What Do You Do When You Change Your Water?

[pcinmd]

When I do a water change in my 29 gal tank I use distilled water with a mix of purple up,coral accel,Iodine,aquasafe to insure decent water and phytoplex.I let this mix brew for a hour or so With a heater and air stone in a five gallon pale. My mushrooms seem to love this mix I brew up and my other corals I also use a pinch of kent superbuffer to keep my ph good. What does everyone else do?????

:thinking:

 

[granny]

Well, Here is simple old Granny again,
I use a good salt mix, Reef Crystals, and add only Iodine for the shrimp.
I do add Reef Buffer to the top off water before adding that, but thats it and my live rock is plenty purple, red, green yellow etc. with no additives. Corals do fine, as do all the inverts. Do you really feel you NEED to add all that stuff?

 

[pcinmd]

Originally Posted by Granny
Well, Here is simple old Granny again,
I use a good salt mix, Reef Crystals, and add only Iodine for the shrimp.
I do add Reef Buffer to the top off water before adding that, but thats it and my live rock is plenty purple, red, green yellow etc. with no additives. Corals do fine, as do all the inverts. Do you really feel you NEED to add all that stuff?
I feel the need to replace what i'm taking out . If my levels are even a little off I wouldn't do so. I will say my growth in my tank is great.I just got a mushroom from mylfs about two weeks ago and so far 3 babys have split off. So if it's not broke why fix it?

 

[granny]

Hey, Thats my line!
Thats why I DONT add a bunch of stuff.
The purpose of changing the saltwater in our tanks is to replenish minerals that have been diminished. Frequent water changes with a good reef mix eliminate the need for most addivtives unless for some reason, your coral population is huge and depletes your calcum etc. quickly??!
I just dont like to spend money on things I dont need-do you?

 

[slappy]

i read the title of the post and i was thinking , i drink beer when i do a water change. didnt realize you were talking about the water itself.....

 

[pcinmd]

Originally Posted by slappy
i read the title of the post and i was thinking , i drink beer when i do a water change. didnt realize you were talking about the water itself.....

Good point I didn't think it came out like that but just to let you know I do drink a few....

 

[pcinmd]

Originally Posted by Granny
Hey, Thats my line!
Thats why I DONT add a bunch of stuff.
The purpose of changing the saltwater in our tanks is to replenish minerals that have been diminished. Frequent water changes with a good reef mix eliminate the need for most addivtives unless for some reason, your coral population is huge and depletes your calcum etc. quickly??!
I just dont like to spend money on things I dont need-do you?
You must be in the wrong hobby if you don't want to spend money but I will say that every tank in this forum is Their own. I asked a few questions about peoples tanks in my past posts about there ph,temp in tank,alk,lighting,etc......... It was funny because everyone came up with something different. So don't knock something you haven't tried.It seems to do well in my tank, anyone else?????????

 

[pcinmd]

In past posts i noticed you didn't even test for your iodine or should say had no clue. Your giving me crap on a system that has been tested thus far with no faults??????? :thinking:

 

[granny]

No, I am giving you advice about what has worked for me for the past 40 years of fishkeeping, may I add successful fishkeeping. Very few peole know everything about everything and the best teacher is experience. Like the cook who makes great biscuits and doesnt have to measure anything. When youve been keeping fish as long as I have you can tell at a glance when something is wrong or right in yiour tank.
Because I do not want to lose livestock and two of my shrimp had not been able to shed their carapace successfuly, I KNEW that is was a lack of iodine, so added 5 ml to the tank. No, I have not measured the levels and after careful thought, and Phisxers post, think I will, however that does not change my opinions on the additives that go into our tanks. I have successfully kep salt water fish since before solid glass tanks were around and NEVER added anything, but originally ocean water and later when they started making salt mixes,started using those. It isnt necessary to go high tech with everything to keep these fish, and it isnt a good idea to throw a bunch of additives into our tanks without knowing why we are doing it. We dont enter into this hobby to spend money, we spend money as needed to sustain the lives of the captive creatures we house.
If anyone has money to throw away, I kn ow a number of good charities that could use it.
Dont slam the old pros, PC. We know what works and has worked since before you were born!!

 

[slappy]

good point granny. i dont add anything but b-ionic and things seem to be working out great for me. :happyfish although i must say when i do my sunday fishtank cleaning and drinking, if the fish get a little beer---they seem to love it. just kidding :jumping: wow its really cool you have keeping saltwater fish for that long

 

[sprang]

Yes I gave up on most additives when I realized that everything grew like weeds anyway and my coral was more colorful than a pack of skittles, so I just do good ol' water changes.

 

[pcinmd]

Originally Posted by Granny
No, I am giving you advice about what has worked for me for the past 40 years of fishkeeping, may I add successful fishkeeping. Very few peole know everything about everything and the best teacher is experience. Like the cook who makes great biscuits and doesnt have to measure anything. When youve been keeping fish as long as I have you can tell at a glance when something is wrong or right in yiour tank.
Because I do not want to lose livestock and two of my shrimp had not been able to shed their carapace successfuly, I KNEW that is was a lack of iodine, so added 5 ml to the tank. No, I have not measured the levels and after careful thought, and Phisxers post, think I will, however that does not change my opinions on the additives that go into our tanks. I have successfully kep salt water fish since before solid glass tanks were around and NEVER added anything, but originally ocean water and later when they started making salt mixes,started using those. It isnt necessary to go high tech with everything to keep these fish, and it isnt a good idea to throw a bunch of additives into our tanks without knowing why we are doing it. We dont enter into this hobby to spend money, we spend money as needed to sustain the lives of the captive creatures we house.
If anyone has money to throw away, I kn ow a number of good charities that could use it.
Dont slam the old pros, PC. We know what works and has worked since before you were born!!
Well after many years you must know that every tank is different and people do different things to there tanks. And the only reason I put anything in my tank is because my corals seem to love it. I got a mushroom a few weeks ago and it already has 3 babies growing one that is already 1" big. I personally like using additives and Like the outcome from using them. Just speeding up the process. It might take more cleaning due to the fact everything grows pretty quick. If you keep up with it I don't see a problem. And I'm not slaming old pro's, We didn't have the internet back then but for some reason we use it now.So just because you don't personally use any don't knock a person that does.