A Water Change A Day...

mcarroll

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Due to time constraints, I've fallen so far behind on my usual 20% (20 gallon) water changes that I've decided to re-adopt a water change strategy that worked well before, but requires smaller chunks of time to pull off.

I'll be doing 5 gallons a day - which is only 5% - but it'll still give me a "25 gallon" water change per 5-day week. This is about 10 times the rate I'm currently changing. :xd:

There's nothing magical about 5% or 5 gallons except that it happens to be a super easy and super convenient volume for me and my system. It's a single bucket to carry, I don't have to shut down the sytem, and I can do the setup, mix, drain and refill in about 10 minutes without rushing. Sweet!

So anyway, I plan to make a post every day I actually complete a water change and we'll see how long I can keep it going and if I get the improvement in the tank I saw last time I tried this.

Anyone else wanna try it? :becky:

-Matt

P.S. A link with a fairly complete rationalization of this method got posted in post #15 in case you're curious about some of the thinking behind this.

P.P.S. If you wanna SEE how I mix water nice and fast, check out posts #301 and #306 of this post. It should only take about 5 minutes!
 
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Reef Pets

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I would be with you Matt but 5 gallons would be like a drop on my system. But, I am curious to see if doing smaller water changes per day has a positive effect on your reef compared to larger water changes per week. Ill be following along.
 
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mcarroll

mcarroll

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Post for days 1-3. (Okay, so I had the idea for the thread a little after the fact.) ;)
 
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mcarroll

mcarroll

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I would be with you Matt but 5 gallons would be like a drop on my system. But, I am curious to see if doing smaller water changes per day has a positive effect on your reef compared to larger water changes per week. Ill be following along.

Out of curiosity, if you just used the measure I did (5 gallon increments you can take out without shutting down the system) how much would you be changing per day in theory?

Thanks!

-Matt
 

-Logzor

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I've been doing this for awhile, I haven't seen any negative results. It's 10x easier for me to do it this way. The larger changes are such a hassle I often avoided doing them. I also have learned that changing my skimmer cup every couple of days helps a lot too, I've found that once the neck gets dirty my skimmate production drops by like 80%. Now I can feed heavier and skim more.
 
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mcarroll

mcarroll

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Great to hear!

Daily skimmer cleanings cannot be overestimated in value. Wet skimming can help a lot to minimize the absolute need for it every day though.

Thanks!

-Matt
 

eliramos

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i honestly felt that the stability would be so much better! constant additions of trace elements and constant removal of junk! it sounds good to me and so much less stress on the fish and coral "if done correctly" that is i really dont see how this could be bad as long as the temp and salinity are the same...even with that since is such a small change the levels probably dont even need to be as precise
 

-Logzor

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I also like the daily changes because I can keep my salinity more stable, with heavy dosing on an SPS reef, certain elements tend to build up and slowly increase my salinity, with daily changes I can easily adjust for these increases.
 

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Out of curiosity, if you just used the measure I did (5 gallon increments you can take out without shutting down the system) how much would you be changing per day in theory?

Thanks!

-Matt

About 150 gallons a day would be about 5%.
 
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