Water changes

[Brooks Ross]

I have a bit of a nitrate issue in my tank. I did a 20% water change last week and a another 20% water change this week.

Am wondering if you can make too many water changes... should i do another 10% water change today ?

Is there a rule of thumb on the MAX water changes your tank can handle in a given time ?

 

[Crabs McJones]

I have a bit of a nitrate issue in my tank. I did a 20% water change last week and a another 20% water change this week.

Am wondering if you can make too many water changes... should i do another 10% water change today ?

Is there a rule of thumb on the MAX water changes your tank can handle in a given time ?

Not sure about a MAX, but 20% a week and another 10% today won't hurt anything. As long as your parameters are remaining stable.

 

[Murica]

As long as there's no sudden changes to your parameters, you will be fine. Lots of corals and inverts won't tolerate sudden changes. so less, smaller water changes are better than few larger ones.

 

[Mark Derail]

When I had problems / lots of die-offs (from using Tap vers RODI water).

I did WCs every day (around 20% - rate I could produce RODI) non-stop for 10 days. Did sporadic PH4 testing (it was very high!).
Then took a 2-day break, PH4 still tested high - but below 1.0 - so continued with RODI WCs of about 50% every 2nd day for another week.

I stopped doing massive & often WCs when PH4 started testing just a touch of blue - between 0.00 and 0.10.
You have to leave some stuff in the water if you have corals.

So... are you testing? I gave up on all the other tests, other than phosphate, because I do so many WCs at a high-volume (50%). Down to every second week-end, and everything is beautiful.
Not dosing, of course, the WCs handle that.

Note that I am using Instant Ocean - and in using "cheap but good enough" salt mix - I plan 20% WC every 2nd week.
That's after 3 months.

My rule of thumb so far has been, you can't do too little WCs.
However, if you water is too clean - you need to feed a lot to make sure your corals have stuff to munch on.

 

[Brooks Ross]

When I had problems / lots of die-offs (from using Tap vers RODI water).

I did WCs every day (around 20% - rate I could produce RODI) non-stop for 10 days. Did sporadic PH4 testing (it was very high!).
Then took a 2-day break, PH4 still tested high - but below 1.0 - so continued with RODI WCs of about 50% every 2nd day for another week.

I stopped doing massive & often WCs when PH4 started testing just a touch of blue - between 0.00 and 0.10.
You have to leave some stuff in the water if you have corals.

So... are you testing? I gave up on all the other tests, other than phosphate, because I do so many WCs at a high-volume (50%). Down to every second week-end, and everything is beautiful.
Not dosing, of course, the WCs handle that.

Note that I am using Instant Ocean - and in using "cheap but good enough" salt mix - I plan 20% WC every 2nd week.
That's after 3 months.

My rule of thumb so far has been, you can't do too little WCs.
However, if you water is too clean - you need to feed a lot to make sure your corals have stuff to munch on.

This is very helpful

I had he same issues with die offs from doing tap water... i just switch to a RODI and things are def getting better

 

[Vahanyos]

I think a water change is the best thing you can do for your tank, that's if you're using quality salt and RO/DI water...

However, when I had nitrates of around 50-60 ppm, I did sudden water changes every day or 2 and got it down to almost 0 within a week.. The only bad side effect from that was that some of my corals were shocked by the sudden change of nitrates. Some of my corals didn't mind the high nitrates so the change shocked them, and it took them a few weeks to bounce back.

In my opinion, that's probably the only downside you'll get with doing too many water changes too fast...

I have since added more live rock in my sump, and my nitrates actually sit at 0, undetectable levels... no matter how much I feed. Just food for thought if you notice your nitrates keep rising...

Feed only what they eat, and feed more often like 2-3 times a day in small amounts vs feeding two big cubes (for example) once a day... And throw some extra live rock in your sump and see how that works. It's been working great for me. Weekly water changes (and sometimes every 2 weeks) continue to keep everything stable for me

 

[Mark Derail]

This is very helpful

I had he same issues with die offs from doing tap water... i just switch to a RODI and things are def getting better

From what I gather (mostly help here) phosphate is "absorbed" into your live rocks, until, they can't anymore. Then you do WCs and the rocks release it. So testing for phosphate, for me, was the missing link.

I stopped doing frequent WCs (to keep water "dirty" for the critters) when phosphate was a tinge of blue. Now, after two weeks it goes up, but everything is happy.
The big WC after 2 weeks drops it, but never to zero.
The phosphate seems to oscillate between 0.01 to 0.05 in two weeks. Corals are finally growing.

 

[CoralReefer1019]

you can dose Red Sea nopox

 

[DSC reef]

How bad is your nitrate issue? What are you testing with and how's the nutrient export, e.g, skimmer, media reactors?

 

[Brooks Ross]

How bad is your nitrate issue? What are you testing with and how's the nutrient export, e.g, skimmer, media reactors?

MY guess is between 50-70ppm

Using strips to test.

Have a skimmer

 

[DSC reef]

Since you switched to RODI now I would pick a weekly schedule of water changes to keep progress slow and steady. After a month I'd get the water tested or buy a quality test kit to see where your at.

 

[biecacka]

Depending on the tank size try a 100% water change. Resets your nitrates at zero.

Corey

 

[Mark Derail]

The Other Mark - has a great video out on WC. Highly recommend the view.
I am going to make myself some soda ash !!!