Water changes, how often should I really be doing them

5 gallons every week this way things stay in line.

 

I do 10% every month

 

It's going to vary for every tank, how good your skimmer is, if you run a refugium, if you have a DSB or some other form of denitrification system, how heavily stocked the tank is, if you keep any sensitive coral or inverts etc.
I think it's a good idea just as a general practice to change some water out regularly. I've been doing lots of water changes lately but I try and stick to 10% every week or two when I'm not having issues just as general maintenance. It's one of the easiest/safest ways of removing nutrients and replenishing some trace elements etc IMO.

 

skimmer is octo bh 800s, rated for a 100something gallon tank. no refugim. Currently lightly stocked but i the final stocking will be doubled what i have. no corals yet, but hoping really soon, and inverts that are doing fine, only had them for a week so far

 

Without coral I probably would just watch the nitrates and water change if/when those get high or if you start seeing algae. When you have coral then a more regular schedule is probably more useful, but it's going to be impossible for someone else to say what is going to work for your tank because there are too many variables to say for sure, right now your fish won't really care one way or another.

 

yea i'm not sure about my nitrates, API test kit has been shipped and on its way. I have my GHA bloom but its going away fairly quickly, i think i'll just keep doing my 5% weekly water changes especially with getting corals soon

 

I used to think that dosing was ok. Its been many water changes to get back on par since that was really not working. I had nitrate issues not issues with anything I could dose. I had not done a wc just dosing for many months. I also think that the larger tanks like mine 220 are much easier to keep parameters in check. My red sea is more touchy with parameters but also easier to dose. I do a 20 percent one time a month now to keep mine in check. I test weekly and have stable readings but im not going to make any excuses anymore about not doing them.

 

I had api test kits and found them horribaly inaccurate. I would look to some of the other companies. I had an api test kit for nitrate 2 years ago and it was not out of date reading 0 on nitrate and I was having issues with the tank everything else was in check. I took water to lfs and the nitrate was 60ppm!!!!!!! I then tested all the api kits I had against lfs reading and threw them all away. Everyone of them was off. The other kits I got all were right one with lfs readings.

 

It is so strange, I use API and they have always been right on, the Alk was like 1/2 a point off from my Salifert.

 

i've been using the red sea test kits, which are probably way over expired and almost completly out so i've stopped testing because what's the point. So i'm hoping the API will be much more accurate than my current