Water Changes

[noobofthereef]

So how do you guys do them? Do you vacuum the sandbed or maybe first blow the detritus off the rocks? Or just sticking a pipe in the water and sucking out the water?

 

[Ryan2428]

I blow the detritus off were I can then suck it out never do the sand bed to much life in there for my tank

 

[Reefing Madness]

I just siphon out the water and replace. I have crushed coral so every few months or so I stir up the bed to release the build up, run a filter and 2 skimmers to remove the garbage.

 

[fishroomlady]

I have a shallow sand bed so I usually siphon/vacuum sections when I do a water change. I also blow off detritrus prior to a water change.

 

[Ryan2428]

I just siphon out the water and replace. I have crushed coral so every few months or so I stir up the bed to release the build up, run a filter and 2 skimmers to remove the garbage.[/QUOTE
Yep this works too

 

[noobofthereef]

Ok thanks. Usually I just siphon out the water and occasionally suck up detritus. My wife doesn't seem to get why I'm sucking out clear water and replacing with clear water LOL.

 

[footballdude2k3]

Suck out the water, and replace, the CUC, sump, skimmer handle the rest

 

[Jc_ellis]

I siphon my shallow bed first and if I still am not at the 5 gallon mark, I'll siphon the water column. No skimmer or sump on my current setup so I feel it's necessary to get all the detritus out I can every week .

 

[wowkingjames]

I siphon the a second of my sand into a sock in the sump.

 

[tinctorus]

It depends on how large of a water change in doing, if I'm doing 10 gallons or more I will take a spare power head and blow all the detritus from the rock work and then siphon out the water along with all of the floating particles in the water column, if in only doing 5 gallons then I will use a smaller diameter house and poke it around in the rock work and siphon out as much detritus that I can without getting it all stirred up and floating around the tank
I have a RSM130D so I will also siphon out the back compartment by the intake and skimmer, I attached 2 pieces of tubing to the intakes of the return pumps so that they pull there water from the bottom of the return chamber so that I don't get any detritus building up on the bottom because I had noticed before that I was getting alot of detritus buildup in that chamber and this was a very simple but very effective solution to stop that from occurring and causing nitrate and phosphate buildup in the tank

 

[brad22773]

I currently have a shallow sand bed and live rock only with 2 tangs and 2 clowns with a fairly large CUC for this many fish. I am approaching the 1 month mark and will need to do a water change. I am still learning all the lingo for saltwater so what is detritus ( is this build up on my rocks ) because I have a few things on my rocks that resemble something like a piece of paper towel that is stuck to the rock, some were very small up too very noticeable in size. I used a turkey baster to suck out what I could get too and they have not returned. But I know there are probably more under the rock in places I cant see.