How often do you water change?

[Bill Nye]

I have a 5.5 gallon tank. I have no fish and dont feed as of yet other than a small bit to my hermit once in a while so he doesnt go genocidal on my snails. I do about ~ 1 gal every week but have been thinking about doing more water changes. Is there such thing as changing your water too much??? Haha

 

edit

 

hmm this was supposed to be a multiple choice thread but that didnt happen. I am thinking of going to a 3 times a week water change schedule.

[Degener8]

as long as your salinity and temp stay stable and do not fluctuate much if any when changing you can change water as much as you can afford..

[Jacobnano]

Not really....if you get the water change water and your water the same temp/params you usually can't have too much of a good thing. Most people don't because it wastes salt and be kind of stressful.

[Bill Nye]

Thanks for the replys

 

I figured there wasnt such thing as too much but you never know in this hobby haha. The way I figure it with a 5.5 gal tank a 50 gal bag of salt cost me like 15 bucks so its not really that expensive. If i had a big tank though I definitely wouldnt be thinking about changing water more often

[gabe_j]

i change about a 1/2 gallon daily i siphon out any ditrus on the glass, i'm running a bare bottom set up. so i blast my rocks about 30 mins before i change out the water and just leave my filter running to suck out any floating particles, then once everything has settled i go ahead and siphon the glass. i think it keeps my params really stable and it helps with any excess nutrient from building up in the water. and i get the benifit from changing out about 40% of my water weekly with out shocking the system with all 40% being changed at once. i haven't seen any problems yet but if anything comes up i'll be sure to post it.

[coolwaters]

u dont need to change it that often.

 

once every 2 weeks is like the standard. 25% change.

 

if my tank was a lot smaller i would do a 1gallon water change a day.

[gabe_j]

i'm only pulling 8.75 gallons at best. i'd rather be safe than sorry, lol. granted i may be over killing it but i just don't like all that damn ditrus/snail poo on my glass.

[Bill Nye]

u dont need to change it that often.

 

once every 2 weeks is like the standard. 25% change.

 

if my tank was a lot smaller i would do a 1gallon water change a day.

 

 

How much smaller is alot smaller? I am doing 1 gal a week in a 5.5g as I said before. But at this point I have 3 zoa colonies and a CUC so not alot of bio load going on.

[dixiedog]

You're doing plenty already.

[csal1-175]

10% weekly

[mmelnick]

I had been doing about 25% every 2-3 months and not having any problems.

 

But once I removed my sand bed I got some algae so I've ben going back to about 15% every other week.

 

I went for 2 years changing water every other month and have great coral growth/coloration and no algae. I also didn;t ever have more than 1 ppm nitrates, but again, removing my sand bed was the end of that. And now that I want to keep more than just soft coral and LPS I can't get away with that any more.

[Nemo Niblets]

20% once a month.

[Meengineer0128]

I have a BC29 and I do two 3.5g water changes a week. I guess that equates to about 98% a month, but I have no nitrates, no phosphates, and all my other parameters are perfect (except my mag is around 1150 :~(). Can't win them all. I have a heavy bio load though I feel. Just MO

[Banjo]

I change about 20% weekly.

[Oceanus]

13% weekly-biweekly on my 135. 25% bi-weekly on the bc8.

[Reesea17]

I also do about 20% weekly, and plan to put an ATO on the tank to make it a little easier maintenance wise.

[Bill Nye]

Hmm from the looks of everyone else I am doing a fair amount of water change already. Considering 1 gallon is about 20 percent of my water per week, I may just stick with that. I am not even sure I will be getting a fish in my tank as its very small and I dont want to worry about constant feedings polluting and the extra bioload. I am guessing that my bioload is not going to get much larger considering the only thing I plan on adding is coral and possibly a porcelain crab.

[Meengineer0128]

Hmm from the looks of everyone else I am doing a fair amount of water change already. Considering 1 gallon is about 20 percent of my water per week, I may just stick with that. I am not even sure I will be getting a fish in my tank as its very small and I dont want to worry about constant feedings polluting and the extra bioload. I am guessing that my bioload is not going to get much larger considering the only thing I plan on adding is coral and possibly a porcelain crab.

+1. That should be fine. Plus, 1 gallon a week should take no time to change, and shouldn't stur up much fuss. I would just make sure the water salinity and temp closley match whatever you are adding it too because of the very small volume of your tank. Just my .02 ( you probably knew that already anyways)

[Apoptosis]

I have a BC29 and I do two 3.5g water changes a week. I guess that equates to about 98% a month, but I have no nitrates, no phosphates, and all my other parameters are perfect (except my mag is around 1150 :~(). Can't win them all. I have a heavy bio load though I feel. Just MO

 

That works out to ~ 67% water change. Assuming your bc29 holds about 26 gallons (3 gallons of sand and rock displacement), your 3.5g is about 13% of the volume.

[nick1912]

I do a 10% wc every week. If I feed my corals that week then I do %20 wc.

[rocko52286]

Whenever the I need trace minerals and when I clean the cans.

[Meengineer0128]

That works out to ~ 67% water change. Assuming your bc29 holds about 26 gallons (3 gallons of sand and rock displacement), your 3.5g is about 13% of the volume.

I have it drained to a sump. 30 gallons total volume. I do 3.5 gallon water changes twice a week=7 gallons *4 weeks in a month is 28 gallons 28/30=93%. My bad. I do 93% water changes a month. Read the post before you critique.

 

I have it drained to a sump. 30 gallons total volume. I do 3.5 gallon water changes twice a week=7 gallons *4 weeks in a month is 28 gallons 28/30=93%. My bad. I do 93% water changes a month. When I was typing I missed the 3.5 * 2 a week. Thanks for the math check.

[Apoptosis]

I have it drained to a sump. 30 gallons total volume. I do 3.5 gallon water changes twice a week=7 gallons *4 weeks in a month is 28 gallons 28/30=93%. My bad. I do 93% water changes a month. Read the post before you critique.

 

Even if you did 10 10% waterchanges, that is not a 100% waterchange. I'll explain...

 

Your 8 waterchanges are not equal to 93% because each time you change out water it is of the current system volume, you don't add the percentages that way.

 

Its easer to think of if you have 100ppm of something.

 

You start with the 100ppm and change out 3.5 gallons (12%), leaving 88ppm or 88% old water.

 

Then in a couple days you decide to do another water change. 88ppm and changing out 3.5 gallons is still 12% of your system volume. That leaves 77.5ppm or 77% old water.

 

I'll continue with just the math. (The number is multiplied by .88 because that is the amount of old water that will be left from any waterchange that is 12%)

 

77*(.88) = 67.76

67.76*(.88) = 59.62

59.62*(.88) = 52.47

52.47*(.88) = 46.17

46.17*(.88) = 40.63

40.63*(.88) = 35.75 old water (Which is still only equal to 64.25% waterchange)

 

Doing more frequent waterchanges is better for your system, but not equivalent to one large one.

I'm surprised you haven't heard of this.

[Gromit1710]

I do a 50% weekly to Bi-weekly on my BC8. Take out around 3 gal. when I do it. My LFS has great pre-mix SW that has a guaranteed analysis for cheap.

[Meengineer0128]

Even if you did 10 10% waterchanges, that is not a 100% waterchange. I'll explain...

 

Your 8 waterchanges are not equal to 93% because each time you change out water it is of the current system volume, you don't add the percentages that way.

 

Its easer to think of if you have 100ppm of something.

 

You start with the 100ppm and change out 3.5 gallons (12%), leaving 88ppm or 88% old water.

 

Then in a couple days you decide to do another water change. 88ppm and changing out 3.5 gallons is still 12% of your system volume. That leaves 77.5ppm or 77% old water.

 

I'll continue with just the math. (The number is multiplied by .88 because that is the amount of old water that will be left from any waterchange that is 12%)

 

77*(.88) = 67.76

67.76*(.88) = 59.62

59.62*(.88) = 52.47

52.47*(.88) = 46.17

46.17*(.88) = 40.63

40.63*(.88) = 35.75 old water (Which is still only equal to 64.25% waterchange)

 

Doing more frequent waterchanges is better for your system, but not equivalent to one large one.

I'm surprised you haven't heard of this.

 

 

AHHHHHHHH, I see what your saying now. I am looking at the water as a whole number!!! lol, I knew I should have taken more than college chemistry in college, lol. I what your saying. You sir are correct!!!! You get an internet gold star. I am not being sarcastic either. Engineers hate to be corrected*

 

*except for when it comes to making there calculations for there tanks better