Water Change: help

[slocolocal]

This may sound stupid, but I am new at this. I have a 150 gal. salt water tank with elevated nitrate levels (10th day). Should I do a water change?
How do you do a water change? Siphon out 35 gallons and add ro/di water? Won't that efect Salinity?
I have one Clarkii Clown that is doing well.
it has about 2+ inches of base sand, 20lbs. live sand, 150 lbs lr, 180 sump, 6-2 reef skimmer.

 

[jjlittle]

When doing water changes you use ro/di water but you will need to put salt into it to where it matches your current tank salinity. Most let the water sit for 24 hours with heater and airator, Personal I have had my 150 for 2 years and I just mix wait till salt desolves and add. But what I do is turn all pumps off siffin out the amount I want to change and then add the replacement water when all done siffing.Most wait the 24 hour to let teh water change water to get teh ph higher though I have never had ill effect by just putting it right in and ph doesn't drop maybe it does on smaller tank so thats up to you.I just make sure the temp is pretty close to tank water.

 

[merredeth]

Originally Posted by Slocolocal
This may sound stupid, but I am new at this. I have a 150 gal. salt water tank with elevated nitrate levels (10th day). Should I do a water change?
How do you do a water change? Siphon out 35 gallons and add ro/di water? Won't that efect Salinity?
I have one Clarkii Clown that is doing well.
it has about 2+ inches of base sand, 20lbs. live sand, 150 lbs lr, 180 sump, 6-2 reef skimmer.

Uh..... why do you have a Clarkii in a tank that is ten days old?
When/If he dies you really should let the tank cycle through without fish in it as it can do permanent damage the I believe the respiratory system of fish.
To get the tank to cycle through a lot of people put a piece of shrimp in their tanks.
In my opinion, clarkiis, damsels and other fish should not be part of the cycling process because in the end they are the ones that end up getting permanent damage due to the cycling process.
Denise M.

 

[murph]

If you cant take the Clown back to the LFS at least get yourself a bottle of AmQuel+ and dose according to the bottles instructions if not a little more. You cant OD with Amquel. Remove any carbon filtration and turn off your skimmer if you have one too. This will make life a lot easier on the clown.
I did 5 gallon water changes every other day while I cycled and IMO believe that this keeps nitrates, the end product of the cycling process, from gaining any kind of foot hold on your tank. It did not seem to slow down the cycle which lasted somewhere around 25 days.

 

[jokerj]

I use a 10 gallon tank/ tuperware tub with power head and heater. I mix and let it set overnight and check to make sure its same salinity as the main tank. I use r/o water for mixing salt. after I let it sit overnight i have a small pump and bought clear tubbing from Lowes and hooked up to pump. I drop pump into main tank and pump water into old tub until about the same or more than the other then move pump into new premix water and pump that into tank. I keep a mark on my tank on the full line so that if not enough I add back from old that I took out to get level back to that line. That way when through the week I need to add top off I just add back to fill line. Hope this helps. :joy: