Last time you did a water change? What about Holiday Tank Maintenance?

[Shawn4105]

Automatic water changes doing it daily

How many gallons a day do you do with automatic? I have been playing around with different amounts for my 300.

 

[WallyB]

What do you mean sweep the tank? like getting all the detritus out of the tank like you would do on a "normal Water change"?

Oh and I do a 20 gallon change on my 75g every week. there is no set day that I do it. sometimes 7 days sometimes 9... just depends whats going on.

i am leaning more and more towards an AWC not because i don't like doing it, its more because i want more stability in the tank itself.

Yes, I mean siphoning detritus off the bottom of the tank. I have a glass botttom tank so piles build up in low flow spots.
Plus I do use a powerhead to blow off the rocks every so often and when the dust settles another sweep.

My point was when you do daily water changes with a automated dual pump water changer, you just remove water.

 

[WallyB]

Where would the replacement of the trace elements come from at that point? I am in no way being sarcastic at all, I am just trying to learn as much as possible.

I have always understood from the hours of reading on here and interactions with members and local hobbyist that Water Changes help replace the trace elements as well as get rid of lingering nitrates and phosphates in the systems. I have noticed much more stability going form a 29g tank to a 75g. but even then, the 75g is not a big system at all.
if I need to replace the elements via dosing them, wouldn't that just defeat the purpose of getting rid of a maintenance chore? if that makes sense.

Thanks!

Barnabie Mejia

Yes water changes replenish trace elements.

You can't never do water changes, without dosing additives.

However, there are other ways, like if you dose two part Alk/Calcium for example ESV two part. The product contains all the trace elements (they say).
You don't need much of the trace elements, that's why they call them "trace".
But you certainly don't want you trace elements to be depleted below certain levels.

Other dosing products have separate trace elements additives. It requires more water testing like the Triton method.

I prefer daily small water changes, and my every hour two part for Alk/Calc/Mag. I simply test my Alk, and dose accordingly to keep Alk Stable. The Calcium and Mag usually, follows with proper levels, but not always. I assume the trace elements are added by the WC and dosing. I've sent in ICP tests on my water and all trace elements show up good.

 

[Worthy1]

I used to regularly on old tanks but wanted to set my newer (2 years) tank up to be easy to maintain. Having seen how many people have successfully tanks with little to no water changes then why wouldnt you want to strive for that. Less money on salt,smaller water bills, more time enjoying the tank instead of maintaining it.

What is 15-20% actually doing. The only time i do some is when i am looking to clean my sump or some other equipment, even harvest some Chaeto. I use the balling method for trace elements. My tank is thriving and i havent seen any negative impact on anything, especially my wallet

 

[tamanning]

So what is your secret. Is everything growing, happy and healthy?

My dhk is at 10 nitrite is undetectable magnesium is at 1400 ppm . my deep sand bed takes care of most of it my clean up crew cleans my sand bed and most of my tank. truth be told I have issues with corals most people think are easy because my tank runs very clean.

 

[mindme]

Never done a water change on my 180g, 8 months old.

On my 29g anemone tank, it's been about a month.

 

[Panama Brown]

Other than when I moved in early March and had to supplement loss of water from cleaning and such I haven't made an
"official" water change since August of 2020. Running the Reefers Moonshine method and never turing back!!!!

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

Yes, I mean siphoning detritus off the bottom of the tank. I have a glass botttom tank so piles build up in low flow spots.
Plus I do use a powerhead to blow off the rocks every so often and when the dust settles another sweep.

My point was when you do daily water changes with a automated dual pump water changer, you just remove water.

I don't have a bare bottom tank like yours, but every week I will spend about an hour siphoning my sand bed in hopes to keep it clean, I place a filter sock in the sump and I just go to town cleaning. I don't lose any water and the ATO isn't triggered either. this might be an option for you since you are doing the auto water changes and keeps you from doing a large change just to clean the detritus.

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

Yes water changes replenish trace elements.

You can't never do water changes, without dosing additives.

However, there are other ways, like if you dose two part Alk/Calcium for example ESV two part. The product contains all the trace elements (they say).
You don't need much of the trace elements, that's why they call them "trace".
But you certainly don't want you trace elements to be depleted below certain levels.

Other dosing products have separate trace elements additives. It requires more water testing like the Triton method.

I prefer daily small water changes, and my every hour two part for Alk/Calc/Mag. I simply test my Alk, and dose accordingly to keep Alk Stable. The Calcium and Mag usually, follows with proper levels, but not always. I assume the trace elements are added by the WC and dosing. I've sent in ICP tests on my water and all trace elements show up good.

That was my understanding as well, but I just wasn't sure if Lasse might have been referring to something a little different. I know that he doesn't run his tank like other reefers.

I am in the same school of thought as you are..... I want to be running an AWC and continue dosing what I am right now. I have been using Tropic Marin All For Reef and I will tell you that stuff is amazing! I also dose 3ml of RedSea AB+ everyday in my 75g and the tank is looking good and growth is starting to take off on my SPS and some of my LPS. I think having the AWC will make a huge difference in the long run. Even when looking at this in a month time frame, the amount of water that is being changed out at .75 gallons a day is a big improvement over doing a few large changes a month. I have even been temped to manually change a half gallon a day on my frag system just to see what would happen, but I think that would get old really quick.

 

[mindme]

You don't need much of the trace elements, that's why they call them "trace".
But you certainly don't want you trace elements to be depleted below certain levels.

Running out of trace elements will certainly cause issues and can happen quicker than people might think. I grossly underestimated the time it would take for my corals to use up the trace elements. Some of my corals started to brown and not do well. I did a mail in water test and found some trace elements that were low. While it took a week or so for the color to come back to normal, I started to see noticeable results in days after adding the trace elements.

Now they just get added with the cal/alk dosing and things appear to be stable thus far. Probably do another water test at the end of this month to see where things are.

 

[CavalierReef]

I change 4 gallons every Sunday in my 32 Biocube. I think maybe it's because I've always done routine water changes in my 40 years of keeping saltwater aquariums. I'm beginning to re-think that strategy as I grow older and get lazier. I'm beginning to see that the more I leave it alone, the better it looks. However, it could be an eyesight issue.

 

[Jbell370]

5g/day with AWC, tank is 240g.

 

[Minhaj Qazi]

Daily 2.4 ltrs. Every Hour 100 ml

 

[Minhaj Qazi]

I change 4 gallons every Sunday in my 32 Biocube. I think maybe it's because I've always done routine water changes in my 40 years of keeping saltwater aquariums. I'm beginning to re-think that strategy as I grow older and get lazier. I'm beginning to see that the more I leave it alone, the better it looks. However, it could be an eyesight issue.

Cavalry here as well.

 

[reyesozaeta]

No water change for 3+ years now on my 7x2x2 feet system. I only add same amount of saltwater that my skimmer pulls out on a weekly basis. The system is equipped with Algae Reactor, Sulfur reactor in series with Calcium Reactor, UV, oversized Skimmer with 200mg ozone that empties into a filter sock, drop in chiller, GFO reactor and poly filter reactor.
It’s a mixed reef (LPS, some Sps, sea fans, softies and different anemones). It’s has about 11 tangs, 20 different clowns and few other small fishes.

 

[revenant]

Once a week while my tank is less than one year old… mainly due to wanting to vacuum the cyano and stuff off rock / sand bed. Usually 15 to 20%… Water change Wednesday ftw. No holiday water changes.. just feed and dose + empty skimmer.

 

[Vyper]

How many gallons a day do you do with automatic? I have been playing around with different amounts for my 300.

Mine is 220 gallons. I am changing 10% a week which translates to 11,895.8 ml per day.

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

Just set up two komer dosing pumps I had laying around to do 2838ml a day which is about 3/4 gallon... we’ll see how it works for the 75.... the dosers might not hold up but worth a try

 

[Rockfella]

50% change in a 35 liter molded tank with 5 danios.

 

[blasterman]

Yes water changes replenish trace elements.

You can't never do water changes, without dosing additives.

However, there are other ways, like if you dose two part Alk/Calcium for example ESV two part. The product contains all the trace elements (they say).
You don't need much of the trace elements, that's why they call them "trace".
But you certainly don't want you trace elements to be depleted below certain levels.

Other dosing products have separate trace elements additives. It requires more water testing like the Triton method.

I prefer daily small water changes, and my every hour two part for Alk/Calc/Mag. I simply test my Alk, and dose accordingly to keep Alk Stable. The Calcium and Mag usually, follows with proper levels, but not always. I assume the trace elements are added by the WC and dosing. I've sent in ICP tests on my water and all trace elements show up good.

No Wally, water changes don't replenish trace elements, at least in any consistent form.

I will explain this again: salt mix makers don't agree on what constitutes trace elements let alone what ratios they need to be in . This is a fact of the salt manufacturing industry. Is iron a trace element? How about silica ? How about Iodine? How about Potassium? They can't even get calcium levels consistent from batch to batch so how are they going to get Strontium right? I've seen what few ICP tests have been done on salt mixes and they are all over the place.

Most of us don't use ESV either. I just use regular baking soda and calcium chloride. I haven't done a water change in a year either and have more SPS growth than I can deal with.

So for starters, we need to make a list of what are minor vs major trace elements and get the entire reef industry to agree to it. Not just what those two guys over at BRS say.

I will make a counter statement in the same train of thought as trace elements: it is not possible to grow coral in acrylic tanks - period. Since I don't have an acrylic tank and the universe only consists of what my understanding is nobody can grow coral in a non glass tank. Doesnt matter than people have acrylic tanks with coral. I will ignore them to validate my statement.