water changes my view - Page 7

After reading the whole discussion on this subject. I get a little confused. My name is Steve and for over six years I doing this wonderful hobby. Water change it is very time-consuming process of keeping saltwater tank, not mention cost and stress on your tank. After try so many different approach to this issue . I was successful design different approach for keeping high quality salt water. The question is not how much water You have to replace.
THE solution is how good your water filtration is. After visiting Chicago Aquarium mine conclusion was mine filtration system has a major flaw.
saltwater was going true the system to fast
one step filtration does not give bacteria enough time to process the water
end of the process of filtration was not given high percentage of clear water

My new approach was to design filtration system with multi steps, repeating process utilizing copy of natural filtration system from the oceans. Basically I want to say we don't have huge guy changing water in big oceans everyday. I use my system for one only task to make the water is clean as can be. when it comes to water flow in the tank i use my power heads. By adding supplement chemicals and minerals you can control quality growth of your beautiful garden and happy fish.
http://www.ratemyfishtank.com/photo-main.php?imid=27379

I have been in this hobby for 5 years now and have a 90gal reef / fish tank. I have been changing 30 gal of water every Sunday and after so many years it is now a routine. I make my water the night before and 1st thing in the morning go downstairs change the water and mix up in a bottle the iodine, Strontium Chloride, Plankton, etc and hand feed my corals. I then feed the coral every other day with just plankton and some food I make myself for the fish.

Wow I thought I was going to get farther down the post list. Yet Spanko got me, I remember Spanko asking this “How many actually test for and dose trace elements?” from before, and you know I never had much thought on it till now.

Both water changes and trace supplementation are adding trace elements blindly.

The list of trace elements that we need is down to 31; Info from Marine Chemistry published 2007. The need four these trace elements is debatable based on the anecdotal and good scientific evidence. So scientific evidence as of 2007 only suggests that these do something and this something may be good or it may be bad or sometimes good and others bad we just don’t know.

This is what I got from reading Marine Chemistry by CR Brightwell

This was one of the threads I read while just a lurker.

FWIW I started this thread:


http://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthread.php?t=369985

Which as taken a nice humerous bent.

In that thread I explain the actual effectiveness of water changes. Which are that water changes will result in the (changes in parameters between water changes)/(fraction of water change) plus whatever is in the replacement water. That is just before the water change.

As a result people that have not balanced out the tank have high nitrates and/or low cacium.

As some here have posted there are nutrients and trace elements that the hobbist can not accurately measure. A very good example is potassium which is just a tad below calcium in concentration and a major nutrient for plant life. Which when overdosed will kill.


To me that would seem to be a real problem.

But that's just my .02

Holy CRAP!!! Your tank is unreal. What beautiful colors and clarity!!! AND you use sea water. WHAT a kicker, LOVE IT!!! LOL

Wow. Has it been an entire year since I was going to start the 1 gal per day routine?
Well, it never happened. I was able to hold out for a week or so. I would think that 1 gal per day would be easy. Nope. Every single day comes pretty often. When there isn't a perfect way for me to pull only 1 gal without moving my lights, I found myself not wanting to do it. So, I guess this proves that 1 gal per day did not work for me. Regardless of whether it removed adequate waste to equal lager, less frequent changes doesn't matter because I was unwilling to keep up the regimen of daily changes. Sorry, kids. I failed. Maybe I'll give this another go in a month or so. (or maybe not)

Agree. It is a lot of work.

One thing to consider is (assuming a 100g tank just for convience) a 1%/day water change will result in the same just before water change values as 10%/10days, 20%/20 days, 30%/3o days etc. The after water change values will vary with less drop after water changes with smaller more frequent water changes.

So a 1%/day water change and all the other examples above result in 100 times the daily change plus whatever is in the replacement water. Assuming you have done enough water changes that the value before any water change is the same. So if you 1ppm/day nitrates not being consumed by the tank, nitrAtes will rise to 100ppm just before the water change(s) pluse whatever is in the replaceent water.


my .02

I remember back when i had my 45g high, I was a little more comfortable money-wise and was ordering ridiculous amounts of salt. I tried a run of doing 5 gallons a day. it wasnt that hard, but after a while it got quite annoying. but for the couple months I ran with it I did notice my tank seemed super healthy, but setting 20 minutes a day extra to mess with my tank became a challenge after a while.

Wow!!!!!