many water changes? Or is that not even something to worry about. I usually do one on Wednesday and one on Sunday but recently I have a had a heavy hand feeding for some reason and I’ve done a couple extra 5% change in between the other ones. Could this hurt the reef in any way?
Too many water changes?
- Thread starter Nanoclowndave
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In such a small volume of water you can cause instability. You need to see how your pico reef corals react to such a change. Not all corals love constant instability of water parameters and you will end up killing them. Corals like Zoa's live at the waters edge and can handle such instability.
As long as the new water matches the parameters of the tank you won't have any problems. There does come a point when water changes don't really benefit the system as your just swapping like for like, so consider if you need to actually do them but you aren't doing any harm.
Some do daily very small percentage changes so that's also something to consider.
Some do daily very small percentage changes so that's also something to consider.
mcarroll
10K Club member
Some planted tank folks do 100% water changes often enough for "perfect" to be normal for the plants.....hypothetically you might get the same results on your pico if your new water becomes "normal". This will be very hard in a stony coral tank since they can remove alkalinity so quickly, but might be a good bet in a non-stony tank. Certainly worth trying IMO. Definitely thinking outside the box if you do it. 
For a pico tank 100% water changes are the way to go. Even greater then 100% (overflowing to remove detritus), just find a salt that is near your parameters or match it prior to doing this. I ran my pico tank for more then 7 years and experimented with different things even adding 1-2ml of ca and alk everyday. The best times were when I was doing a weekly 100% or more change.
I changed 100% of my pico water weekly, it's pretty common with pico to do 100% waterchanges - or more as described above.
For solid long term success with a pico if you do 100% weekly w/c it's pretty easy. I had a clam and SPS with large w/c and doubt they would have survived as well without them.
For solid long term success with a pico if you do 100% weekly w/c it's pretty easy. I had a clam and SPS with large w/c and doubt they would have survived as well without them.
