Water Changes

ffm

ffm

Reefing newb
I am still struggling with doing water changes. I know they are vital to the health of my tank but I am still a little confused on how often it should be done and how much should be changed.

Right now I do about 20% once a week. However as of this am my Nitrate was still at 10ppm. I would like to see that closer to zero.

So should i do more changes, or do more water at each change or a combination of both??

Thanks!!
 
How old is your tank? My tank is over two years old and still bounces from 0 to 10. 10 Really is not bad at all. I do about 4 gal every two weeks on my 40 gal with 10 gal sump. When I first started and through the first year I had to do more water changes, but as the tank ages it does alot better. I also have a very low bio load to.
 
bobby said:
How old is your tank? My tank is over two years old and still bounces from 0 to 10. 10 Really is not bad at all. I do about 4 gal every two weeks on my 40 gal with 10 gal sump. When I first started and through the first year I had to do more water changes, but as the tank ages it does alot better. I also have a very low bio load to.
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Mine is also about two years old, and I have a small bio load too, I guess it bothers me that I am always hearing that nitrates should always be at zero. I do know that I am pretty stable as far as my readings go so I guess I should be happy with that.
 
Most animals will be perfectly fine as long as nitrates are below 20. It gets harder to reduce nitrates by doing water changes as they get lower. (If your nitrates are at 100, a 10% water change should drop them to 90. If your nitrates are at 10, a 10% water change should drop them to 9 -- a difference that probably isn't even detectable by your test kit).

Do you have a refugium with macroalgae? If you don't, adding one may be what you need to suck up the last bit of nitrates.
 
Once I got my fuge going with a new type of lighting, my nitrates in my 45 are always 0 now. I always struggled with it being 5-10ppm. The fuge deifnitely helps.

Also, if you've had your test kit a while, try a new one. This can also give you false results.
 
Bifferwine said:
Most animals will be perfectly fine as long as nitrates are below 20. It gets harder to reduce nitrates by doing water changes as they get lower. (If your nitrates are at 100, a 10% water change should drop them to 90. If your nitrates are at 10, a 10% water change should drop them to 9 -- a difference that probably isn't even detectable by your test kit).

Do you have a refugium with macroalgae? If you don't, adding one may be what you need to suck up the last bit of nitrates.
Click to expand...

No I don't, I have been considering adding one. I have read alot about the benefits of one. Thanks for help!
 
In the mean time what you can do is add a HOB filter, romove the pads and fill it with cheato. Plus the cheato will get lit by the tank lights thus removing the need for another one. I have beem doing this for a long time and it works great. Anytime someone comes over they seem amazed that they haven't thought of or seen a solution that simple before. I have heard it by everyone that has seen my tank I think. They always say man I can't believe I never thought of that.LOL
 
bobby said:
In the mean time what you can do is add a HOB filter, romove the pads and fill it with cheato. Plus the cheato will get lit by the tank lights thus removing the need for another one. I have beem doing this for a long time and it works great. Anytime someone comes over they seem amazed that they haven't thought of or seen a solution that simple before. I have heard it by everyone that has seen my tank I think. They always say man I can't believe I never thought of that.LOL
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This is a great idea, I will do it right away. That may just solve my problem!!
 
bobby said:
In the mean time what you can do is add a HOB filter, romove the pads and fill it with cheato. Plus the cheato will get lit by the tank lights thus removing the need for another one. I have beem doing this for a long time and it works great. Anytime someone comes over they seem amazed that they haven't thought of or seen a solution that simple before. I have heard it by everyone that has seen my tank I think. They always say man I can't believe I never thought of that.LOL
Click to expand...

thats what i do!:bounce: works awsome. also i do 25% waterchanges weekly or bi-weekly to keep super clean but i also am sucking up red algae like crazy:frustrat:
 
Whats cheato? I have never heard of that before. I usually do a 25% water change every week. It recommended to do a 25-30% water change a week!
 
It's a type of algae that grows in balls and doesn't attach to anything to become invasive. The basic idea is to get cheato to eat the bad stuff so bad algae can't and to help remove trates and phos from the tank.
 
I was looking at some HOB filters, and was wondering how do you keep the cheato from flowing out of the chamber?
 
mine is in the middle of my sump and is stopped by a filter pad that I cut to size which flters my water before it gets to the return pump.
 
The wall of the filter stops it. It doesn't float enough to make it over the wall. I have never had mine come out.
 
Ok that sounds good, I am getting ready to go buy one today, and was just wondering if I needed to get some netting or something to keep the cheato in the filter well. Again thanks for the great suggestion fo a make-shift fuge!!
 
No, No netting needed. It stays in the filter just fine. When it grows some with string in the tank, but you can just cut them off. I just stick a ball on each side and it stays put.
 

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