A Water Change A Day...

[reefingnoob]

This thread inspired me to join the group but I can only manage if I mix 50g at once then do 5g a day so is it bad to use the water that was made 10 days ago? Do I drop an air stone in the barrel to keep it oxygenated? Or agitation from mixing pump is good enough? Its a 50g cube tank

Cadlights 50g cube with apex and Vertex illumina

 

[mcarroll]

Great to have another on board! :)

Do what you have to! Using it asap is ideal, but it doesn't really go bad. You just may not be adding vitamins anymore with the water changes at the end of the vat.

Mix it thoroughly (whether by paddle, pump or air power) and then I would cover it well and leave it alone until it's used up. (It's not going to "settle" or anything like that.)

Definitely no airstone as bubbling saltwater is a guaranteed mess AND it could only promote oxidation of the vitamins in the mix. If the water was going to be around much more than 10 days, I would consider running a pump in it just to keep mold/bacteria from getting a foothold on the water surface.

50 gallons is a nice, round amount - one even bag of salt per mix. This is great! You should get extremely consistent mix results as long as your vat always starts clean and you start with a consistent amount of water. :thumb:

-Matt

 

[bknapp]

I used to be of the mindset that you had to mix your salt for 24 hours before use until I watched this YouTube video from Red Sea. Now I let it mix for an hour or so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlIHJ02NaKk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

For what it's worth I use the regular Red Sea Salt as apposed to their Coral Pro, which this video pertains to.

 

[mcarroll]

Water change #23!


Finally tested and wow....time to dose! :)

Keep in mind I have no idea where there numbers were before starting "water change a day"...so this is a starting point, not a progress report. ;)

pH was the most surprising....gonna have to try the aeration test to see if my pH test kit is correct.

pH 7.7
alk 2.11 meq/L
Ca 375 ppm
Mg 1175
Boron - the test requires a starting pH between 7.9 and 8.5. :( Wonder if the alk. kit should have a similar requirement.

I've got about 100 actual gallons of water, so I'm prepping a set of doses for Ca and alkalinity to get me half-way to my targets: 420 Ca, 2.95 meq/L

Will re-test tomorrow after dosing and see what's actually left to dose. Will reassess Mg then as well...not sure I have reagents in the house for Mg anymore, we'll see.

Time to dust off the old dripper!! :D

-Matt

 

[mcarroll]

Dosing, Neanderthal-style!

Alk on the slow-drip in the upside-down OJ bottle, calcium in the wash bottle on a medium drip. Both are very diluted doses as well.

-Matt

 

[mcarroll]

Here's my theory. All this water changing triggered a growth spurt - that much was clear from observation - and my lack of testing probably prevented me from seeing mediocre numbers get worse as the corals perked up and put on some size. Makes sense to me anyway.

In the next day or so I'll have to recharge the kalk dispenser with fresh lime, and consider running vinegar through it again.

To do vinegar long-term, I need to come up with a genius way of sterilizing the ATO bucket to keep mildew growth away though. (Switching to a black container would probably help too, but I'm paranoid that would just keep me from seeing the mildew growth.) This has been a persistent problem when I run vinegar in the reservoir. Manual scrubbing between refills is a pain and doesn't seem to be adequate - too many minute nooks and crannies.

No idea what dosage to try (yet) but I'm thinking of hitting the ATO reservoir with a "correct" amount of plain chlorine bleach, then aerating the hell out of it until there's no smell of chlorine left.

There are some guidelines I'm going to start with, but I also don't know if 100% of the sodium hypochlorite will dissipate with aeration, or if there could be any residue, etc. More reading required. Would love to hear some ideas on this whole problem!

-Matt

 

[mcarroll]

I used to be of the mindset that you had to mix your salt for 24 hours[...]

That's some old, old advice that goes back (AFAIK) to when it was common to attempt salt mixing with an airstone and tiny little SecondNature pump. :D Some salt mixes used to have a coarser consistency too, which would slow dissolution.

In most circumstances, if you're mixing with a nice strong powerhead (propeller pumps make excellent mixing pumps) and using any of the common salt mixes, there's no reason the mix can't be ready to go in 10 minutes or even less.

Mixing an hour, or even 24 hours won't hurt anything...just not really required in most cases IME.

-Matt

 

[revhtree]

Thanks for keep this documented.

 

[bknapp]

Water change number 27! (Did two a couple of times.)

 

[eliramos]

Anyone else proud of this guy for still
For going strong?!
Keep it up man
Hows the tank looking?

 

[Kgedelian]

I Do 5 gallons every 2 to 3 days (90 GL) & it works nicely

 

[mcarroll]

Retested after dosing Ca, alk and Mg and saw minimal change to the numbres I retested: pH still 7.7, Ca 425 ppm, alk 2.28 meq/L

(We can more or less disregard the Ca number until alk starts coming into range...taking the reading just in case.)

Dosing the 200mL of alk still left from the first calculation and another 500 mL of Mg (which I did still have some mixed). Leaving Ca alone for now.

Also not doing another water change until numbers even out a bit. STAY TUNED! :)

-Matt

 

[bluzepher]

following

 

[mcarroll]

Alright!

The drippers were empty when I came back, so I retested again:

pH: 7.7
alk: 3.25
Ca: 415
Mg: 1350

Ca could stand to be a little higher, but I'm happy for now. Let the water changes resume! :)

-Matt

 

[TimSc2013]

Been performing 5-gal daily water changes on my system (around 100 gallons) for several weeks to see if I could stabilize my water parameters without adding supplements. This thread happened to show up on FB page and was excited to see that others are applying similar maintenance programs. Will be interested in following and sharinging some of my observations.

 

[bknapp]

Another water change is in the books.

 

[mcarroll]

Welcome! Glad to have another perspective! :)

What's your coral population like? Fish?

As you can see from my recent documentation, our strategy is not an unlimited one! LOL.

I'm hoping to retest one more time tonight and see what kind of consumption one day has brought.

Then I will know if the lime reactor (or +vinegar) will be sufficient or if the major fragging I mentioned is going back on the mandatory list again. (I'm great at making excuses for not fragging...but I don't think I'm ready to rebuild my 2-part dosers yet.)

-Matt

 

[TimSc2013]

Mike - My system consists of three tanks (20, 34 &65 gal) connected together via a sump and refugium.

65 gal: trigger, yellow tang, flame angle, lawnmower blenny, pink finger leather and pulsing Xenia

34 gal: mandarin goby, 6 acans, 2 favia, 2 monti's, 10 acros, 1 chalice, 2 mille's, 2 candy canes and some zoa's (all frags)

20 gal: no fish or coral as I need a lighting fixture so it's just extra water.

System has been running since 2006 but only added corals within the last year.

Have had some growth but acro's haven't colored up. Hence doing daily water changes to see if it helps coloration.

 

[TimSc2013]

Sorry Matt...accidentally referred to you as Mike!

 

[mcarroll]

Sorry Matt...accidentally referred to you as Mike!

I've been called worse! :D

I suspect you'll have a tough time maintaining chemistry for that many stony frags once they take root with only 5 gallons a day. May be ok at first but I'd plan for a kalk dispenser in your ATO like the Tunze 5074 and/or a system for dosing two-part.

-Matt