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Author Topic: water changes (one big one or more smaller ones)  (Read 2477 times)

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Offline Amstar

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water changes (one big one or more smaller ones)
« on: March 25, 2009, 16:27:04 »
when you change out your water do you do a large water change or small ones?  how many times do you do water changes in a month.

I change out 40 gallons once each month in one large change

Offline UDflyer00

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Re: water changes (one big one or more smaller ones)
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2009, 16:30:53 »
I do big as well.  I just changed out ~30 gallons of my 65 yesterday.  I used to do this once every 6-8 weeks when I had a FOWLR setup, but now that I've gotten some little corals I've done my last 2 about every 4 weeks to ensure the trace elements and such stay up.

Mark
65 g AGA - Kettering

Offline HUNGER

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Re: water changes (one big one or more smaller ones)
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2009, 16:39:51 »
you should change as much as needed when as needed
SIZE DOES MATTER

MechanicalEngineer

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Re: water changes (one big one or more smaller ones)
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2009, 21:32:04 »
I recommend a weekly 10% water change...or at worst a 20% water change every 2 weeks.  You should do more if your chemicals seem out of whack or if your tank doesn't look 100% right.  A larger water change can be too much of a shock for your system.  Stability is key.

Offline Logzor

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Re: water changes (one big one or more smaller ones)
« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2009, 21:41:34 »
I recommend a weekly 10% water change...or at worst a 20% water change every 2 weeks.  You should do more if your chemicals seem out of whack or if your tank doesn't look 100% right.  A larger water change can be too much of a shock for your system.  Stability is key.

I totally agree. Keep water changes small and often. 15% is ideal and this is what I shoot for weekly. Maybe once every few months do a 30%+ water change if you feel necessary.

If you are using salt like IO that has high PH then you will have problems if you do a very larger water change.

Offline Amstar

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Re: water changes (one big one or more smaller ones)
« Reply #5 on: March 25, 2009, 22:12:44 »
a 15% water change for me is 30 gallons(150 gallon tank (50 gallons in the sump (125 gallon tank).  So i guess for me I will not quite fill up a 32 gallon brute trash-can and do my water changes based on that.  It does make sense about not make to large of a water change because of it being to much of a shock.

I will aim for 10-15% every two weeks (in the past I was doing 10% (on my 75) just didnt know what the advantages/disadvantages of doing larger water changes may of been

Bigmoo

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Re: water changes (one big one or more smaller ones)
« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2009, 22:45:51 »
I believe I read once (RC?) that your tank fares better to do a larger change because it removes more of the excess at once, kinda like only cleaning a 1/4 of you filter sock versus all of it. Although, it does seem to make sense to change it as needed based on the need of the tank at any time. No gospel from myself however. I change out 20 gallons of my 90 gallons total every three to four weeks, probably would be better to do it twice a month though.

Offline Viggen

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Re: water changes (one big one or more smaller ones)
« Reply #7 on: March 26, 2009, 10:06:46 »
I just do a single change whith is 2 trashcans.  Sometimes I would do 3 but the majority of the time I just do 2 cans. 

It would make sence that it is less stressfull on the inhabitants if smaller changes are done since the h20 chemistry isn't changing as much.  However I feel it would be hard/stresfull on the fish/etc having my hand stuck in the tank 4x's a month vs a single time.  I also thought if my h20 paramaters are that far off to stress eveyone out a lot when I do my monthly change, something must be wrong.

So I stick with a single monthly change...... which allows me to change less water then if I did it weekly
300g tub o fish

Offline bkvreef

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Re: water changes (one big one or more smaller ones)
« Reply #8 on: March 26, 2009, 10:40:38 »
I just set up one of my overflows with a T and redirect it out to the buckets when I change my water.

But I must be bad since I have only been doing a 10% every 3 weeks.
The counts are good and everything seems to be doing fine.

Granted I wonder how it would be if I did regular changes!
Thanks and God Bless,
John

MechanicalEngineer

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Re: water changes (one big one or more smaller ones)
« Reply #9 on: March 26, 2009, 21:38:36 »
Keep in mind that water changes vary on your tank.  If you have a huge bioload from fish or a huge chemical load from corals...I would do more, and more frequently.  If I miss a weekly water change, my trace elements will dip too low...and things die.  Not cool. 

 

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