Water Changes: It's AMAZING

[Connie]

I once went two months without a water change and everything looked tired (for lack of a better word). But normally I do a 15 gallon water change every two weeks in my 90g and it makes a HUGE difference!

 

[montethemoster]

I started doing my 5% changes per day mainly because I received Tony Vargas's book The Coral Reef Aquarium a couple months ago. After perusing the section in the back a number of times where they showcase about 100 top notch tanks and all their parameters/husbandry conditions I began noticing that many of the individuals change out a much higher percent of water than the recommended 10% per week. I know this would get very expensive on some larger tanks, but because I only have a 40g gallon I decided to up water change volume and couldn't be happier with the decision.

I also read the Randy Holmes-Farly article about partial versus large water changes. Take home messages for me was that many partial water changes are only slightly less effecient than occasional larger water changes at reducing nutrients while being more of a gentle change to your system. Second, you still really need to stay on top of the Calcium and Alkalinity supplementation as it is very difficult to maintain their levels in a heavily stocked SPS tank unless you are changing 50% of total water volume per day which I doubt anyone is willing to do.

[URL]http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php


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