How is the up-keep on ultra big systems?

r.reefer · Aug 11, 2022

Hi! It's my dream to one day own a reef tank that is over 200 gallons. For fun, I've been looking at some of the RedSea systems and I really like the 1000-S model which has a total volume of 265 gallons. But I was wondering, for a tank this big, how on earth do you do things like water changes? I have a 50 gallon tank now, and I can't imagine having to do water changes that big.

blaxsun · Aug 11, 2022

Well... I have a Red Sea 750XXL (200-gallons), and I don't do water changes. I've changed out maybe ~10% of the water in the sump a few times in the past year just in the course of cleaning - but otherwise it's mostly the same saltwater I started with over a year ago. And my tank is heavily-stocked, ie: 42 fish currently.

Good filtration is a must, a great protein skimmer is a must and a UV is a must. I'm also now running an ozone system which is making my water ultra clean.

jdpiii3 · Aug 11, 2022

My water changes are controlled automatically one pump sucks water out and dumps it down the drain another pump pushes new water in. I can do a 50 gallon water change in under a half hour.

Spare time · Aug 11, 2022

A lot of people with large tanks only do water changes a few times a year. Refugiums, refugiums with skimmers, or skimmers+carbon dosing+gfo keep nitrate and phosphate in check. You would want to run quality carbon, some mechanical filter (socks, roller, pads, etc), and dose

mtraylor · Aug 12, 2022

I don't do water changes either. That was what the fish stores told you in the old days to do once a week to maintain aquarium. That was also before we checked parms religiously. I have brute 40 gallon trash can Iix up water in when needed. Maybe couple times a year if that.

Tank is easy to maintain once going. Good skimmer, filtration, have uv, run carbon 24/7 and calcium reactor. Everything is automated in tank.

BRS is friend in buying things in bulk

gibbers · Aug 12, 2022

blaxsun said:
Well... I have a Red Sea 750XXL (200-gallons), and I don't do water changes. I've changed out maybe ~10% of the water in the sump a few times in the past year just in the course of cleaning - but otherwise it's mostly the same saltwater I started with over a year ago. And my tank is heavily-stocked, ie: 42 fish currently.

Good filtration is a must, a great protein skimmer is a must and a UV is a must. I'm also now running an ozone system which is making my water ultra clean.

Tell me more about your ozone setup if you don’t mind

Lost in the Sauce · Aug 12, 2022

With a long hose run to the toilet to drain, and 8-10, 5 gallon buckets from the garage to the tank.

blaxsun · Aug 12, 2022

gibbers said:
Tell me more about your ozone setup if you don’t mind

I'm running an Ozotech Poseidon 200 that feeds directly into a Nyos Quantum 160 skimmer through the ozone intake on the bottom of the silencer. That's it - nothing more elaborate than that. I'm running it between 2.5-4 on the dial, which works out to about 60-88mg/hour of ozone.

zpete3323 · Aug 12, 2022

I have a 400-500gal frag system and the maintenance is just as simple as my office tank. Minimal water changes only when my orp jumps more the 200pts from my "clean water" level. I run a large skimmer and reefmat filter roller and carbon/gfo only as needed. Dos around 1.5gal of kalk a day for alk bump and a couple gallons a day for ato. K.I.S.S. method all the way.

Have 50gal of water available at any given moment but nothing crazy. Honestly with that large of a volume it is far more simple to maintain as changes take 10x longer to based on volume alone.

Biggest worry for me is a power failure so I installed a large battery backup capable of running the tank for a few days. Spendy but worth the insurance!

r.reefer · Aug 12, 2022

mtraylor said:
I don't do water changes either. That was what the fish stores told you in the old days to do once a week to maintain aquarium. That was also before we checked parms religiously. I have brute 40 gallon trash can Iix up water in when needed. Maybe couple times a year if that.

Tank is easy to maintain once going. Good skimmer, filtration, have uv, run carbon 24/7 and calcium reactor. Everything is automated in tank.

BRS is friend in buying things in bulk

Wow! I’ve seen people with big trash cans connected to their setup. Is this just saltwater for water changes? Sounds like these big systems mostly upkeep themselves

mtraylor · Aug 12, 2022

Oh no. The trash can is not connected to my system. I have a 40 gallon brute trash can on wheels with a lid. I keep it in the garage. When ever I want to make water. I fill that thing up. I can do water changes on my display and frag tank with that. Then put back in the garage.

I have a 255 gallon tank with 100 gallon sump. I also do water changes strictly from sump if needed. I just turn the return pump & skimmer off and let the sump fill up. Then put a pump in the sump and remove all water. Meanwhile the display is unaffected. Then I just let my autofill fill the sump up over the next several hours and put a recycling pump in there until the water is back where it needs to be and add salt as needed. Once the temp and parms are back to what they need to be. I turn the return pump & skimmer back on.

I have my RO/DI connected directly to my display. Now keep in mind. I rarely do any type of water change. Weekly water changes IMO Is absolutely not needed and a waste of time and resources. Especially on a big tank. But I use this method on both my tanks. I have a 40 gallon frag tank as well.

With this method. You have to replenish all the minerals, aminos, etc. by some form of dosing/addition. I use a calcium reactor, dosers, and manual dosing for this.

With the big tank.... once you get it established. If you monitor at least once a week. Things happen allot slower than small tanks. So if you stay on top of things ...everything is really manageable and almost auto pilot. In the beginning stages. Just get ready for allot of work though. There are instances where you have to do a water change so you need to be prepared for that. For big tank. I recommend 150gal/day RODI unit at minimum.

PatW · Aug 12, 2022

I have a 300 gallon. My water changes are a bit over 40 gallons. I use a 44 gallon brute trash can to mix my tank, another for RODI, and a third to siphon water out of the tank. I have all three on casters. The floor is tiled so it is a matter of rolling the empty can to the tank and siphoning out the water. Then I roll over the salt water brute and pump the water in. Then back to the RODI station, pump in the RODI and add the salt to the salt water brute And get the RODI running to fill up the RODI brute. Pretty easy. My water changes are about 13%. I wish I had gotten the 55 gallon brutes. But it has worked pretty well.

AlexG · Aug 12, 2022

Once you get into larger aquariums the best way to do water changes is to have pump out/pump in systems to avoid the use of buckets or garbage cans all together. My current system has a water volume of 2100 gallons and I have 500 gallons of in-line water storage tanks that I can valve off pump out to the drain, refill with 500 gallons of RO/DI and salt then once its to temp I turn 6 valves and the water change is complete. Take the time to make water changes/maintenance easy and you can easily scale the size of the aquarium.

slurpeee76 · Aug 12, 2022

r.reefer said:
Hi! It's my dream to one day own a reef tank that is over 200 gallons. For fun, I've been looking at some of the RedSea systems and I really like the 1000-S model which has a total volume of 265 gallons. But I was wondering, for a tank this big, how on earth do you do things like water changes? I have a 50 gallon tank now, and I can't imagine having to do water changes that big.

i hired someone who came once a month to do 10-20% change - tank stayed pretty stable for several years

mtraylor · Aug 12, 2022

Yeah I totally agree. If you plan on doing a bunch of water changes as your maintenance. It would be best to setup a couple hundred gallon vacts in garage or something like that and pump them in for water changes. I know people whom have them setup like that. One fresh and one salt mix. As I don't do them for regular maintenance. It's not needed. So that gives you several methods on how you might want to setup. Either way works.

keithw283 · Sep 25, 2022

jdpiii3 said:
My water changes are controlled automatically one pump sucks water out and dumps it down the drain another pump pushes new water in. I can do a 50 gallon water change in under a half hour.

What pump are you using?

Daniel@R2R · Sep 30, 2022

I'm planning to daily water changes of about 2% with my AWC system on my big reef. Using that system, all I have to do is push a button and the pumps do the rest.

BirdFish5000 · Sep 30, 2022

Daniel@R2R said:
I'm planning to daily water changes of about 2% with my AWC system on my big reef. Using that system, all I have to do is push a button and the pumps do the rest.

How big is it?