Water Changes ?

I have a 10 gallon reef tank. How many times a week should I do a water change ?

 

That would depend on how dirty your tank and water get. If you are real good about not overstocking and overfeeding then 10% a week would be more than sufficient. You could probably go 10% every 2 weeks.

 

I would not only look at how dirty your tank will be, but how fast the coral comsumes chemicals. If your calcium levels are dropping below 300 before your next water change, I woudl do them more often.

 

sorry to get off topic,seeing like this thread is about water changes I wanna release a quick question on here...
my RO/DI unit is due for a full filter change although I'm tight on budget....
I've read a few people add prime into there new water for waterchanging...will this supplement my need while I save a few extra bucks for new cartridges???
keep in mind I'm still getting the water from my RO/DI unit...
not tap!

 

Prime is good for taking the chlorine out of the water. If you are using RO water, you would not need it. What are you using for filter cartridges ? It is not necessary to buy new cartridges so frequently. In fact it can harm your system by killing the good bacteria. I use only sponges in my aquarium. Once a month I rinse them off in the dirty water I syphon off during the water change. Since I have 3 sponges, I just keep alternating them. I haven't bought cartridges of any kind in months. Just maybe you could save yourself some money & have a healthy aquarium @ the same time.

OceanSurf

 

Water changes serve two purposes.

1. As a way of replenishing elements (like Ca, Mg, etc.).
This could also be accomplished via dosing, removing this purpose
2. As a band-aid to export nutrients
If you are doing it for nutrient exports, you have some other problem. In a healthy setup, this purpose is not there.


How many times/how much you need to do it depends on how much elements you need to replenish and how much nutrient you need to export (think 'nitrates' for example).

Lots of folks do WC every week only because that's what they were told...

If you don't need to raise your elements and you don't have nutrients to export, then 0 times a week. On the other hand...

 

I only water change if my water smells like blu cheese

Just kidding!!! It is true what everyone's been saying. I was doing water changes on a weekly basis. When I started manually dosing, I didn't need to do as many water changes, so I went by-weekly. Seeing that it really didn't make a difference on the water quality or mineral levels, I started doing them once every 3 weeks. Now with the auto doser, I'm on my 5th week without a water change. Everything looks good, except a couple of corals that I chemically shocked with the dosing. They're starting to bounce back I think... I hope

If you have a refugium and skimmer, it will help keep you space the water changes a lot more. They were, along with the ATO and the dosing pump one of the best investments for my reef tank.

 

Im firmly with Peredhil on this one. I have a 46 thats never had a water change and my 55 SPS tank that I do maybe one every 6 weeks or so for 8-10 gallons. Thats usually to syphon off gunk for my two dead spots and in my rockwork, or if im getting a big shipment of coral I like to have trace elements for some reason.

I've dosed a bit of random stuff here and there as i see fit depending on how my corals 'look.' Expert reefers know when to dose everything from Ca to Iodine vs Iodine just by looking at their peices, but I am not there yet!!!

 

I do 20% weekly with water from Pacific ocean just to keep my trace elements up. Sometimes my Ca goes to almost 600, I think it's a PH or Alk issue.

 

WOW ! Thanks for all the info ! Personally, I've had bad experiences with dosing. Perhaps it was my fault. Perhaps I was dosing too much.
That is the reason I was asking for the number of water changes & not the # of dosing times.
I nearly lost everything due to over dosing. A member gave me good advice. I did a water change every other day & things seem to be coming back to normal. I'll do one today & then go back to my weekly changes.
Thanks for all your info. I guess you have to do what works for you.