Water Changes: Where do you stand on water changes for your reef tank?

[Limoncello]

1. 10% weekly with H2ocean Pro natural sea salt on my 55 litre nano...i feel more comfortable letting nature take care of the trace element balance etc, rather than a human made synthetic mix

2. For my aquarium and personal reefing ethos ( of the happiness of the inhabitants being priority) i consider it very essential....regardless of currently available export mechanisms eventually that water is going to get pretty funky in one way or another....i liken it to if you don't open that teenagers bedroom and let some fresh air in occasionally the air is going to become pretty funky.... thick and tasteable ;Greedy

Hi - Curious where you order your salt and how much is costs compared to the normal brands. Thanks!

 

[kchristensen8064]

I do a water change every other week. On my 75gal system I do 10 gallons which is about 13% and on my 45gal system I do 5 gallons which is about 11%. I don't dose so this is to replenish a lot of the trace elements.

 

[ScottB]

So, I live in Arizona, and especially in the summer, it’s very dry. I have a 150 gal, and lose roughly 15%-20% to evaporation each week. I have a 10 gallon auto top off, and refill it twice a week. That suffices for a “water change”, right.

Replacing evaporation doesn't count because chemically, nothing changed. You just replaced RODI with RODI. Any impurities in the water did not leave the system via evaporation. Nor were any trace or macro elements replaced.

 

[BrandonS]

My tank just does better on weekly water changes. At least I feel it does. I do also get my water change water for free so I can be more liberal with the water changes and not feel it in the wallet

 

[ScottB]

Im in that 2% or maybe 8% I have a 187g Peninsula with a 75g sump and 8g frag tank connected and I dont do water changes. I guess if Ihad a major issue I would do water change but only then. I will sometimes replenish if I sell some frags and pull out too much water but that's still maybe a gallon or two over a couple months. My nutrients run low PO4 is finally at .03 after heavy feeding and nitrates are at 3ppm and I am continuously dosing kno3 so keeping nutrients in check is not an issue for my system. If anything my issues is nutrients bottoming out to 0. I also dose CA/ALk/Mag which are all stable. ATI tests every couple months let me know if anything gets low in trace so I dose those as well but not very often.

My questions is what type of issues should I look out for if things start going south based on yours others experience.

Some pics of my system. Sorry for the bad quality photos.

Your corals look great -- nice work.

So you are replacing what gets depleted, but do you ever wonder about what is accumulating in your system over time? I am not talking about nutrients -- coral will take those up. Perhaps GAC can keep up with that removal.

I don't really have particular contaminents in mind; I just know that I dump a lot of food in there that I did not personally produce or package. I "feel" a little better knowing I am removing a little of it every couple of weeks.

 

[Ferrell]

75 gallon mixed with 5 fish:
Used to change 15 gallons every two weeks. Have changed to 6 gallons every week and honestly tank does better

 

[Dipan Desai]

Your corals look great -- nice work.

So you are replacing what gets depleted, but do you ever wonder about what is accumulating in your system over time? I am not talking about nutrients -- coral will take those up. Perhaps GAC can keep up with that removal.

I don't really have particular contaminents in mind; I just know that I dump a lot of food in there that I did not personally produce or package. I "feel" a little better knowing I am removing a little of it every couple of weeks.

Thank you. The main things I focus on keeping CA/ALk/Mag stable with constant dosing. I have a doser set up to dose CA/Alk 4x a day an mag has been a little high at about 1600 so I haven't had to dose that for quite some time for some reason. I just started to add Vanadium and fluor that the ATI test said I was low on so we will see if there is any positive effects of bringing that in balance.

I have 2 reactors set up as well one with Carbon and other with GFO to keep things in check.

For feeding I always mix it up between frozen spirulina brine shrimp, pellets, frozen cyclops, or LRS Fish frenzy. I also turn off my sump pump and leave the power head running so it snow storms food all over my tank. I leave it off for 10 min or until all the food has been eaten. The fish poop feeds my corals haha. Im also trying out the Red Sea AB+ to see if that does anything to my SPS in terms of color.

I also have been feeling pretty lazy and ditched my regular filter socks as I only changed them out maybe once a month but they would clog after 3 days. I switch to the mesh socks just to catch anything big.

I havent been worried about anything settling and if I see alot in the sump after a year I may just do a quick siphoning out of it.

 

[Proteus Meep]

Hi - Curious where you order your salt and how much is costs compared to the normal brands. Thanks!

It buy the smaller 6.6 kg tubs(as i have a nano it lasts quite a while) at about £27 it costs about £65 for the 23 kg tub

Not sure where you are, im in the UK but i buy it mainly from a company called Aquacadabra via Ebay

H2Ocean Pro+ Reef Salt | D-D The Aquarium Solution

www.theaquariumsolution.com

 

[PBnJOnWheat]

No water changes. Water changes are for the weak. The ocean doesn’t do water changes so neither shall I!!!
125 gal display
35 gal sump

 

[robbyg]

Im in that 2% or maybe 8% I have a 187g Peninsula with a 75g sump and 8g frag tank connected and I dont do water changes. I guess if Ihad a major issue I would do water change but only then. I will sometimes replenish if I sell some frags and pull out too much water but that's still maybe a gallon or two over a couple months. My nutrients run low PO4 is finally at .03 after heavy feeding and nitrates are at 3ppm and I am continuously dosing kno3 so keeping nutrients in check is not an issue for my system. If anything my issues is nutrients bottoming out to 0. I also dose CA/ALk/Mag which are all stable. ATI tests every couple months let me know if anything gets low in trace so I dose those as well but not very often.

My questions is what type of issues should I look out for if things start going south based on yours others experience.

Some pics of my system.

The time line all depends on the tank size and what is in it etc. Most people get to around the two year mark and then they suddenly have a huge algae outbreak followed by diatoms etc. Everything is good until in the span of a week or two everything goes to hell. I will never go down that road again. When the problems start to be visible it seems to be to late. I did huge water changes etc and everything seemed to make it accelerate. I have seen so many posts and videos on people trying the no water change route and it almost always seems to end the same way. If it’s been working for you for more than three years then please give us more info on what your doing.

 

[Auquanut]

I change 2%+/- daily via AWC. Just a couple of topics for discussion: Not saying anyone is right or wrong, because there really IS no right or wrong.

1. I do WC's primarily to remove contaminants. The way I see it, if you can smell dinner cooking, you're introducing something into your closed loop "ocean" via gas exchange that isn't found in the wild. Add to that any other unknown contaminants that are flowing through the air in our homes. Many of these I'm sure will not show up on an ICP test.

2. Many say "Don't dose any trace elements that you are not testing for." But really, depending on the salt mix we use, we ARE dosing elements that we're not testing for. The amount and concentrations of elements can vary significantly from brand to brand. Additionally, if we need to dose Alk and Cal between WC's, it stands to reason that the trace elements included in the salt mix are also being consumed faster than the WC can replace them. If that's true, then as we do partial water changes, and depend on the new water to replenish trace elements, the level of those elements will slowly decline over time. Right? If we wait for an ICP test to tell us that X element is low to make a change, and then try to bring it back up, is that best for our corals?

Once again, not saying I'm right. Just sayin.

 

[Doctorgori]

Not that how long you’ve been reefing translates into brains but it has some bearing on how many buckets of salt you have bought and I’ve spent easily thousands on salt alone. So no matter what your maintenance routine is, the tanks just looks better and feels better after a massive dump

 

[Dipan Desai]

The time line all depends on the tank size and what is in it etc. Most people get to around the two year mark and then they suddenly have a huge algae outbreak followed by diatoms etc. Everything is good until in the span of a week or two everything goes to hell. I will never go down that road again. When the problems start to be visible it seems to be to late. I did huge water changes etc and everything seemed to make it accelerate. I have seen so many posts and videos on people trying the no water change route and it almost always seems to end the same way. If it’s been working for you for more than three years then please give us more info on what your doing.

Thanks for the info. Im roughly about 6 months into this new set up. A lot of it was transferred from my already running system of 100g so the rocks have been cycled for well over 6-8 years with a few new rocks added for the larger system. I had also done a few water change in my old system so I think 6 months in with the new system would probably be accurate. Have you heard anything on why things would suddenly go down so quickly if everything had been stable?

 

[sfin52]

10

Pretty simple today. I think it's been a while for a site-wide poll on water changes so let's do it! Let's talk about water changes and where you stand concerning your tank!

1. How often do you "change out your water" in your reef tank, what percent and how many gallons is your system? Or do you even?

2. How important or not important do you think water changes are for your reef tank?


@CMO no water change reef! Thread here.

10 gallons a week.

 

[Proteus Meep]

I have seen so many posts and videos on people trying the no water change route and it almost always seems to end the same way.

Sadly it's exactly the same observation I have noted over the years in most documented genuine no water change setups, some knowledgeable dedicated reefers manage to maintain it for much longer but eventually....

 

[Terrp]

I used to do religious water changes on my prior tanks, but I stopped doing them with my current rebuild, and I've been happy with it so far. Full disclosure: I am only now starting to add SPS to the tank, so only time will tell, but here's my thinking...

While water changes can clearly help, it’s also clear that they aren’t sufficient on their own, but it's possible that other methods can be sufficient without water changes, as long as you have a thorough plan.

There are 2 main reasons stated to do water changes: to get bad things out (pollutants, N and P) and to put good things in (trace elements). Let’s look at the math using the following assumptions:

• Water change (WC) is the only method of adding the good or removing the bad:
• System generates 10 pbb of PO4 each week
• System uses 10 pbb of trace element X each week

End of Week	PO4 pbb Generated	DT PO4 before WC	Removed with WC	Added with New Salt Water	DT PO4 ppb Remaining
0					-
1	10.00	10.00	(1.00)	-	9.00
2	10.00	19.00	(1.90)	-	17.10
3	10.00	27.10	(2.71)	-	24.39
4	10.00	34.39	(3.44)	-	30.95
5	10.00	40.95	(4.10)	-	36.86
6	10.00	46.86	(4.69)	-	42.17
7	10.00	52.17	(5.22)	-	46.95
8	10.00	56.95	(5.70)	-	51.26
9	10.00	61.26	(6.13)	-	55.13
10	10.00	65.13	(6.51)	-	58.62

End of Week	TraceX Pbb Used	DT TraceX before WC	Removed with WC	Added with New Salt Water	DT TraceX pbb Remaining
0					100.00
1	(10.00)	90.00	(9.00)	10.00	91.00
2	(10.00)	81.00	(8.10)	10.00	82.90
3	(10.00)	72.90	(7.29)	10.00	75.61
4	(10.00)	65.61	(6.56)	10.00	69.05
5	(10.00)	59.05	(5.90)	10.00	63.14
6	(10.00)	53.14	(5.31)	10.00	57.83
7	(10.00)	47.83	(4.78)	10.00	53.05
8	(10.00)	43.05	(4.30)	10.00	48.74
9	(10.00)	38.74	(3.87)	10.00	44.87
10	(10.00)	34.87	(3.49)	10.00	41.38

As you can see, water changes alone won’t cut it, so you must use other methods to remove the bad and add the good, even if you do water changes. Sure, a 10% water change is an immediate 10% improvement when other methods are more gradual, so you can see the immediate benefit. And I suspect there is often a correlation between religious water changes and good upkeep generally. If your other methods aren’t thorough, or if you get lazy when you stop water changes, then skipping water changes can be bad.

Here’s what I’ve used to get the bad stuff out in place of water changes:

• Filter roller (or socks or pads) for larger organics and floating debris
• Skimmer for organics
• Algae Turf Scrubber for excess N & P
• ROX carbon for pollutants and any tint in the water
• Bare bottom with high flow for detritus on the bottom
• Blowing off rocks and bottom weekly to direct detritus to filter roller and skimmer
• Periodic treatment with a product like Waste Away to remove any build-up
• ICP to confirm no excess bad staff
• Water change only if directed to do so by ICP (hasn't happened, at least so far)

Here’s what I’ve used to add the good stuff in place of water changes:

• Triton 4-part dosing (includes Alk, Ca, Mg and trace elements)
• Specific manual “fine tune” dosing of only those trace elements identified as deficient by a regular ICP test

Water changes can also introduce opportunities for error (forgetting to plug something in, miscalculating the salt added, spills, etc.).

Other reasons for doing a water change?

• Cost? – For larger tanks, the cost of salt for water changes can be more than the cost of an ICP test. It’s the opposite for smaller tanks. Even so, I would do ICP tests either way to be sure that I have sufficient good stuff and no excess bad stuff.
• Vacuuming sand bed? – I designed around this, but I suppose you could also vacuum directly to your filter roller/socks if you still wanted to avoid water changes. Never tried that.
• Restart? – I suppose there could be some other “restart” benefits…? Maybe the good bacteria gets a jump start when fresh water is added? I doubt it, but maybe?

On balance, a solid no-water-change process seems better to me in theory, and it has held up in my first year of the rebuild without corals. We'll see if I need to modify or even abandon my approach as I move forward with SPS.

 

[robbyg]

Thanks for the info. Im roughly about 6 months into this new set up. A lot of it was transferred from my already running system of 100g so the rocks have been cycled for well over 6-8 years with a few new rocks added for the larger system. I had also done a few water change in my old system so I think 6 months in with the new system would probably be accurate. Have you heard anything on why things would suddenly go down so quickly if everything had been stable?

Your very lucky you have not yet reached into the timeline when things start to go bad. If I was you I would do some water changes ASAP and keep doing them from time to time. The best method IMHO is to do the small weekly changes but I am just to lazy for that.

As to why it happens, I don't think anybody in the reefing community knows why. If I had to guess based solely on my own attempt at being "God" LoL that is an inside joke that my brother use to say to me when I started going down that path. He said I had been having so much success that I thought I was God and could do no wrong Yeah he had zero sympathy for me when it all went down the tubes.

Anyway my best guess is that some kind of Pathogen or bacteria builds up in the water and when it hits some critical mass it can kill the good bacteria, possibly the Nitrosomas faster than they can reproduce. I am guessing at that because water changes actually make the problem worst, maybe because your removing more of the Nitrosomas from the tank. This is all just a big assumption on my part. Maybe other people have better theories on what is going on.

 

[X-37B]

The time line all depends on the tank size and what is in it etc. Most people get to around the two year mark and then they suddenly have a huge algae outbreak followed by diatoms etc. Everything is good until in the span of a week or two everything goes to hell. I will never go down that road again. When the problems start to be visible it seems to be to late. I did huge water changes etc and everything seemed to make it accelerate. I have seen so many posts and videos on people trying the no water change route and it almost always seems to end the same way. If it’s been working for you for more than three years then please give us more info on what your doing.

Check out Glenn Fong!

 

[Dipan Desai]

Your very lucky you have not yet reached into the timeline when things start to go bad. If I was you I would do some water changes ASAP and keep doing them from time to time. The best method IMHO is to do the small weekly changes but I am just to lazy for that.

As to why it happens, I don't think anybody in the reefing community knows why. If I had to guess based solely on my own attempt at being "God" LoL that is an inside joke that my brother use to say to me when I started going down that path. He said I had been having so much success that I thought I was God and could do no wrong Yeah he had zero sympathy for me when it all went down the tubes.

Anyway my best guess is that some kind of Pathogen or bacteria builds up in the water and when it hits some critical mass it can kill the good bacteria, possibly the Nitrosomas faster than they can reproduce. I am guessing at that because water changes actually make the problem worst, maybe because your removing more of the Nitrosomas from the tank. This is all just a big assumption on my part. Maybe other people have better theories on what is going on.

Makes sense. For me I have had more troubles when doing water changes then when I stopped. Im gonna hope your wrong for the benefit of my system hahah. Thanks for the good info.

 

[Beardo]

I perform water changes weekly, though have missed a week here or there. I change 40ish gallons maybe a bit more sometimes on a 270g tank and 40 gallon sump, approx. 250 gallon actual water volume.
Feel it helps keep a balanced tank, replaces trace elements, prevents a buildup of undesireables.
Plus I just enjoy it.