How do you do your water changes... What is your procedure

[lukinrats]

I am just sitting around thinking about how water changes are done by sucessfull reef keepers... I start by using a power head hooked to a piece of hose... I put the powere head on one side of the tank and put the output of the hose on the other side... I use this to circulate the existing water to blow detritus off the rocks and stir up the sand... this seems to allow the skimmer to start sucking out whole lot of crap before I chang the water... I repeat this several times to let the skimmer do its job... then I do it one more time real good to get the detritus suspended in the water column... then I put the other end of the hose in a bucket and drain 5-10 gallons of water while the crap is floating around... I toss this water out... I sit around for 20 minutes or so while the skimmer is still working and the dust is settling... this all seems like a good hurricane hit the reef and stirred up the ocean allowing waves to create foam and carry the detritus to the shore... at least this is the picture I keep in my mind... after that I drain another 5-10 gallons into the newly mixed saltwater, and let it circulate and mix together... I then fill the tank back up to its previous level putting 10-20 gallons in... that will mix for a while and then the 5-10 gallon removal is done again, mixed right in with the saltwater in the Brute... again it is circulated, then tank is filled back up... I am sure the picture is clear of what I do by now... I just repeat this according to the size change I am doing.

I am curious to hear how everyone else does their water changes, or what methos is used... I have been reading that my method is not good because of the fact that everytime I do this I am only putting some of the new water in along with some of the old.. and vise a versa... I believe however that it is just as effective and less of a stress on the inhabitants... also I would like to know the effectiveness of doing weekly or bi-weekly changes as apposed to say a monthly change

I am sure all of this is a much debated subject so I am curious if we can find a way to debate it some more... I am also sure that each reefer has reasons to beleive in different methods which I am eager to hear.

Would I be wrong to assume this? Say my tank evaporates 2 gallons a day, and I top off 2 gallons per day... is this effectively a 2 gallon water change every day, or... does the water only evaporate and not the good and bad things in the water along with it?

If this is somewhat similar to a 2 gallon change everyday ...then that means a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly water change of 30% total turns into a 90 percent total over the whole month

I might be just sleepy, and not thinking clearly here, but it seems to make sense to me right now

lets hear from some experts on these subjects!!!!

thanks

[karlmarx]

The most efficent way would be to get a garbage can fill with 20 gallons pump water out and in at the same time for 20min and throw away the mixed water.

[alan214]

lukinrats, unless I'm misreading your steps, it sounds like you're mixing existing tank water and mixing that with new tank water and pumping that back into the tank, correct? If that's true, what is your logic for doing it that way?

As for your last question, 2G of evap + 2G of topoff does not equal a 2G water change. You've not removed any nitrates or other undesirable material from your tank. Evaporation just raises the concentration of undesirable wastes in your tank. Topoff lowers that concentration to its previous level.

[karlmarx]

I would say that mixing the water with tank water is good to even out the temp and salinity of the water to what the tank is like now. Slowly doing changes to water is generally a good thing in this hobby right?

[pledosophy]

No. You've got it completely wrong. It is not a good idea at all.

IMO it is best to

1. Mix the water 24 hours ahead of time. aerate it well. Temp and pH match.

2. Use a powerhead to suspend detritus if you like, but if you have a real problem with this then I suggest looking into your flow design as it is.

3. Use a samller hose, I like a 1/2", start a syphon and remove the desired amount of water. The reason for the smaller gauge hose is so you can vaccuum the rockwork, or other places that need any vacuuming.

4. Pour the newly mixed water into the sump and let it enter your tank. Since it is already temp and pH matched it is not harmful to your system.

IMO mixing the new salt water with the old salt water is being inefficent as you are not removing only older water containing contamanents, but instead removing less contaminents at the once by dilluting them first.

Say you had a 100g tank and your nitrates were at 100. Just to be easy. If you did a 50% straight out traditional waterchange like I have described then your nitrates would drop to 50ppm assuming you were using good quaility water. If you mixed it with the new salt water and then removed the 50 gallons your nitrates would only be at 75.

The other part where you are phyisically removing detritus instead of just letting the skimmer take care of it, will also lower your nitrates even further long run.

Let your skimmer handle the day to day. Your water change will help it out once a week.

No offense Karl, I don't mean to pick at you, really don't just trying to be helpful.

[karlmarx]

I would rather get to 50ppm nitrates over a few days then change 50% of the water in one clip. That drop alone could stress animals if done too fast IMO. lol well now he has read two opposing views he can pick sides.

[Frick-n-Frags]

I think I see what you are doing, sort of incremental mixing/replacing/mix/replace. here is a technique that lets you do it once, and more automatically, but I believe it does exactly what you want to do:

you can do continuous waterchanges if you can set your sump up to overflow. these are still slightly less efficient than a straight "take out - put in" but they are the smoothest.

you siphon new water into the sump(I do mine right into the return pump intake so it goes up top first) from a large container over a couple of hours. the sump level rises and eventually overflows. (I have a drain hose in the side of my sump which goes to a floor drain for any overflows)

a 25% water change done "continuously" will result in a net 22% waterchange. that is a reasonable compromise between quickly adding saltwater(IMO that is not good, I can see by the animals' reactions - no matter what temp and salinity, the chemistry is different) and wasting saltwater.

later this year, I will schedule a 100% waterchange via overflow.
It will require my 100 gal aggie tub and 2 bags of salt. It used to take about 8 hours to do a 50 gallon change, so I'm guessing 16 hours using the same siphon setup. It will in reality be like a 89ish % waterchange, but that is the price I pay(10gal of new salt down the drain) for being able to ease it in over 16 hours.


for my usual weekly 10% I just mix up 2 saltbuckets which is 10-12 gallons. my 29gal sump tub can easily handle the 10-12 gallon swing, so I spend my time siphoning dust with those 10 gal worth out, then pour the new water into a fast 1-gallon dripper every time I check it or walk by. so adding new water takes me an hour or so.

when I dig out my one ruined saltbucket(drilled holes already for other experiments) from somewhere, I'll just make a giant dripper out of it. then I can fill it, mix up the salt, and set it up on a stand and open the valve, and leave.