Water Changes

It's ok it happens lol
But I do have a protein skimmer doesn't that skimmer the waste left behind?
(Just asking all of this because I hate to do w/c lol)

 

Yes, X. The folks are right. I'm not reading that you add salt to top off water, which is good. But as ReefSparky (Whoops, I mean Reefmonkey!) , correctly says above, when water evaporates, that's just concentrating all the undesirables in your tank water. When you top off and get back to level, you're just diluting it to where it was originally. So a topoff does not a water change make. You must remove water from your tank and replace it with salt water to perform a water change.

If you think of a bowl of soup; and you boiled it hard until it was half the original amount, it would taste twice as strong. If you then replace the water you boiled off, it would be exactly the same as it was originally (but a bit burnt). That's an analogy for your top offs.

So to your original question? Yes. You do need to do a water change. (and this is not in response to the "Do I need to do water changes? debate.)

 

LOL we all do but it's a neccesity imo. I gotta do my biweekly today.

 

Oh Alright guess I have to do a w/c lol
& Do I have to do w/c? lol

 

In my opinion--yes. But you'll hear from other people with more experience than I--no. That debate will never end, I think.

 

Oh alright well thanx & Thanx Reefmonkey

 

1 more question how much water change? 5 gallons a week?

 

there are reefers that say they get away without doing regular water changes...ask them to see pics of their tanks and the list of things they dose.

I'm not one of them and like others have already suggested, I highly recommend regular water changes. Your skimmer does not take out all the junk and your fish and corals are using up trace elements that could only be replenished by dosing lots of stuff or regular water changes.
I don't think any of us like doing water changes, there are ways to make it easier, especially if you have the room. For example I built my sump (55) and plumbing so that I can shutdown parts of the sump without taking the entire system out of service. I then pump out the old water, and pump back in fresh RODI/Salt mix water then put that section of the sump back in service by the turn of a gate-valve. The entire process takes less than 10 mins to change about 20-25g of water.

 

Hi, this was in response to a guy who had a 26 gal. tank but the answer fits.
O.k. X, the problem (or lack of benefit) from doing small changes over a month is that those small changes become insignificant as far as a diluting effect. We really want to dilute (not to extreme) the existing tank water. Look at it this way, say you change the 4 gal. as you said, that calculates to about 18% which leaves 82% of the water unchanged. In 1 week (let alone 2) your water has has gone back to about 95% un-replenished. So, to use a term, you are spinning your wheels. Does that make sense to you? Many aquarists have a hard time understanding dilution. Let's say you go 4-5 weeks between changes (as many of us do) and then you change out a full 30% of your 26 gal. You then have changed about 8 gal. leaving only 16 gal. of un-replenished water or about 70%, so you are adding in 30% pure water with new minerals (from the salt mix) this is better than the insignificant amount of smaller more frequent changes. It may get confusing but the science is behind the fact that larger less frequent changes are the way to go.

 

The Norm????????

I thought 20 -25% every 2 weeks was ideal. Am I missing something? I am a newbie to the hobbie so I might be missing something.
lol.....