Why do you do water changes?
- Thread starter Ace25
- Start date
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Young Frankenstein
I sniff ozone and relax.
I read most of what Ace25 has posted and I tend to lean his way and his methods. With that said I like the fact that he is honest and has posted photos and a video of his fish tank. His choices of keeping small fish and the selection of corals, mostly softies to remove nitrates seems very effective. But Ace25 the most successful SPS tanks do water changes at this time, to remove phosphates and nitrates with a heavy fish load you would need a scrubber that is huge. I chose to do them because I do have an extremely heavy fish load and like to feed plenty of food to my fish. Different choices is what makes this hobby interesting and I envy you for changing and not just following the same choices that everyone makes.
Don't like them and don't do them. When I had my 75 gallon up, I went over 3 years with only one water change. My water was always crystal clear. I broke my system down then moved everything into a 145 gallon setup in my basement with all new water. I then ran that system for close to two years with no water change. I only did top off water and add salt once every two months to keep salinity up. I did dose though. I used no fuge and only a Big Ole skimmer along with ecobak pellets and bacteria dosing. I fed my fish and coral a boat load of food also.
That is the key to this hobby also. What works for one, may not work for others. It's not about right or wrong sometimes but what works best for you and your system.
robby2782
Well-Known Member
I can't imagine doing water changes every week to a month on my 200 gallon system. Salt is expensive adds up quickly.
I think on my 58 gallon, it would be more practical to do water changes do to its size and lack of space for all the equipment I would use.
I think on my 58 gallon, it would be more practical to do water changes do to its size and lack of space for all the equipment I would use.
gmoney243
2500 Club Member
20g/ month water changes isn't that expensive. That's like a bucket a year. Even weekly changes is like $200/ year in salt. Compared to most other expenses id say that's not that much. I do monthly changes 20/g. Weekly changes aren't needed unless you have no nutrient export. In which case just buy some chaeto and a cheap lamp lol. So I'm not sure what kind of water changes you have to do to ammount to $15,000. I wanna see this tank it must be massive.
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robby2782
Well-Known Member
I'm not going to debate cost and value of time with you but the point is it doesn't prove necessary for me, and I only grow Acropora in that system.
I have a friend in Dallas who does weekly water changes and claims he spends $120 a month on salt for his 250 gallon system. I would be out of the hobby if that's what it took for me. Plus I have a very bad back.
Ace25
Active Member
Since the beginning of my SW days, I was doing 50% weekly on a 55G and 29G from 93 until 2000 because this was what I was told needed to be done. Looking back at my terrible fish choices the water changes are really the only thing I contribute to them living long enough for me to realize how stupid I was for putting the wrong fish in the wrong size tank and finally brought them back to my LFS. I was doing 40G a week with Instant Ocean and buying water at my local water store @ $1 per 5G for RO. I was buying salt by the bags at the time, $20+tax per 50G bag, so that is roughly $24 a week for saltwater plus gas and time to buy the water and salt. $24*52wk*7yr=$8736, that gets me up to the year 2000.
Then I downsized for 8 years, only had a 29G, but I had such a giant bio-load on that tank that I needed to do 5G a day in water changes to keep it healthy. I started using reef crystals at this point, each 50G bag was $25+tax and lasted 10 days, so 3 bags a month for my 29G reef tank, for 4 of those years I was also still buying RO water for $1 for 5G, after 4 years I finally bought my own RO/DI, I wasted a ton of $ over the years buying water. So from 2000-2004 I come up with $2880 spent on salt and water. I finally got an RO/DI unit in 2004. I found after a tank crash and a lot of work preventing another, that a 29G was just too small to keep parameters steady in a hot environment (100f+ in the room, no AC). From 2004-2008 that costs were a little less, another $2000.
As soon as I got my first SPS I upgraded to my 75G because I knew there was no way I was going to be able to keep SPS corals alive in that environment. I still kept the 29G in my bedroom at the time. I finally started buying buckets of salt in 2008 and was getting 150G buckets for $50 at my LFS, but still doing weekly 50% water changes on my 75G, down to 30% on my 29G. Doing 50G water changes a week between 2 tanks from 2008-2010 that comes out to $1200 for salt. In 2010 I switched to using B-Ionic salt and I really liked the results from it, but after 6 months of doing water changes with the more expensive salt (another $540 in salt) I wasn't seeing the effects I first noticed using that water. Around May of 2010 was when I finally, or better put, my wallet said enough was enough with the salt. I stopped buying salt and did a few small water changes with the last box of salt I had. I stopped doing water changes all together by the end of 2010. In June of 2011 I was given the 60G tank setup and I upgraded my 29G to the 60G, used all the rock and water and finished off the box of b-ionic salt I had filling and doing 3 water changes on that tank.
I didn't buy any more salt until early this year when I started my attempt at raising clownfish. Now I am again regretting it and just want to stop with the water going down the drain but I just have a couple more months and I am done. I am again going through a 200G box of salt a month that I order from Dr F&S, but it is now going into 100% weekly water changes on my 29G and 10G clown tanks that have no other real filtration to handle that type of bio-load. In salt costs alone from 1993 till today I have spent over $13,000. Add in how much water I used to buy and you can see how I got to over $15,000.
I am certainly not opposed to doing water changes, and for beginners, I do think it is a must, but for me I am now looking for why. I need to find a valid reason or I will keep looking for one. If I have to put my tanks to the test to figure it out myself, I am more than willing to do so, but if I don't have to do that to my tanks because someone has a good guess on what the reasons may be on what the required parts of the water change actually are I would be so very grateful. If I saw my tank reacting badly, bad coral polyp extension, sickly fish, any bleaching/dying of any type I would do a small water change to see if it helps.
Then I downsized for 8 years, only had a 29G, but I had such a giant bio-load on that tank that I needed to do 5G a day in water changes to keep it healthy. I started using reef crystals at this point, each 50G bag was $25+tax and lasted 10 days, so 3 bags a month for my 29G reef tank, for 4 of those years I was also still buying RO water for $1 for 5G, after 4 years I finally bought my own RO/DI, I wasted a ton of $ over the years buying water. So from 2000-2004 I come up with $2880 spent on salt and water. I finally got an RO/DI unit in 2004. I found after a tank crash and a lot of work preventing another, that a 29G was just too small to keep parameters steady in a hot environment (100f+ in the room, no AC). From 2004-2008 that costs were a little less, another $2000.
As soon as I got my first SPS I upgraded to my 75G because I knew there was no way I was going to be able to keep SPS corals alive in that environment. I still kept the 29G in my bedroom at the time. I finally started buying buckets of salt in 2008 and was getting 150G buckets for $50 at my LFS, but still doing weekly 50% water changes on my 75G, down to 30% on my 29G. Doing 50G water changes a week between 2 tanks from 2008-2010 that comes out to $1200 for salt. In 2010 I switched to using B-Ionic salt and I really liked the results from it, but after 6 months of doing water changes with the more expensive salt (another $540 in salt) I wasn't seeing the effects I first noticed using that water. Around May of 2010 was when I finally, or better put, my wallet said enough was enough with the salt. I stopped buying salt and did a few small water changes with the last box of salt I had. I stopped doing water changes all together by the end of 2010. In June of 2011 I was given the 60G tank setup and I upgraded my 29G to the 60G, used all the rock and water and finished off the box of b-ionic salt I had filling and doing 3 water changes on that tank.
I didn't buy any more salt until early this year when I started my attempt at raising clownfish. Now I am again regretting it and just want to stop with the water going down the drain but I just have a couple more months and I am done. I am again going through a 200G box of salt a month that I order from Dr F&S, but it is now going into 100% weekly water changes on my 29G and 10G clown tanks that have no other real filtration to handle that type of bio-load. In salt costs alone from 1993 till today I have spent over $13,000. Add in how much water I used to buy and you can see how I got to over $15,000.
I am certainly not opposed to doing water changes, and for beginners, I do think it is a must, but for me I am now looking for why. I need to find a valid reason or I will keep looking for one. If I have to put my tanks to the test to figure it out myself, I am more than willing to do so, but if I don't have to do that to my tanks because someone has a good guess on what the reasons may be on what the required parts of the water change actually are I would be so very grateful. If I saw my tank reacting badly, bad coral polyp extension, sickly fish, any bleaching/dying of any type I would do a small water change to see if it helps.
Now I'm curious Ace...
ESV Seawater mix has .12 phosphates? Is there any way you can test the individual components? They say their NaCl has half the heavy metal contamination(phosphates?) of reagent grade NaCl, and the Magnesium is USP grade. My assumption was the Part A and Part B were the same as what they sell as their 2 part. So does their 2 part contain the phosphates? I have no means of checking the phosphates for myself and use ESV Seawater so now I'm kinda worried. Could also mean dosing their 2 or 3 part is bringing in phosphates as well. Any help would be appreciated.
ESV Seawater mix has .12 phosphates? Is there any way you can test the individual components? They say their NaCl has half the heavy metal contamination(phosphates?) of reagent grade NaCl, and the Magnesium is USP grade. My assumption was the Part A and Part B were the same as what they sell as their 2 part. So does their 2 part contain the phosphates? I have no means of checking the phosphates for myself and use ESV Seawater so now I'm kinda worried. Could also mean dosing their 2 or 3 part is bringing in phosphates as well. Any help would be appreciated.
I won’t even reply to your statement.
Ok you say you add esv 3 part to your reef as a supplement for trace elements I think you said but I think you meant 2 part.
Most two or three parts include I don’t know I never counted but maybe 10 or more different elements or trace elements. Some claim to include every major and minor element.
Let’s take something that can’t be measured and adjusted for or we don’t measure for like strontium or molybdenum or some other element and let call it element “A” included in most additives.
Most 2 or 3 part say to add so many drops or ML to your reef daily per gallon. But how do they know your coral demand for a certain element? They do not know the amount of coral in your reef or the size or even what they are. What do the manufacturers do? Usually add more than what you need.
What happens to the excess elements that are not used up?
Let’s say they add enough of element “A” for let say 10 corals in a 20 gallon and you have 5 corals instead or they are ½ the size. That means every day you dose more than what’s needed of element “A”.
Or what happens to those elements that are added through dosing just because they are in natural seawater and nothing in your reef uses them?
What happens to these? Some may oxidize; some may bind to your sand or live rock, some may be used up by algae or some how they just evaporate? What happens to those that don’t get used up? They build up ? At what levels do some of these become toxic to inverts or fish if not removed?
Everyday you are dosing more and more of that element.
I personally think this is part of what old tank syndrome is. Even if you do water changes you are not changing 100 percent of water. So these elements still build up just a much slower pace. Some of them bind to live rock or sand and can eventually be released back into the water. I believe not doing water changes speeds this up.
Ok you say you add esv 3 part to your reef as a supplement for trace elements I think you said but I think you meant 2 part.
Most two or three parts include I don’t know I never counted but maybe 10 or more different elements or trace elements. Some claim to include every major and minor element.
Let’s take something that can’t be measured and adjusted for or we don’t measure for like strontium or molybdenum or some other element and let call it element “A” included in most additives.
Most 2 or 3 part say to add so many drops or ML to your reef daily per gallon. But how do they know your coral demand for a certain element? They do not know the amount of coral in your reef or the size or even what they are. What do the manufacturers do? Usually add more than what you need.
What happens to the excess elements that are not used up?
Let’s say they add enough of element “A” for let say 10 corals in a 20 gallon and you have 5 corals instead or they are ½ the size. That means every day you dose more than what’s needed of element “A”.
Or what happens to those elements that are added through dosing just because they are in natural seawater and nothing in your reef uses them?
What happens to these? Some may oxidize; some may bind to your sand or live rock, some may be used up by algae or some how they just evaporate? What happens to those that don’t get used up? They build up ? At what levels do some of these become toxic to inverts or fish if not removed?
Everyday you are dosing more and more of that element.
I personally think this is part of what old tank syndrome is. Even if you do water changes you are not changing 100 percent of water. So these elements still build up just a much slower pace. Some of them bind to live rock or sand and can eventually be released back into the water. I believe not doing water changes speeds this up.
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I have a hard time believing you are getting 0 phosphates out of your RO/DI water. I just did a test right now to verify and the picture below is my phosphate test on 0 TDS RO/DI water and I got .03 phosphates. I just looked back at my salt testing pictures and ESV B-Ionic salt was actually .12 phosphates.
I am not hounding you, just looking for good scientific information. You stated supplements contained phosphates and that was one I have never heard of causing phosphate problems in a tank, so I questioned you for further research on the topic. You did not prove anything. If you could provide research into exactly what supplements (not food) add phosphates to a tank that back your statements, that would be something that interests me for this topic and something I would look into more. If you can't provide any research that proves what your saying, then it is not something I am going to believe because in the 20 years I have been in the hobby I have heard countless things like that and 99% of the time it is "myth" or "old wives tale" type of information with no scientific basis behind it.
I'm pretty sure .03 phosphate kinda contadicts the reading of 0 TDS or at least would a 0.00 TDS reading
After more searching, it's interesting how many people report finding phosphates in newly mixed water. Now I wonder if I really am reducing phosphates at all when I do a water change.
WesF
Well-Known Member
I'm pretty sure .03 phosphate kinda contadicts the reading of 0 TDS or at least would a 0.00 TDS reading
After more searching, it's interesting how many people report finding phosphates in newly mixed water. Now I wonder if I really am reducing phosphates at all when I do a water change.
TDS is not a very accurate way of measuring water purity at a low range. Conductivity is more accurate. You can have 2 different samples reading 0 TDS on a cheap meter that are VERY different.
Trex
Valuable Member
My hand held one came with my Buckeye RO/DI unit. I change my carbon block/prefilter about every 4 months (( with the PSI starts to drop )), as for the RO membrane, when it falls out of its started rejection rate (( mine is 96-98 % )). So, I test my tap's TDS, (( for easy math, lets say it is 100 )), and when the post RO (( but before the DI )) TDS gets above 5 (( outside the stated rejection range )) I replace it. For the DI resin, whenever I get a reading above 1. My RO membrane usually lasts 4 years, and the resin at least a year.
Ace- you should build and sell these little diy algae scrubbers for those of us who are either too lazy and/or incapable of building one due to lack of skills or time. I'm sure you could do them on a "build to order" basis and match them to the individual customer's needs. I'd probably buy one lol.
Ace25
Active Member
There are others making/selling great little Algae scrubber boxes. Look up Floyd Turbo on the algaescrubber.net site for some nice ones.
Here are some tests I ran this morning after reading some of the concerns (TDS vs EC, and which part of the ESV salt mix is adding phosphates), which were very valid and got me to do some more testing. I do not have any ESV salt though, but I have the other 3 parts left over (Mg is in dry form though).
Here is my TDS and EC reading of my RO/DI water. I went out this morning and bought all new batteries and calibration solution to make sure my meter was accurate and my TDS meter had a good battery:
I also did 2 tests on Component A and B from the B-Ionic salt mix. Before you read too much into the results I want to say I do NOT trust the readings. I used straight A and B solution in the test vial. The A solution, the phosphate reagent wouldn't dissolve and clumped on the bottom of the vial even with strong swirling, component B bubbled/fizzed as soon as I put the reagent in the vial. I honestly don't think my Hanna meter can properly test those components in straight form, maybe I am wrong, but when I see most of the reagent clumping on the bottom it doesn't give me a lot of faith in the results. Maybe if I severely dilute it with RO/DI water the results will be something I feel more comfortable with.
I am about to do testing on B-Ionic 3 part (alk, CA, and Mg) to see how it differs from the Salt mix (which I heard the A/B with the salt mix is highly concentrated compared to the stuff they sell for dosing). I am very curious myself to see the difference between the 3 part for the salt mix vs the 2 part for dosing so I will post those results in a little while. If anyone has any suggestions on how I can make sure the results are as accurate as possible with the equipment I have please speak up.
Here are some tests I ran this morning after reading some of the concerns (TDS vs EC, and which part of the ESV salt mix is adding phosphates), which were very valid and got me to do some more testing. I do not have any ESV salt though, but I have the other 3 parts left over (Mg is in dry form though).
Here is my TDS and EC reading of my RO/DI water. I went out this morning and bought all new batteries and calibration solution to make sure my meter was accurate and my TDS meter had a good battery:
I also did 2 tests on Component A and B from the B-Ionic salt mix. Before you read too much into the results I want to say I do NOT trust the readings. I used straight A and B solution in the test vial. The A solution, the phosphate reagent wouldn't dissolve and clumped on the bottom of the vial even with strong swirling, component B bubbled/fizzed as soon as I put the reagent in the vial. I honestly don't think my Hanna meter can properly test those components in straight form, maybe I am wrong, but when I see most of the reagent clumping on the bottom it doesn't give me a lot of faith in the results. Maybe if I severely dilute it with RO/DI water the results will be something I feel more comfortable with.
I am about to do testing on B-Ionic 3 part (alk, CA, and Mg) to see how it differs from the Salt mix (which I heard the A/B with the salt mix is highly concentrated compared to the stuff they sell for dosing). I am very curious myself to see the difference between the 3 part for the salt mix vs the 2 part for dosing so I will post those results in a little while. If anyone has any suggestions on how I can make sure the results are as accurate as possible with the equipment I have please speak up.
Very cool and thanks for doing this!
I've never used the Hanna, so not sure if this would help, but maybe making a test amount like a gallon or quart and checking phos between each addition.
This really makes me wonder about how much is in the different salt brands out there, and really surprises me how little information is available about it.
I've never used the Hanna, so not sure if this would help, but maybe making a test amount like a gallon or quart and checking phos between each addition.
This really makes me wonder about how much is in the different salt brands out there, and really surprises me how little information is available about it.
