Partial Water Change After Cycle??

taftech

taftech

Member
I know you are supposed to do a partial water change after a tank has initially cycled.
Is the main reason to do this to get rid of nitrates? I have algae on my sand, and I have macro algae in my refugium, and my nitrates are 0.
I currently have live rock/sand some shells, a wisper filter, 5 gallon refugium, protein skimmer in refugium, a powerhead pumping water into the refugium (which overflows into the tank), and an additional powerhead for added circulation. I have 3 damsels.
My plans for the tank are to make it into a reef & fish tank.
It is a 30 gallon tank, here are the parameters:
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Ph 8.4
Calcium 420ppm
Phosphate 0
KH 9 dKH (161ppm)
Specific Gravity 1.021
Except for needing maybe a tad more salt, do I need to do a water change?
Thanks
 
sickboy

sickboy

Active Member
I don't think you would need to do a water change if there are no readings, and I agree on the salt, bring that up to .023-.025. Otherwise looks good.
 
sickboy

sickboy

Active Member
Oh, and yes, the water change is to get rid of nitrates, forgot to answer that part. A water change never hurts though...
 
mr_x

mr_x

Active Member
you are going to have to do a waterchange in order to add more salt anyway. you don't want to be dumping salt right into your tank, with livestock in it.
 
rotarymagic

rotarymagic

Active Member
yeah what they said... to bring up salinity... or you could top up with saltwater for awhile, that can work... sometimes slowly though depending on the rate of evaporation.
 
taftech

taftech

Member
So, if I do a partial water change, should I have slightly higher than desired salt in the new water to make it balance out. or should I have my desired level in the new mix, and just increase it over multiple water changes?
Would it cause any problems if I just slowly added a little bit of salt to my refugium, so it could slowly get mixed into the tank (I dont have any critters in the refugium yet)
 
mr_x

mr_x

Active Member
if you have no livestock in the system, then you can add salt directly to it without harm. if you have any livestock in the system at all, adding salt directly to the water in the display or sump, will harm them. you need to thoroughly mix the salt with water for a period of time to get a correct ph, and to mix it so it's evenly distributed.
i would do a waterchange with water with a salinity of .030 or so. i am guessing you are thinking of a couple gallons...maybe 5? continue doing this over a period of 2 weeks or so to raise it up nice and slow.
 
mr_x

mr_x

Active Member
btw- the salinity it's at now is ok for fish. i'd have it higher before you add corals though.
 
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