Water changes how often do you do yours

[Devildoc]

I have a 220 gallon reef SPs/LPs tank and have been doing a 25% water change once a week and have had little growth in 2yrs. I done my regular 30 gallons every two weeks after this last one I lost some SP's and my kole tang had him from the start. but my question is would it be better to do 5 gallons every other day ? Its averages back to the 30 gallons every two weeks, and since it will put less stress on the inhabitants? Wouldn't you think that would be better

 

[brandon429]

I just set my sps/lps/softs pico reef 1 gallon into the sink and poured 2o gallons of prepped water through it hard to clean it out (annually)

wc is no harm to the system, they can only be underdone not overdone.

 

[beaslbob]

I don't do scheduled water changes. My old 55g mixed reef tank that ran for 9 years and only used 3 bags of 50g salt mix.

 

[beaslbob]

FWIW smaller more frequent water changes will result in less change between water changes.
But the same values before the water changes assuming you are doing say 1%/day water changes. Like 10% every 10 days, 20% every 20 days, 1% every day, ECT

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I do water changes about every 3 hours, automatically, working out to about 1% daily.

But in general, I wouldn't attribute loss of SPS to a water change schedule issue.

Are you maintaining calcium and alkalinity in some way other than the water changes?

 

[Frozn]

Water changes are a great way to supplement calc, alk, mag etc and export detritus/ excess nutrients. However there are many people who run very successful tanks without water changes. I would say if you're exporting (skimmer, gfo, denitri, bac, carbon dosing) and keeping nutrient levels down. All while keeping calc, alk, mag (being the main building blocks) at an adequate level you almost negate the reasoning for water changes.

 

[Devildoc]

I never have in three years just weekly WC at 15gallons or 30 every two weeks if I was out of town it is the first SPs I have lost in that time. Ro/di was down for about a month and a half which I had to use 30tds water. That issue has been fixed the loss I believe was the rapid change from the large WC with clean water. But with the last change of 5gallons water looks better and notes/phos dropped and had little affect on pH. Haven't tested cal/all/mag yet. Planned on that today

 

[Irsug1]

25 percent per week seems high to me. Wouldn't that be removing the beneficial bacteria?

 

[brandon429]

Sure it removes some, just not enough to matter

nitrifiers typically are anchored, but they dont just sprout there, theres a water transitory phase and thats where some can be removed but not enough to matter

my tank just had 20x 100% water changes and thats about the 15th time doing so, its almost 10 yrs old.

my tank gets the most aggressive water changes of any reef except for Simon K who leaves his drained for 6 hours per session lol mr tidal ebb and flo

 

[brandon429]

the bulk of your beneficial bac isn't in the water.

 

[mikey_p]

i do 10g every 2 weeks on my 46 bow front and 5 g every 2 weeks on my 20g

 

[reefndude]

I change 5g a week. System has about 160g of water volume.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Water changes are a great way to supplement calc, alk, mag etc and export detritus/ excess nutrients. However there are many people who run very successful tanks without water changes. I would say if you're exporting (skimmer, gfo, denitri, bac, carbon dosing) and keeping nutrient levels down. All while keeping calc, alk, mag (being the main building blocks) at an adequate level you almost negate the reasoning for water changes.

My main reasons for water changes do not relate to calcium, magnesium, or alkalinity, but to those things which are depleted and are not easily added or removing things which may build up and are not easily exported.

This has more:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

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.

 

[sawdonkey]

Like Randy said, you issue likely isn't water changes. Are you skimming? What do your nitrates and phosphates test at? Most importantly, where are you maintaining alk and calcium? If you don't know the answer to these, you need to find out.

Chances are, you're probably wasting your time with all of those water changes. You could probably cut it in half if you dialed in your alk and calcium maintenance. Good luck. Could be as simple a kalk in your ato.

 

[KillerKlownFish]

Wow I do 5 gallons in a 34 gallon tank every week. Seems ok is it too much? What would be better?

 

[brandon429]

you cannot do too many, so you just pick a param you want to target and do x amnt of changes to maintain that.

If your tank doesnt have problems i dont see a need to change more or less

i do huge giant changes that are impractical for larger tanks simply because its fast, but if i had a 100+ id find another plan. prob change the amnts you do

 

[sawdonkey]

Yeah, you can't do too many, but you can be overburdening yourself. I do a 45 gallon change for my 220 (total of about 260) every three weeks. In run biopellets and my tank stays super clean. I used to go 6 weeks between changes, even with a bunch sps. I'm just trying to see if more water changes have an impact. Still not sure.

 

[Devildoc]

My cal is steady 430 all 11 and mag 1400 nit was at 40 which seems to only happen when I get a bad batch of ro/di water. Then I get a breakout of hair algae it sucks. I think I will stay with the smaller changes more frequently. And see how that does. I also have a huge skimmer reef octopus x-5500 which I get a full cup like this about every other night

 

[Devildoc]

I said wrong skimmer is ro-5000sss cone

 

[Browner20]

I never have in three years just weekly WC at 15gallons or 30 every two weeks if I was out of town it is the first SPs I have lost in that time. Ro/di was down for about a month and a half which I had to use 30tds water. That issue has been fixed the loss I believe was the rapid change from the large WC with clean water. But with the last change of 5gallons water looks better and notes/phos dropped and had little affect on pH. Haven't tested cal/all/mag yet. Planned on that today

I think the last several posts have missed this bit of info. If your RO/DI was down was this 30TDS water somewhat filtered tap? I would be less worried about the dissolved organics than the treatment chemicals of the local utility. RO/DI removes these chemicals and if the system was down it could easily point to the potential problem. I would also agree that with proper turnover and skimming most WCs should be done once every three weeks to a month. My WCs are to hopefully decrease the external minerals/chemicals introduced by my hands, lubricants, air/water interface, and detritus vacuum from the actual WC. My main water parameters are tested and controlled by my system and my supplements. My system and supplements is simple: high turnover(SPS driven), high skimming, GFO, and two part supplementing + mag and multi nutrient.