Daily Waterchanges

[EasyEd77]

I read an interesting thread on reefcentral.com about 1% daily water changes to maintain parameters and keep a more stable reef. I thought that this would be simple with a nano, use a cup and remove x amount of ounces and then replace the exact same amount daily. Has anyone tried this method?

 

Here is the link to the article that they were discussing.

 

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

[lajz9]

I'm very curious about this as well as I'm trying to avoid adding any supplements to my 5g. I've had some people suggest that 50% should be changed weekly but I've only been changing about 20%.

[masterbuilder]

IMO...the real purpose of water changes is nutrient export. Doing a 1% change each day wont to squat as far as that is concerned. It may help keep some parameters more stable (although I think much of that is wishful thinking).....the problem is you WILL eventually miss some or many daily changes no matter how dedicated you are.

 

So.. If you did the 1% thing....how will you handle nutrient export? In this case the old boring, 20% weekly change is the way to go. My 2 cents.

 

 

 

p.s. Five 2% changes is in no way the same as one 10% change. Not saying you dont get that but some people cant grasp that concept.

[disaster999]

seems like a complete waste to me.

[D3monic]

A friend of mine has a 180 gal reef and hers is set up so it automatically does a 6gal water change daily.

[scooternerd]

my daughter had a 20 long reef a few years back. she did 5% daily WC it was heavily stocked though. worked great IMO

[cptbjorn]

Appears to be a wasteful OCD micromanaging technique that is probably less effective than a 10% weekly change. Plus if you are going to do something like this you might as well go all out and rig up some sort of continuous water change system.

[jeremai]

Appears to be a wasteful OCD micromanaging technique that is probably less effective than a 10% weekly change. Plus if you are going to do something like this you might as well go all out and rig up some sort of continuous water change system.

10% weekly > 1% daily, obviously a 10% change once a week is more effective

 

1% daily seems smart for element replenishment, not so much for nutrient export. thus, smart for large tanks, not so much for nano tanks.

[Phixion]

Mine do better the less often I change water, just sayin'. You could also the follow the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" on this one. I'd just stick with weekly 10-20% changes.

[Warehouse41Ant]

+1 to the majority opinion.

 

With a 1% daily you're theoretically turning over the tank every 100 days (14.3 weeks). With 10-20% weekly you'd averaging a turn over every 6.67 weeks. By turnover, I'm talking about replacement of total volume of water. Yes, I fully realize that this isn't how it works, but when you look at it that way, or any other way, it makes much more sense to stick with the norm.

 

About the only advantage to the 1% daily changes would be you're lessening the risk of a wild swing in salinity, pH, or temp. Other than that, you're accomplishing far less as far as reducing nitrates (which will build up instantly again).

[Boomboy]

after looking over the link really quick and all the pretty graphs, ive realized that the graphs are comparing a 1% daily to 30% monthly, but if you follow the general rule of thumb of 10% weekly, then you would get 40% monthly instead of 30%. another thing to consider is that you would have to make sure everyday that all the parameters match up, which seems like way to much of trouble to do every day. i would rather just do 10% weekly.

[StevieT]

1% IMO doesn't hold enough elements to replace those that are lost. Not concentrated enough.

 

10% weekly > 1% daily, obviously a 10% change once a week is more effective

 

this

[Phixion]

+1 to the majority opinion.

 

With a 1% daily you're theoretically turning over the tank every 100 days (14.3 weeks). With 10-20% weekly you'd averaging a turn over every 6.67 weeks. By turnover, I'm talking about replacement of total volume of water. Yes, I fully realize that this isn't how it works, but when you look at it that way, or any other way, it makes much more sense to stick with the norm.

 

About the only advantage to the 1% daily changes would be you're lessening the risk of a wild swing in salinity, pH, or temp. Other than that, you're accomplishing far less as far as reducing nitrates (which will build up instantly again).

 

I agree with this. Though salinity swings should be controlled by daily top-offs, not water changes. If you're getting a big salinity swing, then something is way off. Also a 1% change shouldn't affect temp swings any more than not changing daily or vice versa. pH though for sure it could counter wild swings of. But daily W/C's are just not necesary. In fact I can see how daily changes would RAISE the risk of disaster rather than lower it. There's always the potential of the saliity not being matched or correct, if you have old or bad RO filters or using crappy LFS RO water, then you could be intorducing PO4 (phosphates) or something worse into the tank at an accelerated rate and just any other general risk associated with water changes. And mostly, it's time consuming. I definitely don't have the time for daily ones myself, and wouldn't bother even trying unless I saw some hard legit proof it's better than just weekly changes. To each their own though, if daily works for you then by all means go for it or keep doing it.

[svvad]

But.... If you were to be sitting in a room with a huge piece of crap in the middle. Wouldn't you rather have 1% of air changed everyday as opposed to 10% only at the end of the week ? LOL

[MichiganReefer]

But.... If you were to be sitting in a room with a huge piece of crap in the middle. Wouldn't you rather have 1% of air changed everyday as opposed to 10% only at the end of the week ? LOL

 

First thing that comes to mind is yes, but thats before you realize that 1% will probably be unnoticeable. At least with the 10% you get one day a week where you can say to yourself: 'my room with turd in the middle smells slightly better today'

[StevieT]

But.... If you were to be sitting in a room with a huge piece of crap in the middle. Wouldn't you rather have 1% of air changed everyday as opposed to 10% only at the end of the week ? LOL

 

I would want the crap removed

[Biotoper]

I do wc's very infrequently, so I pretty much agree with what people are saying in practice. However, the article is very thorough and clearly explains how daily water changes are essentially comparable to larger once a month water changes in their reduction of existing nitrate concentrations over a year, as long as the same total volume of water is changed. So a 2% daily WC is nearly equivalent to a 14% weekly WC in terms of pollution removal.

 

If you are setting up an automatic water change system, setting it to do wc's daily or even more often might benefit some organisms in your tank, but apart from that I don't think it matters much.

 

If you have a sumpless tank with sessile inverts located high up, then obviously doing more frequent small wc's will allow you to avoid exposing them to the air, which is usually a good thing.

 

If you have an overstocked tank where you need like 50% weekly wc's to keep water quality up, this is a case where daily 7% wc's would probably be better. The large change in water quality when you do 50% wc's in a polluted tank can have a negative impact on some organisms, although most like many of these sensitive organisms would have already died off in your overstocked tank.

[Phixion]

Compared to a single MONTHLY change, then the daily routine would be beneficial I think. But compared to weekly, not so much. We can't compare this practice to weekly changes when the article specifically refers to a single monthly change...

[lakshwadeep]

The time it takes to mix 1 cup or 1 gallon of saltwater is not too different. So, it would be easy to mix a large batch of water at once, and then use that for the 1% water changes. However, it would also be easier just to do a water change with the whole batch instead of changing a few cups every day.

[BobbyL1212]

if it helps you, i scoop my water out of a bucket with a firm plastic pitcher, then slowly pour it into the back compartment. it is more gradual, and is easy on me.

 

back compartment of the tank that is.

[blasterman]

I recall this being similiar to a chemistry question you get in second year or something like that. Basically, do many incremental dilutions equal a single dilution of the the same volume. I can't remember what the answer was.

 

To keep everything equal, lets assume we are comparing a 30% water change once a month to 1% daily. In terms of the health of the inhabitants, I'm a firm believer of smaller and more frequent water changes over larger ones, especially when we are dealing with sensitive corals. I mean seriously, a 50% water change can be pretty drastic to SPS. Most fish could care less. The sudden water change also introduces a spike in nutrients from the salt mix which always tends to throw things out of wack for bit. How many times have we seen beginners get caught in a water change loop?

[lakshwadeep]

If you do a search, you will learn that a 100% water change with water that has the same parameters as the original tank water should not be harmful. A quality salt mix should not have nutrients. Moreover, it's generally the case that the composition of the new water is likely "better" than that of the old water in terms of the compounds that were used up and the compounds (possibly toxic) that were accumulated between water changes. Probably the only damage would be to some pieces of coralline algae.