Water Change Question

[tdowning]

So I'm sure this question has been asked before. I have a biocube 29, been doing weekly water changes of about 4-5 gallons each time. I tested my parameters this morning and everything looked great. The corals I have in there look good and so do the two clown fish...is there a reason to keep doing weekly water changes if everything loos good? I have no problem doing it, and enjoy it...just want to know if I'm creating more work for myself in the long run.

Thanks!

 

[Reeferdood]

Good husbandry is one key to success in the hobby. 5 gallons a week is more than enough in a small system like that, perhaps try 1/2 that and see if things still stay stable.
I assume you are trying to save a couple bucks on salt?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

+1 Dood

Look at the parameters as well. No Po cal and alk are all affected by the WC. if the nutrients are running low, there's no prob skipping. if they're high wc may help.
Same goes for Cal/Alk.

 

[tdowning]

Good husbandry is one key to success in the hobby. 5 gallons a week is more than enough in a small system like that, perhaps try 1/2 that and see if things still stay stable.
I assume you are trying to save a couple bucks on salt?

No, money is never the question. I didn't get into the hobby to be cheap

 

[tdowning]

+1 Dood

Look at the parameters as well. No Po cal and alk are all affected by the WC. if the nutrients are running low, there's no prob skipping. if they're high wc may help.
Same goes for Cal/Alk.

PO and Cal were both 0.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

PO and Cal were both 0.

Po should build, keep an eye on it, its at undetectable levels probably. The calcium cant be at zero, you might want to retest.

 

[tdowning]

Po should build, keep an eye on it, its at undetectable levels probably. The calcium cant be at zero, you might want to retest.

Oops, I'm sorry, I meant Copper was a 0, Calcium is at 440.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Oops, I'm sorry, I meant Copper was a 0, Calcium is at 440.

lol, we must be related.
Thats good. test at the end of the week and see what the cal alk and No are at. that's usually the largest noticeable change.

check out Rand Farley's articles, try the beginners ones.
Its only taken me 7 years or so to almost understand the rest

 

[MT. Reefer]

I have 2-28 gal. JBJ Nano cubes. I do 10 gal water changes every 2 weeks. Sounds like the same as 5 gals every week but it really reduces the time spent by doing a larger water change twice a month compared to smaller changes 4 times a month. Our spare time is important so as not to get burnt out doing maintenance.

 

[Pdandy]

There are people that never do water changes. I would do like everyone else said and test at the end of the week. If your levels are fine then there is no need to do a water change. Once you start to see nitrate and phosphate rising and alk, calc, and mag dropping then you could do a water change.

 

[joeyrm7]

I do mine every week because I know that if I went to 2 weeks, then it would become 3 then 4.....

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Water Changes in Reef Aquaria by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

my summary from it:

Conclusion
Water changes are a good way to help control certain processes that serve to drive reef aquarium water away from its starting purity. Some things build up in certain situations (organics, certain metals, sodium, chloride, nitrate, phosphate, sulfate, etc.), and some things become depleted (calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, strontium, silica, etc.). Water changes can serve to help correct these imbalances, and in some cases may be the best way to deal with them. Water changes of 15-30% per month (whether carried out once a month, daily or continuously) have been shown in the graphs above to be useful in moderating the drift of these different seawater components from starting levels. For most reef aquaria, I recommend such changes as good aquarium husbandry. In general, the more the better, if carried out appropriately, and if the new salt water is of appropriate quality.

Calcium and alkalinity, being rapidly depleted in most reef aquaria, are not well controlled, or even significantly impacted by such small water changes. In order to maintain them with no other supplements, changes on the order of 30-50% PER DAY would be required. Nevertheless, that option may still be a good choice for very small aquaria, especially if the changes are slow and automatic.

Happy Reefing!

 

[Ty Hamatake]

I am currently running a 75 gallon tank with a fairly light bioload (coral beauty, two clowns, firefish, banggai cardinal, six line wrasse, and some CUC). I just recently went from weekly 15% water changes to 15% every other week and am now dosing kalkwasser. It's really all dependant on the needs of your tank, but less frequent WCs are definitely doable.

 

[tdowning]

Thanks everyone for the input! I think I'm going to keep an eye on things but instead of doing 5 gallons every week, I'm going to go down to 2.5 gallons weekly. I enjoy spending the extra time w/ my tank each week!