Newbie - prob stupid water change questions
 

How do you guys do water changes?
I've not gone to the saltwater hobby, but am probably going to soon...

Do you have cold / room temp RO in its own bucket just on standby?
Do you have pre-mixed salt water in its own bucket on standby?
Or do you mix everything at once and warm it to tank temp at the same time?

Are you running powerheads / heaters for your 'clean' water constantly?
Do you heat your top off water?

Ive seen way more advanced setups but what i do and the simplest method is to make ro/di as needed and mix in salt while heating to tank temp (i just use my tank heater but i hear many people have a heater and powerhead just for mixing). Once temp is up and no observable salts i just go ahead with the water change. Not sure if that helps but hope you end up getting a tank.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

I make it easy...
I fill up a 5g container (plastic 5g carboy container) with RO/DI water (TDS of zero).. It will achieve room temperature before I use it..

I add 2.5 cups of salt (Instant ocean) then throw on the cap and shake until all is mixed.. I open the cap and check the salinity.. Then close it up..
Then it sits closed up until I do my water changes.. hours..days..weeks..or whatever..

I do not concern myself with the temperature of the new water is my indoor temp is never lower than 71 deg F and I have a heater in my tank and never do more than 10-20% so even if its colder the temperature is barely effected....

Some brands of salt recommend powerhead for 24 hours,etc...
Some people go crazy with intricate "water change stations",etc...
Some brands of salt have a limited storage life after mixing with water.. others do not..

I do 20 gallons at a time in 4 five buckets. Add the water, the salt, a heater, and a power head. Usually do it Friday night before I go bed. By morning the water is the proper temp and it is ready to go. This is actually a bit of a pain. I have to do a mixing station but I haven’t gotten around to it.
I drain the water out of my 40breeder frag tank into the floor drain and the fill the tank back up with the new water.

I keep 2, Rubbermaid brute garbage cans with 1.025 RODI water mixed with powerhead and air stone, and 1 garbage can same as above with fresh RODI for top off.
Just makes the whole change thing simpler, no worries on temp, if only changing small amounts.

Buy from local fish store that’s already mix

We just did our first and it was surprisingly easy. We got two five gallon buckets of rodi from our LFS. Mixed in the salt, but two cups because I was nervous. Then we set them by the fireplace to warm up. The dogs were furious the buckets had the warm spot on the fuzzy rug in front of the fire! We left it there over night. Next day we mixed in more salt until it reached the right amount and let it warm by the fire a little more. Then we used a cleaning siphon to remove any crap from the sand into two other buckets. Then we used a pump to add in the fresh water. We ended up using some of the old water to top off because we were a little short. Our corals seemed to love it. They all seemed to be happier afterwards. It was much easier that I thought it would be!

Jane

"Then we set them by the fireplace to warm up"

Hehe, this is a little what I am worried about is stuff taking over my house! I guess I don't mind buying a heater and powerhead, and setting up a 5 gal bucket to run on Fridays overnight for a weekend WC. But then I am committed to a 5gal water change amount (and lets be real, more like 4 gallons so I don't fill to the brim and spill everywhere).

On a 20 gal coral tank, I suppose that seems like plenty.
I am trying to get away with a skimmer-less set up at first.

uhhh..how to put it nicely...it will :lmao:. Don't even doubt it. Or you'll be having a hell of a job keeping up with the hobby. Once you think you're done buying stuff you realize you need more and bigger stuff.

I took me several "talks" with my wife to get to have a decent setup so I have a hobby and a life. I have a 98G system, a 10G QT tank and do TTM on all fish coming in. This means I need: 7G of mixed water every 3 days for TTM, about the same for WC to my QT every 5 days or so, about 20G to do aprox 20% WC to mt DT, about 5G of RODI/week for top off. No way on earth I could bring that amount of water from a LFS. Too much time and effort.

So because of that and to avoid having to mix every single day I ended up buying 2 32G buckets and a RODI system for my mixing station and parked them outside by my trash cans, yes that was still a "talk"with the wife. I took 2 shelves off my garage racks to place the QT tank and TTM buckets and store all the fish stuff.

This took way more money/space that what I thought coming in. That's reality. But now I have a manageable hobby. There is more I can do to further simplify it but I am good for now.

Don't get discouraged tho...it is all worth it :thumbsup:

i have two 55 gallon Brute trash cans in the basement. one is for RODI, the other is for saltwater.

i fill the RODI one right from the unit, and it has two pumps in it. one of the pumps is used to push RODI water up to ATO reservoir on the floor above. the other moves RODI in to the saltwater mixing bucket.

usually thursday or friday, i fill the RODI can up to the top, pump over what i need to the saltwater can, and start mixing. typically by saturday afternoon the mix is the right SG, and i kick on the heater. then within a few hours it is warm and ready to go.

i drain the tank with a python siphon and re-use that water for QT water changes. then i pump the new saltwater upstairs and in to the tank.

easy peasy. i used to do the whole bucket brigade thing, man was that a pain.

Do you use it all or have a third bucket to store left over?...or discard it?

I do around 15g at a time the day before throw a pump in there and a heater to get temp up especially in these colder months coming up

i have a smaller Brute can in the basement i drain it in to.

i then use the leftover water for changing the water in QT or any other maintenance i need to do that i wouldn't want to waste new water on.