Water Changes: Where do you stand on water changes for your reef tank?

[robbyg]

The two percent who are not doing any water changes are going to learn the same lesson that many of us learned a long time ago. ;Dead

 

[BeckyW]

I’m new to reef tank keeping so I’m religious about wc every Sunday. My water tests are so far exactly what I want them to be. I think I will continue to wc to accommodate my addictive behavior of stuffing as much as possible in my tiny tank.

 

[nkyreef]

Stopped water changes for a bit because parameters were staying on target. Corals didn't look as happy as with frequent water changes so I went back. Could've been trace elements were lacking but don't know for sure.

 

[LordJoshaeus]

I am no expert, but it seems likely to me that a tank without water changes will sooner or later run out of a vital nutrient or acquire too much of a pollutant...even in the actual ocean, water currents, rainfall, and geological activity periodically remove or replenish pollutants/nutrients. In addition, soft water fish keepers often need to do regular water changes to control bacteria populations, which soft water fish are sensitive to...not sure if that is applicable to a reef tank, but it's worth noting in this context.

 

[WvAquatics]

My tanks newly cycled. I did a 20% last week and I'm doing another 20% this week. But I plan to cut it back to maybe 10% weekly. I am planning on cleaning out the sand silt in refugium today. Then after this change I'm looking at about 12g a week or 25 gallons every other week. I have freshwater tanks that get 50% weekly.

 

[ReefLab]

I do 10% every other week or every week if I’m not busy...

To me water changes are there to dilute mistakes. I’ve been having a tough time keeping nutrients up, though so I cut back on changes a bit

 

[StiiYl]

I have done 10-30% a week, 20 % a month and none for months.

Now I do 1% a day. This seems to be working the best of everything I have tried.

So everyday 1% change water from you system

 

[Potatohead]

I do 12-14% every two weeks. Truthfully with the way the tank looks afterwards (not much change) I could probably do it every three weeks. I doubt I would try much longer than that though.

 

[Boomer1pug]

Pretty simple today. I think it's been a while for a site-wide poll on water changes so let's do it! Let's talk about water changes and where you stand concerning your tank!

1. How often do you "change out your water" in your reef tank, what percent and how many gallons is your system? Or do you even?

2. How important or not important do you think water changes are for your reef tank?


@CMO no water change reef! Thread here.

I do water changes 2 a month. And it is a 25% water change each time

 

[Dipan Desai]

The two percent who are not doing any water changes are going to learn the same lesson that many of us learned a long time ago. ;Dead

Im in that 2% or maybe 8% I have a 187g Peninsula with a 75g sump and 8g frag tank connected and I dont do water changes. I guess if Ihad a major issue I would do water change but only then. I will sometimes replenish if I sell some frags and pull out too much water but that's still maybe a gallon or two over a couple months. My nutrients run low PO4 is finally at .03 after heavy feeding and nitrates are at 3ppm and I am continuously dosing kno3 so keeping nutrients in check is not an issue for my system. If anything my issues is nutrients bottoming out to 0. I also dose CA/ALk/Mag which are all stable. ATI tests every couple months let me know if anything gets low in trace so I dose those as well but not very often.

My questions is what type of issues should I look out for if things start going south based on yours others experience.

Some pics of my system. Sorry for the bad quality photos.

 

[attilak]

I am always shocked at why some try to avoid water changes. I will say that there was a time where I got lazy and stopped doing regular water changes, then everything went to crap. Now I am doing this religiously on both my tanks, Red Sea max 250 and my larger 210 gal. On the 210 gal, I did setup an autoaqua AWC (auto water change) and do about 10 gal daily. I feel that doing very large water change at once has too much impact on water chemistry and smaller / frequent changes are a better way to go. I just wish I can find a 100 gal barrel instead of the 50 gal I have to mix my salt water.

 

[Taylor37]

I've got a 20 gallon red sea max and I just replace water volume on what the skimmer takes out, probably 3 or 4 cups of water a day and everything is thriving

 

[The cats wrasse]

The hobby without any debate is about consistency so if you dont do water changes and dose ....dose 24/7 not 2 capfuls from a bottle once every saturday and expect consistency....if you do water changes dont do large water changes you should dose water changes too 24/7 for most consistent results

 

[radiata]

Automated Regular Water Changes of 5 gallons a day.

 

[CoralClasher]

I’m undecided on how often to change water but I’m happy with my last water change three months ago witch was a rip clean with 99% new water.

 

[bdehlin]

10% weekly or 20% every other week if I was away on vacation or away from home

 

[pigmo]

you have a bag of 10 french fries. you eat one every day. you put one fry back in every week. how many fries do you have after a month? ;Clown

 

[Potatohead]

you have a bag of 10 french fries. you eat one every day. you put one fry back in every week. how many fries do you have after a month? ;Clown

You'd be fresh out of fries on day 11. A true catastrophe.

 

[eLReef]

Guess this all depends on your tank size, Corals, fish being kept and equipment. I have a 65gal Mix system. I use to do a 10% WC then a 15% WC. After running a few ATI lab tests some of my minor trace elements were off. Now I do a 20% WC change every week. After 6 months of being consistent I ran another ATI lab test and found that 20% weekly WC fixed this issue. Corals and fish are happy. I think both methods work great. No water changes are more for the advanced hobbyist. As long as all your major and minor trace elements are being replaced with one of these methods consistently is what’s key in keeping a happy reef.

 

[5280Reefer]

I have a 90 gall with a 30ish gall sump, I run a skimmer refuge and UV . I only do water changes if there is an emergency, have not done one in over 1.3 years now. I see no need in water changes as I dose replenish at 2x strength once a week, brightwell amino also once a week and Lugols once a week. One photo with filter and one without