Water change % for Evo 13.5?

[DaGoose]

Hey, all!

I've been doing weekly 5 gallon water changes on my fluval evo 13.5. Wondering if this is too much or not enough? How much do you change a week?

 

[Crabs McJones]

Hey, all!

I've been doing weekly 5 gallon water changes on my fluval evo 13.5. Wondering if this is too much or not enough? How much do you change a week?

If you're doing weekly, 10% is the usual amount, so 2 gallons should be good. However if you've been consistently doing 5 gallons and are not experiencing any negative effects of it, i'd stick with what you're doing

 

[VTBig053]

I do 3-3.5 gal/week. I figure I have roughly 10 gal of water volume after displacement from rock and sand, so roughly 30-35%.

 

[JoshH]

I feel it's hard to go off of what others do. Each tank is different and has different requirements for WC's, some don't do water changes at all. It all comes down to what your goals are with the WC's. Are they for Nutrient export, element replacement, something else? Personally I change 10 Gal weekly on a 45ish Gal system mostly for element replacement.

 

[VTBig053]

I feel it's hard to go off of what others do. Each tank is different and has different requirements for WC's, some don't do water changes at all. It all comes down to what your goals are with the WC's. Are they for Nutrient export, element replacement, something else? Personally I change 10 Gal weekly on a 45ish Gal system mostly for element replacement.

Good points. I initially did WC larger than 10%/week for nutrient export purposes. I've finally got the nutrients under control (maybe a little too well actually) but have kept up with this volume of WC for element replacement and because it's been working for my tank.

 

[DaGoose]

So is 5 gallons too much? It would be a 37% water change. I never did water changes on my 40 gallon...just want to make sure i'm doing it right and not overkill.

 

[JoshH]

Are things in your system stable and happy???

 

[VTBig053]

So is 5 gallons too much? It would be a 37% water change. I never did water changes on my 40 gallon...just want to make sure i'm doing it right and not overkill.

Your test results and corals should answer that. If you can’t detect any NO3 or PO4 you may be running your tank too “clean”/exporting too much nurtrients (lots of debate over this btw).

Another issue you could run into is the Alk, Ca, Mg, etc. levels of the freshly mixed SW not matching your tank water closely enough and causing a swing in parameters. If you have more sensitive corals, this could cause a big problem. Since I keep a lot of SPS I always make sure my new water Alk is within 0.3 dKH of my tank to avoid any large swings from the WC.

 

[Crabs McJones]

So is 5 gallons too much? It would be a 37% water change. I never did water changes on my 40 gallon...just want to make sure i'm doing it right and not overkill.

Are things in your system stable and happy???

If everything is happy and growing I wouldn't change a thing

 

[VTBig053]

LOL, how did a link to Freshly.com find its way into my last post? I didn't add it.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

So is 5 gallons too much? It would be a 37% water change. I never did water changes on my 40 gallon...just want to make sure i'm doing it right and not overkill.

Why would it be too much? Why would any arbitrary water change percentage be too much? 10% - 25% per week is in the range of normal. But if 25% is okay, why would 37% be too much? Or, for that matter, why would 50% be too much? Or 75%? Or even 100%?

 

[DaGoose]

Are you answering my questions by asking questions you already know the answer too? A simple "no" and an explanation as to why would have been just fine....thanks.

 

[Maacc]

I do 5 gallons per week in my evo 13 and everything seems fine with it, some weeks I miss but I have a high bioload with 4 fish. Neon goby, blue assessor, rainsford goby and purple firefish. There doesn't seem to be an ill effect, but I don't have super delicate sps, all softies, zoas and some lps.