Water Changes

[eggy5404]

I've just purchased my first tank and wanted to ask those who have their tanks already going about water changes. I want to setup the tank in my living room, therefore any water changes to be done would be connected to the kitchen faucet. Does it matter if I dump the water down my kitchen drain or do most of you do water changes in a basement tub sink?
I will make sure there are no dishes in the sink, however I was wondering if the saltwater would do anything to the kitchen sink pipes. Thanks.

 

[tangman99]

I use the kitchen sink, but I stick the hose way down the drain so it does not get in my sink. I have had no problems. I do run hot water down the drain afterward to flush it and clean the sink.

 

[slick]

I assume from your post that you will be using tap water for your tank. I would suggest you look into getting a RO/DI unit and use that water. It will make a big difference in your water quality and fish life. Have you has your tap water tested for TDS and other stuff?

 

[hookedonreefs]

I pour mine down the toilet. I can't imagine that the sand would get caught given what else goes down there

 

[beaslbob]

Originally posted by eggy5404
I've just purchased my first tank and wanted to ask those who have their tanks already going about water changes. I want to setup the tank in my living room, therefore any water changes to be done would be connected to the kitchen faucet. Does it matter if I dump the water down my kitchen drain or do most of you do water changes in a basement tub sink?
I will make sure there are no dishes in the sink, however I was wondering if the saltwater would do anything to the kitchen sink pipes. Thanks.

I don't have this problem. I just replace the water that evaporates.

 

[azeritis]

Eggy: So long as you run plenty of fresh water afterwards you should have no prfoblem at all. You could also consider however the toilet.
Beaslbob: What exactly do you mean when you are saying that you do not have this problem?
I hope you know that water changes are not only for filling up the tank.....
If you do not know what water changes are used for then you will soon run into several other problems, like dead fish etc...

 

[elan]

not everyone has to do waterchanges.... i am setting up my system in order to not have to do water changes. i have only done one waterchange so far, and that is only to dilute some of the herbal ich attach medicin i put into my main tank after the treatment period.
Other than that, i have had no problems at all.. nitrates never went above 10ppm after the cycle, and went down to under 5ppm on their own...

 

[azeritis]

I am aware of what you are saying, however, I do insist that water changes are not meant only for diluting nitrates.
What we are actually doing when setting up a tank is constructing a small closed ecosystem, that exists in the natural world and has taken millions of years to develop and reach an equilibrium. We try to immitate natural sun light, water currents, water evaporation, skimming, etc....... However there are so many things that take place in the ocean that we simply cannot achieve in a closed system.
I guess what I am trying to say is that these systems that we set up are not self sufficient, and that we have to provide for them things that cannot be produced by the system itself.
The needs of the system vary of course depending on its size and what is being kept in it. At some point in time you will need to provide additional calcium, elements, etc... By doing frequent small changes I believe that you keep your system balanced, and never depleted of necessary elements.

 

[elan]

yeah, i agree with you, water changes do make lots of sense, both for addition of elements and dilution of others. I dose my tank with certain elements, and should probably do some water changes every now and then, but it can be greatly minimized and it doesnt necessarily mean you are going to run into problems.. thats all...
One more point. If you arnt using real saltwater from the ocean (my LFS sells filtered ocean water), then you may also not include certain elements and minerals that the Salt Manufacturers have either left out purposely or accidentally... I am sure they have taken every possible course of action to ensure our salt water has all the elements scientists "think" we need to produce equivalent water, but anything synthetic is just not the same as the real thing.
I agree that there is no way we can produce what nature has over the last several million years, and as a result, we cannot expect our specimens to live out their entire life. But we can, and should, try to make a self sustaining system that requires little else than addition of as little amount of external sources of minerals and food as possible. This has been the focus of the hobby over the last several years, and we should continue on this path. Saltwater is so much easier to take care of than it was 10 or 20 years ago.. no filter changes, advent of nitrate removal, etc, etc....all though natural processes as well.... and who knows, in 10 or 20 years we may just figure out how to add certain natural items into our tank which will continuously feed and nourish our tanks as well...... we can have the "add water" and wait tanks in our future... and cool running lights that are twice as powerfully as the strongest MH bulbs.
But one thing is for sure, if we dont try and test and experiment, we will not move forward from where we are at today...
There is one thing to try true and tried systems, and another thing to try and figure out a way to improve it... I am trying the latter, and hopefully, if mine works out well, and others work out well (Plum hasn’t made water changes(a much longer time than me), and his tank is just amazing), we may have a new way of keeping saltwater tanks.

 

[kpogue]

I can't believe what I am reading.....try not changing your bed sheets for a year....

 

[hookedonreefs]

I haven't.... I just add some bleach, baby power, and flea powder once every other week. j/k
Sorry I couldn't resist.

 

[beaslbob]

Originally posted by azeritis
Eggy: So long as you run plenty of fresh water afterwards you should have no prfoblem at all. You could also consider however the toilet.
Beaslbob: What exactly do you mean when you are saying that you do not have this problem?
I hope you know that water changes are not only for filling up the tank.....
If you do not know what water changes are used for then you will soon run into several other problems, like dead fish etc...
Basically, I consider water changes to be unnecessary and harmfull. For instance, if your nitrates are high, water changes will never bring then down to 0. If nitrates were at say 30 PPM and you change 10% of the water, the result is 27 PPM. and the tank is still producing nitrates. Next week nitrates may bump back up to 29 PPM and then down to 26.1 after a water change. this would happen to all the parameters of the water. Those weekly changes will stress the fish and result in dead fish.
By contrast, replacing the water that evoporates, results in much more stable water parameters. In my tanks only about 1/50th of the water evaporates each week. By just replacing the half gallon or so that evaporates in my open top 20g macroalgea tank, Nitrates went to 0.0 in one month.
I use straight tap water, luke warm, poured immediately into the tanks. So my water maintenance takes about 10 minutes per week.

 

[elan]

Originally posted by kpogue
I can't believe what I am reading.....try not changing your bead sheets for a year....
wouldnt it be great if we could get some bacteria to "clean" your sheets and clothes... no more washing at all!!!
but, we can only harbor the beneficial bacteria in our tanks....
if you would have also mentioned that you never clean your substrate or filters 20 years ago, i bet you would have the same reaction.... that people cant believe you are just going to leave your filter and substrate clogged up with all sorts of junk and gunk......but now we have learned how the DSB "takes care of itself" and the biofilter "takes care of itself", with minimal, if any maintenance......
well, pretty soon, the water will also take care of itself, and so on and so forth..... its not crazy at all, and its people that experiment and try new and outrageous things that have brought the hobby to its current state, and thankfully, we still have people working on experimenting for the future of the hobby.

 

[elan]

i forgot which book i read this in, but in the early days of fish keeping, water changes were used in order to reduce the ammonia levels to keep fish alive... had to be done very often…..
but, some guy, in his crazy thinking, said..."wait a minute, what if i leave the tank alone for a month, and not do any water changes............and then put in fish"...... everyone probably called him crazy, but it worked, and this is how we all became experts at keeping fish for longer than a few months...... we learned how cycling worked…..and everyone can enjoy the hobby with water changes to reduce the nitrate level which we later learned how to reduce and keep under control with a DSB or Fuge……

 

[plum70rt]

Very Good responses Elan, In July my tank be one year old never a drop of water changed, remember I lose 3 gallons a day to evaporation, its replaced with RO/DI water, also I dose everyday with Natureef products to keep the trace elements calcium and alk up, is this the way for everybody? I dont know, but its what I wanted to try,so far it works, I believe you need a combo of a few things for success, what the best combo is? I havent figured that out yet

 

[azeritis]

Again I am stressing out that water changes are not only used to dilute nitrates.
And consider this: Has anyone evr seen an enclosed body of water, be it a lake, a pond, a small natural harbor with a very small opening where the water is clean? And remember here that the bioload that these house is far less than the one we keep in our system.
Using a dsb or lr or a skimmer or power heads is way different than not changing water. All the technology and chemistry used in our hobby is somehow observed in one way or another in nature. But in nature there is a natural way of freshing up water (rain rivers)and there are conditions where all the necessary elements are produced. This is something that at least now cannot be achieved in a closed system.

 

[beaslbob]

Originally posted by azeritis
...
And consider this: Has anyone evr seen an enclosed body of water, be it a lake, a pond, a small natural harbor with a very small opening where the water is clean? And remember here that the bioload that these house is far less than the one we keep in our system.
...

yep. There was a pond between sand dunes next to the white sands of new mexico. Always crystal clear with plants and gold fish. Only time it was cloudy was after a rain.
Same thing applies to our aquariums and ponds.

 

[elan]

Originally posted by azeritis
But in nature there is a natural way of freshing up water (rain rivers)
yep, i top mine off with fresh RO/DI
and there are conditions where all the necessary elements are produced.
yep, mine comes in a kent bottle

 

[elan]

i think a big thing everyone is missing here is that there are numerouse ways of developing a system....
to say one is absolute, is just plain old nonsense.....
you choose to do waterchanges,
i choose to try other methods.....
just like you may like marshal island rock, and i like fiji,
you like SPS, and i like LPS...
you like feeding dry foods, and i like feeding frozen.......
so, just because we all have different opinions, doesnt mean one of us is right and the other wrong, we may both be right, but probably both are wrong......
I am confident that we will have changed our methods considerably over the next 10-20 years......
who knows, we may find out that we will completely seal our systems to prevent evaporation, and have to keep them outside to get natural sunlight...

 

[broomer5]

Exchanging old tankwater for newly mixed aerated saltwater will always be one of my routine tasks ...... I'm fairly certain of it