How often to do water changes

[xdave]

I have read many threads where people say they do changes in various percentages at various intervals. I've never seen anyone say they do them when nitrate hits x ammount. Removing notrate is the reason you should change water. Water changes are stressful to your livestock, IMO, you should only do water changes as needed, not because it's Tuesday.
Test for nitrate weekly. When it hits 5 ppm, change enough water to get it to zero. You should of course make sure you keep it topped of with fresh R.O. water, and use a trace supplement.

 

[sepulatian]

Originally Posted by xDave
I have read many threads where people say they do changes in various percentages at various intervals. I've never seen anyone say they do them when nitrate hits x ammount. Removing notrate is the reason you should change water. Water changes are stressful to your livestock, IMO, you should only do water changes as needed, not because it's Tuesday.
Test for nitrate weekly. When it hits 5 ppm, change enough water to get it to zero. You should of course make sure you keep it topped of with fresh R.O. water, and use a trace supplement.
Yes I agree. If nitrate is tested for weekly and water changes done accordingly then there should be no problems.

 

[nereef]

you would have to do a 100% water change to drop nitrates from 5ppm to 0ppm.

 

[dogstar]

Water changes can also replace elements used up by corals and crustations so IMO, doing WC can take care of removeing bad stuff and adding good stuff at the same time, so if people want to do them, its fine. I dont think its very stressfull to livestock at all unless you for some reason make it so....JMO.

 

[xdave]

Originally Posted by NEreef
you would have to do a 100% water change to drop nitrates from 5ppm to 0ppm.
By zero I meant what a test kit from the lfs reports as zero as read by the

[hr]
eye.

 

[symon]

I have a large enough bio load that i do a 20 gal water change every week! But that is from testing , i now know that i need to do it that often.
I do not belive that everyone should do a water change that often!
And IMO, if you have taken the time to set up a system for water changes it is not stressfull to the critters!
I went to HD and bought a 40 gal trash can, then to habor freight and bought a submersible pump, ran my plumbing so the pump cycles the water up and back into the can, also allows me to attach a hose so i can pump it 40+ feet into the house to fill up my tank!
I have in the can a heater, power head and ofcourse the pump! I can add whatever i need in my tank directly to the can and test for PH , calcium ect and Buffer it accordingly

 

[mandarin w]

The nutiants in the salt get depleted.That is the other reason for doing a water change. It replaces it with a fresh supply.

 

[bhfccsr198]

i do water changes about every 2 months