Water change question

wwfstyle

wwfstyle

Member
I hate draining the water from my tank, and I was wondering if it would be a good idea to raise the water level in my skimmer (slowly water filling up my 5gal bucket) and just replace it with more slat water when needed. Today I did my 1st water change draining it this way and 5gal bucket too about 6 days to fill. so I would be adding some salt water everytime and I have a 75 reef with a 50 gal sump. What do you guys think little water changes or 1 big water change?
 
wwfstyle

wwfstyle

Member
Instead of takeing the time to syphone water out (which I hate) I would force more water through my Venturi skimmer so that it will also take out some water instaed of the black junk and make it more watery. Replace the water that my skimmer takes out with new salt water about once a week when the water lvls are lower in my sump. I figue that turning up my skimmer a notch it would be more liquid and it will to also take some of the salt out and when I add water I would replace it with the water that I add in every week. It would cut down the time I beleive from my water changes that I was doing in the past wich was close to 1 hour of time doing it all in 1 shot. Does this give you a better picture of what I'm trying to say?
 
lion_crazz

lion_crazz

Active Member
No, that will not work. Gravel cleaning is neccessary to get the accumulating detritus out of the gravel. If you are not doing that, you are building a nitrate factory. A skimmer will not dig into the gravel and take this out of the water for you. The point is not to remove water. The point is to remove the waste. Removing the water is just extra. Unless you had a perfectly stocked tank with enough live rock and live sand, this plan will not work.
 
am3gross05

am3gross05

Member
if it was me i would mix up the salt water the night before so all i had to do the next day would be to drain and then fill it back up. this will also let the salt have enought time to fully dissolve.. and if you get one of the big siphon tubes to drain the water it shouldnt take that much time.
 
wwfstyle

wwfstyle

Member
In my 75 I have about 125# of LR and I have about 3" of LS so a syphone the gravel wont work since I have none. I have 6 MJ 1200 so I have good water movement with very little detritus. I also have the return pump from my sump about 250 350 gph. I beleive that I have no dead spots in my tank. I beleive that my turn over rate is about 26X.
 
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