how often for SW water changes?

I've been reading so many differnt things about SW water changes. Most of I read just says about topping off or doing a WC every 2-3 weeks. In my FW tanks I always did a WC every week from 20-50%.

 

Welcome to 3reef.

Bi-weekly of 20% is good or weekly of 10% is imo better. But honestly I don't think it matters much as long as you stay on a consistent schedule and don't change out to much each time.

 

It depends so much on your individual system that it's impossible to define what's right for you. I.E., for smaller tanks (40g or less), I prefer 10% weekly WCs over a lot of expensive filtration and dosing equipment to maintain. For someone with a large tank, it makes sense to invest in the aforementioned technology and reduce water changes as much as possible. Your tank size, filtration and bioload will be the defining factors.

 

I do one 20% water change per month. To keep pH, calcium and alk in order I use a two-part dosing system.

 

We do about 20% every 2 weeks in our 55 (lightly stocked with 3 fish).

 

it depends on the system, for hard coral systems I would do 10% at least every 2 weeks. For some reason they always seem to grow better from the new saltwater then me trying to dose every little thing.

for systems with nitrates and phosphates, you should do WC as needed to reduce them to acceptable levels for the live stock you have.

 

It really does depend on the system, filtration, feeding habits, livestock, lighting, etc etc etc. Too many factors. But I always do recommend small weekly water changes for reef systems and bi-weekly water changes for swfo. There are exceptions for everything of coarse.

 

I do around 15% every week.

 

Been doing 5% weekly for about 12 months now in my mainly SPS set up, which has reasonable water quality and parameters
I do not recall missing a single one during that period of time

doing 10% each week in the softy/ LPS set up, its not big 3 maintained with dosing etc , and its also not carbon dosed which my SPS set up is ,so I elected to do 10% simply to ensure parameters are maintained

Steve

 

maybe I should give you guys a bit more info then. I'm looking at placing carbon and pruigen in the sump along with having a phosphate reactor.

I will only be starting with live rock and fish. As I have stated I have experice with FW so I will not be over stocking the tank although I have not selected my fish as of yet. My plan was to go to a local fish store I trust and has a huge SW selection of fish and discuss what I can do with them and let them make some suggestions and go from there.

If nitrates and phosphates are low or non existant is it ok to go longer on WC's?

Sorry for all the questions SW is very new to me.