New water change schedual

[TheNorthernLight]

Warning, rambling thought here...

 

As an alternate method, and has worked for me on my 75G + refugium = about 100G total water, and my 20G High + refugium = 27G. Both systems had good protein skimmers, refugiums growing a mixed algae mix, but mostly cheato, doing daily water top-ups from evap, and adding appropriate suppliments as well (I add bio-calcium, 1 small scoop / 3 days on the 20G, 3 small scoops / 3 days, and Kent Marine's Coral-Vite liquid) and periodically if my Ph starts to swing more then normal, I add a alk/Dkh buffer as well.

 

Outside of this, I do water checks 2 x month on all perameter, and I keep a close eye on my fish and corals. an EXTREMELY good indicator of issues, is pulsing xenia. It will let you know when something is up, and do it quickly.

 

But it also helps to keep your bioload down too. I have consistently under-stocked my systems. And so far the only consistent loss that I have had was emerald crabs. But I think that was lack of food. And one striped blenny, but again that was my stupidity, put a 5" sand sifter in a 20gallon... poor guy starved to death. And a Tiger Goby, but he taught himself to fly sometime between midnight and 8am, again stupid me, forgot to put my tank cover back on after feeding. she-it.

 

anyway, I try to do a water changes at least once a month, but sometimes forget and only get around to it, every 1.5 to 2 months.

Now when I do my 75G, I do 20 Gallons at a time, so 20% of 100G water total. And I try and do 10G / month on my 20G.

 

With this, I have kept a very stable system. The only issue that I have

had with both systems is temp swing. But that's due to a warm apartment and up until a few months ago, lack of A/C. Winter is not an issue, only summer as per the norm.

 

anyway, just thought I would pitch that water changes arn't critical the

larger you go, and providing you have a good refugium. I swear it's due to this that I keep extremely low nitrate/ite counts in my systems.

I would go as far, as putting an equal size refugium as your tank, and if you can, even bigger. sounds stupid, but it really does help.

 

of course, the smaller you go, the larger of a monthly water change that is required, up to a point. I never try and cross the 50% mark, unless due to getting rid of a major problem (like anemone walking into intake of a pump)

 

anyway,

 

just my 2 cents,

 

spyrule.

[FAC_WNY]

I have to agree with Icenine..."stability" in high nutrients isn't as healthy as "radical change" to maintain water purity.

 

I've run a lot of tanks over my time in reefing (and working in LFS), and nothing cures what ails ya like a waterchange. I've tried running tanks with multiple nutrient export schemes and heavily dosed...and they still don't look as good as the tanks that get large-scale waterchanges every week. (Especially the nanos I've kept...they seem to benefit even more...possibly because they experience even larger waterchanges as a percentage of total system volume than large systems...) Maybe it's anecdotal, and maybe there isn't anything we can put our fingers on (then again...it isn't hard to have a chemical je ne se qua when you can only test for a handful of things...), but waterchanges (as frequently and as large a volume as you can do...if that means 25%/day...more power to you...but the old weekly 20-25% is usually sufficient..) WORK. Period.

 

Cheers,

Fred