Help! I’ve been doing this whole thing wrong the whole time! + an other idea I had

[TortillaMan]

So I’ve had my tank since November 25 and I’m a beginner reefer. I’m very good at keeping my livestock alive and healthy but there is a problem with my maintenance. I’ve been doing too small of water changes since my first water change! I do a water change every week. The tank is 60x18x22in with a 30g sump. Just an estimate but it has around 25g in it so total water volume is 125g. When I do a water change I turn off all of my pumps and wait for my sump to collect all the water from Turing my return off. Then I drain out 15g of water from the DT which looks to be enough. Then I refill to where the water line ends after turning my return off. Then I turn the return back on. The main issue is that I’ve actually Been taking out too little out! I want to do atleast 20% weekly. Or am I fine? I have the octo 5 skimmer and a refugium. Tank is stocked with 2 clowns, 1 copper band (eating frozen), 2 fire shrimps, 2 cleaner shrimps, 1 serpent sea star+ random hermits and a few snails. I would think that only 15g would be fine for my current stock but now that I have a copper band I am feeding twice a day (1/2 cube brine+garlic and 1/2 cube hikari mysis twice a day) I will be creating more waste. I could start using carbon or GFO to remove the extra organic waste instead of doing such large water changes every week. So onto my other idea


The idea was to get one of these:

I would attach it to my stand or somewhere close to it so that I can turn everything off and do water changes VIA my sump instead of the DT which would be better because I have corals that would be exposed to the air and I don’t want that happening. I will also be freeing up ludicrous amounts of space in my sump Area

 

[Lavey29]

Over the course of the first year weekly water changes are essential because your tank is unstable and it brings balance. 15 to 20% is fine. Once your tank gets more mature you may decide to do biweekly or monthly water changes instead. There is nothing wrong with changes from the sump and minimal time in the air does not hurt corals at all. Half my SPS are out of the water during water changes.

 

[X-37B]

Those are great to use. I use four on my 150.
You plug everything into the strip and only turn off what you need.
I only do 5% once a month for WC.
Imo, once a week is old school and not needed if you dose and have proper export.
My tank is 60×30×21

 

[TortillaMan]

Over the course of the first year weekly water changes are essential because your tank is unstable and it brings balance. 15 to 20% is fine. Once your tank gets more mature you may decide to do biweekly or monthly water changes instead. There is nothing wrong with changes from the sump and minimal time in the air does not hurt corals at all. Half my SPS are out of the water during water changes.

I forgot to mention but my rocks are 3 or 4 years old but my sand is around 6mo old. It had a huge stocking a while ago but there was a disease outbreak and what I listed is what I have after.

 

[TortillaMan]

Those are great to use. I use four on my 150.
You plug everything into the strip and only turn off what you need.
I only do 5% once a month for WC.
Imo, once a week is old school and not needed if you dose and have proper export.
My tank is 60×30×21

I am for sure considering one as I have a buisy life. I’m a student 5 days of the week and I volunteer at my LFS for around 6 hours a week. Summer is ina. Few days so that’ll free up my schedule for a few months. Making water changes as fast as possible is what I need.

 

[UMALUM]

3 small fish, no coral, established live rock and weekly 20 gallon water changes? Am I missing something? Seems a bit much. I would say unless the rock was majorly abused previously you shouldn't have to be worried about excessive nutrients. What are your current numbers?

 

[TortillaMan]

3 small fish, no coral, established live rock and weekly 20 gallon water changes? Am I missing something? Seems a bit much. I would say unless the rock was majorly abused previously you shouldn't have to be worried about excessive nutrients. What are your current numbers?

Yea the tank is 3 or 4 years old with 6 month old sand. I am not at home right now but when I get back in a hour I’ll post my nutrient levels here in this thread

 

[UMALUM]

Yea the tank is 3 or 4 years old with 6 month old sand. I am not at home right now but when I get back in a hour I’ll post my nutrient levels here in this thread

Just seems to me unless your in a fight with something that 10 gallons a week should allow for you to rest assured.

 

[TortillaMan]

Just seems to me unless your in a fight with something that 10 gallons a week should allow for you to rest assured.

So how can I get away with still doing water changes but not such high volumes? GFO+Carbon?

 

[UMALUM]

So how can I get away with still doing water changes but not such high volumes? GFO+Carbon?

It all depends on what numbers your trying to lock in. In the grand scheme of things on 125 total volume 20 gallons over 10 means very little when it comes to export. On the other hand if your phosphate is through the roof " why it would be would be a bigger mystery" and your trying to avoid the possibility of nuisance in the future than gfo might be an idea. But once again your rock and skimmer should be handling the majority with such a light load.

 

[TortillaMan]

It all depends on what numbers your trying to lock in. In the grand scheme of things on 125 total volume 20 gallons over 10 means very little when it comes to export. On the other hand if your phosphate is through the roof " why it would be would be a bigger mystery" and your trying to avoid the possibility of nuisance in the future than gfo might be an idea. But once again your rock and skimmer should be handling the majority with such a light load.

So my levels are either 2-5 nitrates and 0.03 phosphates. Tested with salifert. I am not going to test everything else because they rarely budge at all. I’m talking maybe 5ppm calcium or 6-7ppm mag every 2-3 water changes. I have some SPS I Inherited with the tank but they aren’t rooted to a plug or rock. They still open their polyps but my actual SPS price is maybe 0.5 inches and and a little patch of orange montipora. It isn’t like a shelf but more like a patch of coralline alage kind of patch

 

[UMALUM]

So my levels are either 2-5 nitrates and 0.03 phosphates. Tested with salifert. I am not going to test everything else because they rarely budge at all. I’m talking maybe 5ppm calcium or 6-7ppm mag every 2-3 water changes. I have some SPS I Inherited with the tank but they aren’t rooted to a plug or rock. They still open their polyps but my actual SPS price is maybe 0.5 inches and and a little patch of orange montipora. It isn’t like a shelf but more like a patch of coralline alage kind of patch

With those numbers the last thing on my mind would be gfo. If it were me I would be working on getting the nitrate up a bit, but that's me. Sounds like the 15 a week is working for you so you know the old saying. I was just trying to save you on some labor and salt. I would almost bet that if you went to 10 a week and kept everything else the same you'd get the same numbers.

 

[TortillaMan]

With those numbers the last thing on my mind would be gfo. If it were me I would be working on getting the nitrate up a bit, but that's me. Sounds like the 15 a week is working for you so you know the old saying. I was just trying to save you on some labor and salt. I would almost bet that if you went to 10 a week and kept everything else the same you'd get the same numbers.

Well as maybe 2-3 weeks ago my back wall of alage was scraped and never came back. I wouldn’t expect it to come back for a while but I noticed these air bubbles turned green. It’s not bubble algae because when I brush past it with my hand or with some tweezers it pops at the water surface. Could this be diatoms? I plan to get a conch and a diamond goby in a month or two. I also need a way larger CUC by that time too. Clearly I’m doing something right

 

[Lavey29]

Well as maybe 2-3 weeks ago my back wall of alage was scraped and never came back. I wouldn’t expect it to come back for a while but I noticed these air bubbles turned green. It’s not bubble algae because when I brush past it with my hand or with some tweezers it pops at the water surface. Could this be diatoms? I plan to get a conch and a diamond goby in a month or two. I also need a way larger CUC by that time too. Clearly I’m doing something right

It's not diatoms but probably green or brown algae which is common on the back wall and the air bubbles is pearling indicating growth.