5 Gallon water changes everyday?

[hatemeyet]

Hi,

I've been doing 5 gallon water changes everyday for the past 2 weeks to try and get my nitrates down..they've been sitting around 20 for awhile..My po4 is around .09..My total water volume is around 240gl..I've got an easy setup which allows me to change the water in about 4 mintues so its not time consuming at all..My question is there any harm to doing water changes everyday..does it do any good compared to doing it once a week?Even if my nitrates come down I'd like to keep this routine going if its beneficial..I know the salt can get pricey but Im stocked up right now..thank you

[HighlandReefer]

Water Changes in Reef Aquaria
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

Daily water changes will accomplish about the same results as weekly, every other week or monthly water changes.

[bertoni]

Daily changes are fine, but I'm not sure they'll help with the nitrate level. Typically, nitrate will bounce back quite rapidly if there's an underlying problem.

[mat167]

From what I've experienced, I haven't seen any difference between daily vs. weekly water changes in terms of overall tank maintenance, but small water changes haven't been very useful for dropping NO3 levels. When I needed to bring them down, I usually did about 25-30% water changes, 2-3 times per week. It took me about 2 weeks to get NO3 to desirable levels.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There isn't really any uncertainty in how such changes would impact nitrate. I cover it in detail in the above article. Daily 1% changes for 30% is similar to one 26% water change.

But you cannot really do any number of small changes in a week that could approximate changing 30% three times in a week. So if that is what you want to do, there not much other way to do it, except maybe 6 x 15%. :)

[wooden_reefer]

Daily changes are fine, but I'm not sure they'll help with the nitrate level. Typically, nitrate will bounce back quite rapidly if there's an underlying problem.

Yes,

Sometimes the nitrate level is not based on the rate of accumulation but the equilibrium.

The rate of denitrification is partly governed by the concentration of nitrate. Under some circumsatnce the nitrate may stablize at a level (that is too high).