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Water Changes ... Brainstorm Challenge


hahahohol

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Hi all,

I currently have a 40 gallon reef tank (totally love it) and just built a 3 gallon pico reef tank as a fun project experiment... pics of both tanks attached.

My friend really liked this tank and wants to buy it from me, but she's a newbie to saltwater.

I'm trying to make this as easy/low maintenance/low cost as possible for her and I feel like it is doable.

 

My biggest challenge and I want to thrown this at you is water change:

What is the best way to do a 10% (~1 qt) water change with minimum equipment or $$ investment?

 

I think the common way is to mix saltwater in 5 gal bucket using a spare pump and heater, but that's too much extra water. Is it possible to mix and change 1qt of saltwater without a heater and pump?

 

Please provide your ideas. If you think you got a bad idea, please share that also and tell me why it's a bad idea. REMEMBER, this is a brainstorming thread and I am still in experiment state, so there are no dumb ideas, only dumb people just kidding haha

 

I feel like something good will come out of it if people will share their thoughts.

 

Thank you in advance.

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I would buy a bag of salt, and make 1 gallon batches using distilled water from the grocery store. Costs about $.50 - $1 for the gallon of water, and then whatever the salt costs. You don't have to worry about RO or tap water. Just buy a gallon every month or so.

 

To heat up the water before doing a water change, put it in a sink of hot or warm water. You can warm up a gallon in a few minutes doing this.

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Deleted User 8

I always like to have enough water on hand to do a 100% water change, especially in a tank so small. 5g jug for sure. I wouldn't keep it heated or with a pump. A spare 100 watt heater would heat the water fairly quickly. Depending on the heater in the 3 gallon I would not bother heating 1 qt of water from room temp.

 

Buzz

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Just use distilled water from the grocery store that is sold in the 1gallon jugs. You can always buy and mix whatever you need or just have some extra gallons on hand if need be. My LFS sells premixed saltwater for only $0.80 a gallon so you may want to see if you can get some around you for a good price.

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as long as the water added to tank is at same temp as tank water it is good enough. You just don't want to add water at 65 F to a tank which is at 80 F.

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Good thoughts, thank you. So do you think that preheating 1qt of water is unnecessary?

 

Heating the water to near tank water temperature is important. It doesn't have to be exact. Just close — within 5 degrees F. And it takes only a few minutes to warm up a quart bottle of water.

 

Mixing up only one quart of water at a time (as originally proposed) is not a good idea. In a pico aquarium, water parameters can go south very quickly and could require a WC of at least 1/3 volume. Also, more frequent WCs may be required early on, until the tank stabilizes. The minimum I'd mix is one gallon at a time; but it costs the same to mix 5 gallons as it does to mix 1 gallon 5 times — and it's a lot more convenient making a single 5 gallon batch than 5 one gallon batches.

 

RO water is sold in supermarkets at nearly 1/2 the price of distiller water. It's what I use and it works great.

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1 qt water changes means the tank is wrecked with algae won't go past first year

 

when changing pico water change all of it

 

 

if there's fish, change most. 2.5 gallons

 

pour new water in slowly on top of highest rock to avoid kicking up sandbed

 

the tank is less likely to be lost from algae if no bed is used

 

to change water set 5 gallon container in sink of hot water 5 mins bring to 78 and dump in after adjusting salinity w distilled water

 

there's nothing wrong with 10% wc lots of people do that but if you check their pico thread they are either using gfo as well or the pico isn't very old. all old pico reefs in good condition have wc % in common

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1 qt water changes means the tank is wrecked with algae won't go past first year

 

Hi Brandon,

 

Pardon my ignorance. Could you please elaborate. I don't understand the above remark.

 

TIA

Larry

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over the last 12 yrs online ive tracked hundreds of three gallon tanks across forums and their care methodologies, my mention above was a predictable time frame to algae dominance for three gallon reefs based primarily on water volume changed per week

 

its not meant to downcast the option its meant to highlight how it will play out, before it plays out. you could get away with doing half the amount you are planning if you have an enhanced plan to fight algae when it occurs. even those who change full amounts of water still have to have a method for algae control its just not as thorough as those tanks that continually store up wastes in the various substrates in our tanks.

 

this tank above is almost certainly a sandbed containing tank and that retains whole particle waste that slowly leaches phosphates into the actual sandbed grains and the structure of the live rock, the current school of thought holds. the large water changes couteract that a little

 

 

 

 

 

i practice it strictly

 

just this weekend I had 4 x 5 gallon blue jugs of reef water ready 1.023 at 78 degrees

 

i set a *1 gallon pico reef into my sink and poured all of them through it pretty hard, overflowing all the waste but not hard enough to eject shrimp or corals. this is the annual big water change, usually its just 100% weekly/

 

the reason I do 20x 100% water changes in one sitting while the current approach is partial water changes bi weekly is because thats what it takes to get out to ten years. if you treat a new tank like it is ten years old and instantly kill any algae without even measuring your nutrient levels, you pre empt nearly all pico reef longevity problems.

 

 

walking by your tank and the water looks a little cloudy? dont post, just rip it out.

 

overfed accidentally by little cousin? rip it out

 

went away on vacation corals closed up upon return, afraid of stressing them dont know what to do? rip it out etc

 

bought api ammonia test kits and they always show .25? rip it out even though you dont need to.

 

Reef working perfectly normal and you want to test the universe? Rip change it three times. Corals open wider next day. Before you do it, slurry the heck out if that tank with spot feed. Plug the LPS until they puke

 

Then rapid change clean the tank

 

Thats fat coral feeding like in a 200 gallon tank its the total secret to pico reef health. Variability in mass feed attempts vs constant fear feed restriction all centered around partial water change theory. Nope, feed heavy change heavy then you have no coral issues, we rip change before all that uneaten food rots

 

In my tank I slurry it red with frozen Cyclopeeze I still have a lot of it.

 

 

you can't do too many 100% water changes even if they are morning, mid day, and nighly on a fully stocked pico. really man its just like that

 

Weekly is good enough sometimes 100% sometimes 50% is ok, with the tank feedings not so much mid week but on the day just before the w change

 

Altering the feed timing is big big in algae prevention in pico reefs, feed closer to bg w change time and feed better.

 

 

Most reef tank problems with coral and chemistry are prevented with this CPR method for pico reef keeping

 

The long slow interim part where you feed maybe a tiny bit daily, or go lax on a full change for a while is the exception not the norm. The norm is elbow grease and your tank will have an indefinite biological lifespan, proof is underway.

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Sure deal its ok to use it as long as algae is removed by hand, made to disappear as soon as its seen using any effective method.

 

 

This is all just my opinion lol others aren't as algae hating but when you lose enough hard work to it this is what happens

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Good thoughts, thank you. So do you think that preheating 1qt of water is unnecessary?

 

Not necessary if it's room temperature.

 

One quart added to a 40 gallon? Temp is not an issue, the few degrees difference- doubt you can measure a temp change in the tank.

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One quart added to a 40 gallon? Temp is not an issue...

 

Agree. But I think the OP is referring to the 3 gallon pico for his friend - not his 40 gallon reef. I assume the 3 gallon pico is heated to somewhere around 79 - 80 degrees. The delta between tank temp and room temp, especially during the winter months, can easily be 10 degrees or more.

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Thank you all for your response. I will try mixing saltwater in 1 gal jug and run under hot water to bring temperature up to 78F

 

 

If he doesnt know how to run a 3 gallon pico how does he expect someone with no experience to?

The reason i asked is because she doesnt have any spare waterpumps or heaters. Plus this is just my experiment project.

 

PS: brandon429, please dont scare me like that with your algae problems :)

I'm thinking, if i bring this tank to work and something will go wrong, will i be able to take care of it?

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oh sure ive seen lots of 3g tanks at work that matured just fine

 

the probs were:

 

extreme temps when they do not regulate temps during holidays

 

cleaning crew issues, cleaners and the random penny tossed in lol. depends on your crew i guess

 

the algae doesnt monsterfy the tank overnight thats just my look back on tanks lost typing above lol

 

but when it comes, just kill it. lift out the rock its on (dont stack tons of them in the tank, leave the rocks removable and 90% of your battles are pre won) and kill it using any creative method you can find online. I used to bic lighter fire burn mine off before finding other methods, a kill is a kill.

burn it off, kill it off, scrape it off, peroxide it off etc and put back in tank. very easy cheat.

when you kill algae, it can't win even if your phosphates are off the chart. im sure mine are.



the best bet you have to maintain a work place is to not have a fish. once something kills them, thats the trigger for tank loss ammonia creep right when you are out for thanksgiving. its done with fish all the time successfully, but as the main weak point in murphys law of work reef tanks the fish are your greatest systemic liability./

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oh sure ive seen lots of 3g tanks at work that matured just fine

 

the probs were:

 

extreme temps when they do not regulate temps during holidays

 

cleaning crew issues, cleaners and the random penny tossed in lol. depends on your crew i guess

 

the algae doesnt monsterfy the tank overnight thats just my look back on tanks lost typing above lol

 

but when it comes, just kill it. lift out the rock its on (dont stack tons of them in the tank, leave the rocks removable and 90% of your battles are pre won) and kill it using any creative method you can find online. I used to bic lighter fire burn mine off before finding other methods, a kill is a kill.

burn it off, kill it off, scrape it off, peroxide it off etc and put back in tank. very easy cheat.

when you kill algae, it can't win even if your phosphates are off the chart. im sure mine are.

 

the best bet you have to maintain a work place is to not have a fish. once something kills them, thats the trigger for tank loss ammonia creep right when you are out for thanksgiving. its done with fish all the time successfully, but as the main weak point in murphys law of work reef tanks the fish are your greatest systemic liability./

 

Whoa! Lighter? Peroxide? Won't that create ammonia spike due to die off?

 

Fishless tank is the plan! I just want to find creative ways to run this tank as easy as posible

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Check this out

 

 

This is a 1 gal reef full water change with 35% peroxide added inside the tank and then drained back out

 

So thats air exposure plus massive oxidizer insult 35 pct vs 3 pct!

 

3 pct peroxide causes no cycling in almost any documented case online

And this tank is acclimated to the good stuff. If placed in the palm of your hand for only 60 seconds the burn might require a dr visit and at the very least second degree chemical burn treatment

 

If given a choice of one drop of 35% in the eye or ten drops of bleach and you leave it there 4 mins I'd take the bleach. Chuck Norris can't even hang with 35 % as it beat him down and made him cry like a baby man

From inside the bottle

 

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the alternative is worse :) (what an algae wrecked tank looks like)

 

but in general, large wc take care of things nicely. just drain and refill w new. the main point of the vid is that the drain is harmless.

 

the main takeaway is one day a tuft of algae will show up on a rock. if you leave it as part of a new tank cycle, you take the risk of invasion.

 

if you drain the tank for a water change and place a few drops regular peroxide on it, then refill that stops anything from ever taking over your tank. the wc time is the time to work on things that have no water on them

 

its the secret to a long lived pico

 

or lighter burn it off

 

no ammonia is caused, nothing bad happens, its no different than the natural life and death cycles in the reef and plant matter isn't a big deal when it dies. a single days feeding is orders more phosphate input.

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Deleted User 8

I use a peroxide based contact lens cleaner. Mixed it up with regular saline once. Once.

 

My eye actually slammed shut so tight that I couldn't get the contact out. Had to pry my eyelid open and scrape it off of my eye. The only difference between the regular saline and the cleaner is a tiny red tip. At 0400 it is hard to distinguish.

 

Buzz

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