Water changes

[ndz98]

I’ve had a Reef tank for a few years now but recently I switched to a smaller tank because of where I moved. It’s a a whopping 5 gallons. I used to have a 75 and would do about a 10-15 % water change every few weeks because I know that’s what a typical water change amount is like.

On the five gallon, I have been changing all five gallons every 1-2 weeks. I have a barebottom tank with just some live rock and coral in it. My question, is it bad to change all the water every couple weeks? I’ve had the tank running for about a few months now and see no sign of any coralline forming and seems like my zoas have little growth.

Also not sure if having the filter with the carbon in the tank filtration system is causing the water to be “too clean”.

I know this is sort of a noob question but thanks for hearing me out lol

 

[cromag27 Verified Sponsor]

I’ve had a Reef tank for a few years now but recently I switched to a smaller tank because of where I moved. It’s a a whopping 5 gallons. I used to have a 75 and would do about a 10-15 % water change every few weeks because I know that’s what a typical water change amount is like.

On the five gallon, I have been changing all five gallons every 1-2 weeks. I have a barebottom tank with just some live rock and coral in it. My question, is it bad to change all the water every couple weeks? I’ve had the tank running for about a few months now and see no sign of any coralline forming and seems like my zoas have little growth.

Also not sure if having the filter with the carbon in the tank filtration system is causing the water to be “too clean”.

I know this is sort of a noob question but thanks for hearing me out lol

hey man what’s up!

changing 100% can had adverse effects. if you’re going to do so, you want to make sure none of the parameters are too different - ph, salinity, temperature, elements, etc.

 

[SPR1968]

The Marine occupants don’t like changes to their water parameters and I would say it’s virtually impossible to get the water matched exactly with that bigger change.

Stability is the key, and that’s why the general recommendation is 10% because a change of this scale won’t affect the parameters to much

So I would personally go back to much smaller changes and maintain the stability.

If you have low nutrient levels, that’s also probably why you’re not getting much coral growth, because the water is maybe to clean.

 

[ndz98]

Typically when I do the water change, I make sure the temperature and salinity is spot on. Besides the nutrients that may be in the salt or the food I feed the fish, I don’t put much else in the tank. I used to feed my corals some nutrients on previous tanks but they were bigger and I felt like it didn’t dirty the water as much in comparison to the smaller tank with such low volume of water.

I get a little hesitant to add any extra nutrients to the tank in the 5 gallon also because I know if I go about 2 weeks without a water change doing what I typically do, algae tends to become very apparent.

 

[sde1500]

10% weekly is more than enough, or to make it easier do 20% so you can just use a gallon jug. Full water changes like that is too much, and will still cause parameter swings.