water change question

[cotti]

I was talking to my a guy at the lfs yesterday and he told me he does 10-20% water changes on a 30g usually every to every other week depending on how busy he is. From experience what do u do? Once a week, every other or once a month? I've been doing 20% once a month, should I pick this up a bit or is this ok. I haven't had any spikes in any particular chem, other than using a ph buffer the water seems fine and I've noticed more life lately...ie more feather dusters popping out of rocks..... :happyfish

 

[mandarin w]

It is really a gamble to wait so long for several reasons.
1. If you are only changeing your water once a month, chances are you are only testing it once a month also. Things can change in your tank very quickly, and if your tank is small, it could be devastating.
2. Doing that much of a water change at once, you are basically doing no different than buy a fish at the LFS and bringing it home and just throwing it into your tank without acclamating it.
In the corse of a month, your water will build up with lots of junk you don't want in there, and in a matter of 10 minutes you are drastically changing the enviroment of the tank.
3. What a lot of people don't realize, is your fresh salt water is very important to your tank. The tank naturally uses the salt to take care of itself. The salt helps with calcium, ph, buffing things out. After a little while your salt, may still say 1.025. but it is basically dead salt. the nutritional value is depleated from the salt, and fresh new saltwater needs to be added to the tank to help keep things going strong.
The best advice is to do a weekly water change. If you have time to do small water changes throughout the week that is even better. Say you have a 55 gal. You could do a small water change about 2 gallons on Tues, Thurs and Saturday, Well then you changed 6 gallons during the week.

 

[miafish]

I thought 10-20% was the standard water change. How slowly do you put back the new water into the tank?

 

[mandarin w]

10 is minimum it is better to do a little more. Alot depends on how many fish, what type of fish, how often you feed them, and just how messy they are.
I can tell you how I do mine, but it may not work for everyone.
I have two brut trash cans, ( I have a 180gal tank with a 75 gallon sump, so I change I change out close to 40 gallons every week) I put one brut trash can on one side of the tank and the full fresh saltwater on the other. I use a maxijet 1200 with hoses connected on the intake and out put. I suction cup the pump onto the side of my tank, and have the out put end of the hose in the empty brut. I then take the imput side of the hose and go around the tank syphining off junk off the rocks and powerheads, and pick up the ungly junk in the tank, this usally only gets me about the first ten gallons, so then I just let the hose hang in the tank the get out the remaining 30 gallons that I need to take out. Once that is full, I uplug the maxi jet and and push that brut can out of my way. Then I get the other brut can with my fresh salt water. In that can I use a rio 7.5 to mix up my salt. I take out that pump and connect my host and place it back at the bottom of the brut can making sure the suction cups are holding it down. I then take the hose and put it up over my tank, and turn it on. The water pumps in the tank and fills it back up in a matter of minuts.
After lifting 8 five gallons jugs over six feet to fill your tank, and doing it every saturday for 4 years. You become a little creative.

 

[miafish]

So what I gather from yoru method is that its ok to mix in the new water right away and not have to gradualy fill the tank. I have a similar technique, I just empy out the new water into the sump and let it pump back into the tank. I do this several times untill I get all the new water in.

 

[mandarin w]

You can add it as quickly as the tank lets it in. Some people just dump it all in there at once. That really stresses out the fish, and stirs things up. I would say as long as you aren't disturbing the tank you are good. As far as a gallon every 10 minutes or something like that, I've never heard of it being absolute.

 

[mavis1032]

Thanks Mandarin W, So that is why my back is always hurting...

How long does it take for the PH to refill the 40 gal.

 

[mandarin w]

It would depend on what pump you use, But the maxi jet or the rio pump the 40 gallons I used in around 3-5 minutes.

 

[mavis1032]

Originally Posted by mandarin w
It would depend on what pump you use, But the maxi jet or the rio pump the 40 gallons I used in around 3-5 minutes.
Well that sounds a lot easier than lifting and pouring the 5 gal cans. thanks I will have to give this a try.