How often to do water changes?

[lwillis22]

I am wondering what everyone else is doing for water changes, how much and how often? I have a 125 gallon and a 40 gallon. I do weekly 10% water changes. I hear some people do water changes every 2 weeks and that would be nice not to go thru so much salt and r/o water. Just wondering what everyones thought is on the topic.

[Jim_Dont_Care]

i do 5 gallons a week with a 120 and 35 gallon sump should probably do 10 but 5 works for me

[dputt88]

its gonna depend on you system and your equipment. i do 15% bi-weekly.

[Scuba do2]

for my 150 I do 30 gal every week and rinse the sponges, keeps it all perking right along

[mike_cmu04]

I have a system volume of 200 gallons and i do a 25 gallon water change once a month.

[lwillis22]

So lots of differences between what people are doing. Thanks all, good to know.

[novi tony]

Weekly.

10+% and you'll be good.

[McPuff]

I have a 180 and generally do 20 gallons once a month, maybe every 3 weeks if I'm able. I know there are some people on here that only do water changes quarterly (every 3 months) and they have some awesome tanks.

[Jim_Dont_Care]

i think its has alot to do with equpment no 2 tanks are the same use a good skimmer and such and u can go longer i do weekly because it replaces all trace elements depending on what salt you use i use instant ocean because it has all trace elements who am i to decide which ones should or shouldnt be there lol the gramer cops are going to get me haha

[Smity]

Jim is right.

First off it depends on the type of equipment you own to help stabilize and filter the water. People with good skimmers and dosers can probably get away with 3 weeks or more.

I, myself have a good skimmer but no way to keep up with cal, alk, mag so i have to routinly once a week do 5 gallons on my 40 gallon to keep the big 3 in check. Now if it was fish only hell id do quarterly water changes running a skimmer and pellets.

I also have a 10 gallon that tank gets 5 gallons also once a week but thats do to no skimmer or dosing.

On another note to touch base on whats in the tank...
Like i said fish only let it go, same with softies and some lps, SPS you need to keep it clean.

[MatroxD]

I have a 110 with 50 gallon sump(holds 25-30 gallons of water). I do 10% weekly, as I have found that it is not the minimum you need to do, but for me and my systems, I don't have to do much as far as additives, and of course, I never have problems with out of whack issues.

I found that I really don't save much except for time(which, once you get a system, it doesn't take long to do anyhow) doing biweekly 20% versus 10% a week except, it gives a chance for more things as far as bacteria, etc to grow and on top of that, depending on what the consumption level is in the tank for elements, your just doing possibly more dosing. For me, if I do this, all my parameters stay well within a good range, and I really don't have to dose a lot even with accelerated coraline and other calcium/carbonate activity. It really is a thing that I had to consider whether I wanted to spend 79.00 in salt, or 30.00 at least for element replinishment on top of the salt.

The other thing is that, if your using a higher quality salt, you will find, that with 35ppt, the dosage that they recommend for your changes in bulk of say 15 gallons(in my case 1/2 cup per gallon or 7 for 15 gallons), I don't need to use nearly that much. With my Salinity, I would only need to use 6 cups, and now with my NeoMarine, I only use 5.5 cups. So when you calculate that out, you find that you are really using much less and getting much more than the bucket states, with higher and more stable levels.

That is just what I have found on my systems when over the years I went from Reef Crystals(yuck!) to Oceanic(underrated salt) to Tropic Marin(highly overrated IMHO), Aquavitro(excellent stuff but did not fit my tastes completely) and now to NeoMarine(I like very much so far). I have read that Coral Pro by Red Sea is the same way, but for me, it has been near to impossible to find locally.

Good luck to you though and great reefing.

[CUNAReefer]

Originally Posted by MatroxD

I have a 110 with 50 gallon sump(holds 25-30 gallons of water). I do 10% weekly, as I have found that it is not the minimum you need to do, but for me and my systems, I don't have to do much as far as additives, and of course, I never have problems with out of whack issues.

I found that I really don't save much except for time(which, once you get a system, it doesn't take long to do anyhow) doing biweekly 20% versus 10% a week except, it gives a chance for more things as far as bacteria, etc to grow and on top of that, depending on what the consumption level is in the tank for elements, your just doing possibly more dosing. For me, if I do this, all my parameters stay well within a good range, and I really don't have to dose a lot even with accelerated coraline and other calcium/carbonate activity. It really is a thing that I had to consider whether I wanted to spend 79.00 in salt, or 30.00 at least for element replinishment on top of the salt.

The other thing is that, if your using a higher quality salt, you will find, that with 35ppt, the dosage that they recommend for your changes in bulk of say 15 gallons(in my case 1/2 cup per gallon or 7 for 15 gallons), I don't need to use nearly that much. With my Salinity, I would only need to use 6 cups, and now with my NeoMarine, I only use 5.5 cups. So when you calculate that out, you find that you are really using much less and getting much more than the bucket states, with higher and more stable levels.

That is just what I have found on my systems when over the years I went from Reef Crystals(yuck!) to Oceanic(underrated salt) to Tropic Marin(highly overrated IMHO), Aquavitro(excellent stuff but did not fit my tastes completely) and now to NeoMarine(I like very much so far). I have read that Coral Pro by Red Sea is the same way, but for me, it has been near to impossible to find locally.

Good luck to you though and great reefing.

+1 I also use NeoMarine Salt and swear by it. You can purchase it on DFS without extra shipping charges and you may even be able to find a coupon online that further reduces the cost.

James

[russeko8]

I personally do 3 gallons a day through an automated system on my roughly 350 gallon SPS set up seems to work great and being automated it always gets done comes out to roughly 25% monthly. So far everything is good been doing it this way for months.