Why do weekly water changes? Can we just test the water and dose accodingly?

Are there anything in the water that we dont test for but they get replenished by fresh salt mixed water?

Thanks

Water changes would be cheaper and easier. There are many things that we do not test for that make up the salt we change out.

Heres a list of the ionic concentrations in the Seachem salt I use, milligrams per. liter.

Chloride
19336
Sodium
10752
Sulfate
2657
Magnesium
1317
Potassium
421
Calcium
442
Carbonate/Bicarbonate
142
Strontium
9.5
Boron
16
Bromide
64
Iodide
0.060
Lithium
0.3
Silicon
<0.1
Iron
0.0098
Copper
0.0003
Nickel
<0.015
Zinc
0.0107
Manganese
0.0023
Molybdenum
0.0098
Cobalt
0.0004
Vanadium
<0.015
Selenium
<0.019
Rubidium
0.118
Barium
<0.04

Edit: Good luck testing for all of those, and dosing them for those amounts. Also, like below, this is only half of doing a water change.

How are you going to remove Nitrates?

water changes take bad stuff out....replenishing elements is the secondary of a water change...mainly you wanna get the bad stuff out

Wow, I learn something new everyday. Thanks for the info. I just feel doing w/c isn't that simple with all the salt mixing, testing and also RO/DI gereration.

But at this point, I realized the importance of w/c. Basically I dont need a water test kit if weely w/c is done.

Nitrate is consumed by macro-algaes such as chaetomorpha

Hands down the best way to lower nitrates is buy a WC. Growing macro algea helps reduce nutrients that things like algae need to grow.

When you said algae helps reduce nutrients, do you mean absorbing nitrate and phosphate? At least that is what people have been telling me.


I noticed the corals open up more after a w/c and their color are brighter as well.

Algae can do that, but they aren't always a 100% replacement for water changes. Think about natural reefs; they effectively have continuous water changes that maintain a specific ratio of dissolved substances. Algae are often the majority of biomass in the ocean but not in a tank. Salt mixes try to approximate that natural seawater, and there are possibly many things that algae can't influence.

I am a firm believer in if you do not test for it do not dose it. Dosing Iodine, Strontium and Molybdenum is taking a huge risk, so doing a W/C can provide these without risking overdosing your system which can result in a total crash.

I do weekly water changes on my 29g biocube, the only thing I check is the salinty lvl, I need to get some newer test kits to have on hand just in case.
The only thing I add to my tank is at night maybe 2 times a week is phytochrom

chaeto?

i would be more worried about ugly yellow water.

yeah water changes would be cheaper.

those things are like $10 a pop...need 3+
200g bucket of salt 35-50

What do u mean?

bottom line: you don't do water changes just to remove nitrates/phosphates. you do water changes to replenish trace elements that are exhausted by fish and inverts and to remove things that skimming/chaeto/DSB/etc. doesn't remove and that you can't/wouldn't test for. Eric Borneman's book on Aquarium Corals gives a pretty lengthy list of chemicals/organics produced by corals/etc., via allelopathy or otherwise, that just sit in your water.

IME, a lot of people have this 'too cool for school' attitude about water changes -- but the bottom line is, it is cost/time prohibitive to not do them (with all the dosing/testing required) if you want to maintain a healthy reef aquarium long-term.


Edit: I starting thumbing back through Borneman's book, but I couldn't find the piece of information I'm citing. This may have been something he wrote for Reefkeeping Magazine, or something that Randy Holmes-Farley wrote.

Awesome thread here

Thanks for all informative replies. water change here I come.

It is very simple, there are a lot harder things to manage in this hobby. A water change will take you no more than 5 minutes to set up.

How to change water Guide

It sounds like you want to minimize maintenance. If so, you might want to make sure you have a good reef salt mix and not go too heavy on LPS or SPS. That way you don't have to dose. You just have to test the basics, do your water changes, and sit back and watch your reef grow.

I try to do weekly 50% w/c and I store my RO/DI water in my spare 20G tank. I just feel the RO/DI (100GPD) is too slow to generate the water. I know this is the fun part of the hobby to most of you.

Looking at a beautiful reef tank is so much fun and I couldn't get my eyes off it while I am in the room. So w/c is worth the time and effort.

I have one small SPS frag, couple zoe frags, hammer head, green tip torch, one small recordea frag and two small acan frag.

I'm also running a CPR HOB aquafuge medium with chaetos. It keeps algases out of my tank. However, there is no fish in the tank, not sure algae proof will hold once fish in the tank.

I prefer a fish in the tank. It helps keep the water dirty.

Why u want to do that?

Some corals don't do well in low nutrient water. Xenia, zoas. SPS love low nutrient water on the other hand.

I don't want to WC every week x 4 aquariums. I'm lazy.
Daily
- temp and maybe salinity test if no ATO

Weekly
- mix 4.5g WC for either 24g or 15+6g alternating weeks
- test PH and salinity of WC aquarium
- test alternative aquariums for PH/ALK/CA/MG
- adjust ALK dose into ATO reservoir ( I loose about 1dkh a week)
- manually addition of CA/MG as needed

Adjust as needed - repeat ad nuseum


So it's only a 20-25% WC every 2 weeks but I spot feed my fish only about 12 small pellets each a day each so it's probably 1/2 the food entering most peeps reefs.

holy frijoles, you don't need to (nor should you) change 50% of your water weekly. 10% weekly is more than adequate for most applications.

i don't know anyone who thinks water changes are the fun part of the hobby.

I feel that my tank is only 2 months old with half of dry rocks, the tank doesn't have enough bacterias to process the waste, hence it needs more w/c. There are two fire shrimps in the tank (no fish yet) and I've lost a cleaner before, so I want to keep the water clean and I dont want to see my fire shrimp die. Weekly 50% w/c maybe an overkill, but it gives me peace of mind. I think I can do fewer and less w/c as the tank matures, correct me if I'm wrong.

Do I need to get the API master saltwater test kit which test for Cal, Alk, Phos and Nitrate? I also have pickling lime powder, but not dose anything at this point since I haven't been testing them.

step 1: saying that you "feel" that you don't have enough bacteria doesn't tell me anything. you need to determine if your tank is cycled. test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. my guess is that, if you are keeping the corals you indicated, that you are cycled and all of these will read 0 (or, ammonia and nitrite will read 0 and nitrate will read <20ppm). as such,...

step 2: stop doing 50% weekly water changes. if there isn't instability already, you are creating it.

step 3: you said that you are already keeping corals, so you certainly need to be able to determine calcium/alkalinity/pH/phosphate/salinity. buy whatever equipment you want to determine these or have them tested for you.

step 4: report results here. DO NOT start randomly dosing pickling lime.

My tank is cycled, all readings are at 0 including nitrate. How would I creating instability when the new water is temp and PH matched?

I will get some test kits for corals. Thanks for the advice.

My analogy is oxygen we breathe:
room gets stuffy I like to crack open a window to get alittle breathe of fresh air.
I don't need to go into an iron lung unless I'm sick enough to require pure oxygen.

All of my analogies have my going into an iron lung at some point cause I liked that Jankovic song.

you create instability because temp and pH are not the only two water parameters you have to concern yourself with.

edit: to elaborate a little, even chemically similar water is going to have different content. your new sea water isn't going to have any of the bacteria/DOM/etc. in it that the water you're replacing would have. this is why people like to seed tanks with water from an established system.

My daughter and I just started doing 2 water changes a week. We do 5 gallons at a pop on Tuesday and Saturday. She has a 40 and I have a 75. It took us 20 total on both tanks. 40 min a week is not to much time. I get the RO/DI going on Sunday and I make enough for my top off and enough to do my water change. Take a look at the link below.



http://reeftools.com/news/water-changes-smarter-not-harder/

I am less and less inclined to do water changes as each time I does my alveopora suffer from it, or at least some part of it go in hiding mode and it takes a few days before the polyps extend fully as usual. It seem to be very happy the less I do water change and since I don't have any detectible nitrates, I don't see the point of doing it more. Even 15% seem to upset my alveopora, so I try to do no more than 10% per 2 weeks, or just 5% each week when I clean my skimmer and replace the water contained in the skimmer.

I do dose Coral Vite each week and give lots of food to my coral (FM ultra seafan, ultra min, chromaplex, cyclopeeze etc..). I also check the alkalinity, magnesium and calcium and add a bit if needed. So far this has worked much better for me than doing water changes.

Because there is a LOT MORE than PH and temperature involved in saltwater. Also I think that sea water need a bit of time to mature and gain life. Basicaly an aquarium water is alive and full of phytoplankton and zooplankton, but new saltwater is totaly sterile. You are probably discarding most of your plankton and good bacterias and they don't even have time to settle, then you throw half of it and add new sterile water.

dani3d: It sounds like something is wrong with the water change water rather than the process itself.

Although I am just starting up my first nano, I have been reef-keeping for years and have found that water changes are one of the most valuable aspects to a healthy aquarium. Not only do WC reduce nitrates but it constantly replenishes the elements in the water which the coral need for growth. If I am traveling and miss a weekly WC, I can always see the negative results in the tank, eg, increase of cynobacteria, etc...[b][/b]Make sure that you use R/O water and bring the SG to that of your tank!!!

I thought the bacteria was in the rock/sand not the water ???

well, it is certainly present in greater concentrations on the rock/sand surfaces, as well as glass and other surfaces -- but, it's also in the water.

and, bacteria is not the only thing in the water -- plankton, DOM, algae, etc...

Thanks for the link. The article said it all, small w/c twice a week to maintain a stable reef tank. I will try to do that and see what result I am getting.




I've never added any plankton, coral food in my tank. Is there plankton in my tank water?

5% twice a week does not equal 20% biweekly - since each time you are also removing a portion of the last water change. Someone better a math can come up with the actual % changed but this method is more stable. Since I lightly dose throughout the week ALK in ATO water
and CA/MG if needed every other week I think I get both stability and more water removed.

yes.

plankton.

The article states how we are all told to do 20% water change but even when we do that we run in to problems. Sure you don't get a lot out the first couple of times you do the 5% but if you get in to the routine of doing this it will lower all the junk in your water and keep it low. If you do it every 2 weeks then at the end of the 2 weeks your water is filled with junk.

If you clean your house every 3 days doesn't it look cleaner on a day to day basis rather than being clean a couple days then junky for a week and half?

In conclusion, multiple small portion w/c is better than a bi-weekly 50% w/c.

If you are talking about nitrifying bacteria I would be interested to see where you have found this information. Can you post a link or give us an article or other print media?

Just did a 15% WC on my tank. Yay.

If your LFS can get it give this stuff a try it is the bomb I have seen a huge difference in my tank I buy the 4.4gal jug for $12.00 at my LFS. I plan on just using it in my 5.5gal instead of dosing I will be keeping softies, LPS , SPS and some macro. If you can get it try it !
http://www.nutriseawater.com/

I'm not planning to keep a lot of SPS in my tank. However, there are torch coral, hammer head which they need the calcium to build their skeleton? Other corals are zoas and acans.

I also have two fire shrimps in it and possibly keep clams in the future. Would I be fine without dosing additives, just weekly w/c?

I'm using instant ocean salt and I've heard it is low in calcium, mag and iodine?

I dont have test kits for those yet. I will get it if really necessary. Thanks

You will be fine with just water changes. They do like an occasional feeding of Krill , Mysis or Brine shrimp.

Feeding corals with krills mysis and birne shrimp? I dont think they will ever be able to catch it without all the water current unless you talking about spot feeding.

I dont know frog spawn, torch corals would accept any feeding.

Did anyone ever test fresh IO salt mixed water for calcium, mag and iodine?

well, i wasn't limiting the bacteria present in the water to only "nitrifying" bacteria (in fact, you look at the wikipedia article i posted, and there are bacterial plankton), but yes, nitrifying bacteria is in the water. are you suggesting that it isn't? it's everywhere. it doesn't just stick to the rocks.

as far as showing how it lives in water, here's an example of a liquid nitrifying bacteria product: http://www.fritzpet.com/fritz-zyme-lab-test/ -- and here's bob fenner talking about liquid bacteria products: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/estbiofiltmar.htm

now, denitrifying bacteria is limited to anaerobic zones (DSB, for instance). is that what you're referring to?



i'm going to politely urge that you visit the clam discussion forum before deciding to keep clams with just water changes and no calcium supplementation.

In terms of water changes I am under the understanding that water changes do not affect the amount of nitrifying bacteria contained in our tanks to any real degree. Just wanted to understand where you were going with your post.
Here is, I think, a good article on water changes and bacteria. Just for some more information to be added to the thread.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2009-04/newbie/index.php

Yeah I see they mentioned about Calcium dosing for clam keeping in the clam FAQ thread. Also there are a lot of fish are going to nip at clam. I probably would have to stick with my clown fish if I want to keep clam.

right, i agree that the large majority of nitrogen-cycle-related bacteria are not swimming around in the water -- however, the nitrifying bacteria are out in the water, just in a lower concentration than on the surfaces.

what i am trying to convey is that, when you're doing a water change, the biological and chemical composition of the water that goes in is not going to be the same as the composition of the water that comes out. i'm trying to impress that, just because salinity and temperature (and pH or whatever else) between water sources match up doesn't mean the water from those sources is the same. and, this is why a 50% weekly water change is not a good practice.

are we on the same page now?