Changing Salt

[greenhorn]

i have a 90dt set up as a reef tank. i've just made my 1st batch of tropic marin pro reef salt which will be replacing red sea. my ? is how aggresive can i get with the changes. i was thinking of changing out 10 gals. every 4 days .it takes a full day to make 10 gals. of RO (not the best ro unit but it is what it is) any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.thanx.......walt

 

[dmjordan]

unless you are having a problem ammonia, trite, trate or phosphates i would just stick with your normal waterchange cycle.

 

[greenhorn]

i have no problems except with low cal and mag . that red sea salt IMO is garbage and rather than dose a ton of additives in i was hoping to do very frequent water changes . i'm very certain my trace elements are low as well. i just want to correct certain values and not create other problems. so will frequent changes be good or bad?????

 

[fishfreak1242]

You should be doing a 10% water change every 3-6 weeks. You should prepare your water about a day or two before the actual exchange to make sure the pH and temp. is the same as in the tank. If you have problems with nitrate, nitrite etc. then you should do more frequent water changes but other than that, you should be changing your water more than once a week.

 

[snakeblitz33]

Instead of going with every four days, I think that you should do a regular water change once a week. It shouldn't hurt the tank at all. By the way, very good choice on what salt you are using. Calcium may be low because your corals can use a ton of it. I dose Kalkwasser, but if you don't have high magnesium, your coralline algae may not grow or grow as fast.
Just once a week water change will do it. Besides, even if you do all of the water changes and everything, a little bit of the other salt will always be in the tank.

 

[ejensen]

If you want to change your water all the time then go for it. I just think the more you mess with your tank the more problems you will have. I use Red Sea Coral Pro and never had a problem with low Cal. The regular salt doesn't have as high Cal. Now I would not recomend this but I haven't changed my water in my Reef for over 6 months.

 

[matt b]

Originally Posted by fishfreak1242
You should be doing a 10% water change every 3-6 weeks. You should prepare your water about a day or two before the actual exchange to make sure the pH and temp. is the same as in the tank. If you have problems with nitrate, nitrite etc. then you should do more frequent water changes but other than that, you should be changing your water more than once a week.
a water change every 3 to 6 weeks in a reef???????

 

[notsonoob]

If you have low calcium readings on your tank.
Ask the question...DO you have a water softener.
That removes Calcium and Magnesium from your water.
If that is the case, then don't worry about changing your salt