Water Change vs. additives dosing

[32Bit_Fish]

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

[Jacobnano]

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.

[Billdemart]

How are you going to remove Nitrates?

[BLoCkCliMbeR]

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

[32Bit_Fish]

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

[Byrdman]

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.

[32Bit_Fish]

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.

[lakshwadeep]

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.

[cheryl jordan]

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.

[Supersizeme]

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

[coolwaters]

How are you going to remove Nitrates?

 

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

[32Bit_Fish]

chaeto?

 

i would be more worried about ugly yellow water.

 

What do u mean?

[timdanger]

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.

[porksoda]

Awesome thread here

[32Bit_Fish]

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

[StevieT]

I just feel doing w/c isn't that simple

 

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

[OClownsandNanos]

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.

[32Bit_Fish]

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.

[nick1912]

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

[32Bit_Fish]

It helps keep the water dirty.

 

Why u want to do that?

[nick1912]

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.

[bluefunelement]

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.

[timdanger]

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.

 

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.

[32Bit_Fish]

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.

[timdanger]

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.