Water change question

[Maridia]

Everyone has their own method on water changes: small weekly, moderate biweekly, large monthly, or none at all. My skimmer and filtration do an awesome job of keeping my nitrates super low. My ph is also stable. I can get away with doing a moderate monthly water change. My question here is, if all looks well (nitrates,ph). Do I have to add nutrients to my water since I do monthly water changes? Or will a monthly water change suffice on the nutrients? I have a 55 gallon tank, 20 gallon sump. Any info would be great! Thanks

 

[sansouci01]

I would think that if it's a fowlr tank, you would be ok and not have to add anything. I do a 25% weekly water change to keep my corals happy.

 

[Maridia]

I would think that if it's a fowlr tank, you would be ok and not have to add anything. I do a 25% weekly water change to keep my corals happy.

It is a FOWLR, sounds great. Thanks

 

[molliwopp]

Monthly changes? What fish are you keeping in their?

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[Maridia]

Monthly changes? What fish are you keeping in their?

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2 clowns
1 Royal Gramma
1 Green Chromis
Snails and Hermit crabs for CUC

As mentioned before, my ph(8.4) and Nitrates(5ppm) are good. I don't keep corals, but I have a ton of live rock and deep sand beds in both sump and display tank. My fish look fine, but my biggest question was regarding the nutrients.

 

[Affordable Aquatic]

You dont need to add anything further to keep the animals healthy and happy. Regular water changes with a good quality salt will replenish whatever minerals have been consumed.

 

[Maridia]

You dont need to add anything further to keep the animals healthy and happy. Regular water changes with a good quality salt will replenish whatever minerals have been consumed.

Thank you very much for the reply. Were monthly WCs regular enough?

 

[molliwopp]

Without knowing your nitrate readings at the end of the month its hard to say but my instinct would say twice monthly would be benifical either way.

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[edwardclaxton]

I do 5% weekly. Seems to work good for me. Also mr.saltwatertank recommends it.

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[molliwopp]

I would personally say 5% is nowhere near enough.

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[edwardclaxton]

The reason I posted this is because a very well known person in the saltwater hobby who has wrote many books and who has advised many people during there journey with saltwater and whom seems to very successful has good information to consider. I did 25% water changes and after seeing mrsaltwatertank say to do only 5% weekly I have seen no difference in my aquarium.

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[edwardclaxton]

To me there's no reason to waste that much salt every week which to me seems to be over kill. If Nitrates are high then maybe larger water changes and possibly reducing amount to food feed.

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[Maridia]

To me there's no reason to waste that much salt every week which to me seems to be over kill. If Nitrates are high then maybe larger water changes and possibly reducing amount to food feed.

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That's the exact same mentality I'm having. If all params look good, I may be able to get away with doing monthly changes. But it's always helpful to hear everyone's opinion on the matter. Thanks

 

[melosu58]

I do mine weekly but monthly should suffice as far as a FOWLR tank.

 

[alco1]

For a FOWLR tank, the only real reason I could see to do water changes is to keep nitrates low and phosphates low as well to avoid a cyano outbreak. I guess as long as the parameters are fine and stable then theres no real reason to do any other WC than what your doing at the moment.

If you had corals then it would be a different story but considering you don't then itll be fine

 

[Maridia]

For a FOWLR tank, the only real reason I could see to do water changes is to keep nitrates low and phosphates low as well to avoid a cyano outbreak. I guess as long as the parameters are fine and stable then theres no real reason to do any other WC than what your doing at the moment.

If you had corals then it would be a different story but considering you don't then itll be fine

I appreciate it. Thanks! ^^

 

[huma-huma]

keep in mind that doing pwc's to maintain low trates and phosphates is completely different from doing them to bring down those levels. If someones tank is sitting at 5 trates and .015 phos, they will have to do minimal water changes to maintain that. now if that same person has 40-60 trates and .5+ phos, they obviously would have to do alot bigger pwcs to not only bring that number down, but to even maintain that same level.
as for what percentage to do and how often. theres absolutely no way to apply a "golden" standard to this. every single tank is different and reacts differently. even if you set up 2 identical tanks next to each other, they are more than likely going to vary in certain degrees. i myself used to do 25-30% bi-weekly, but switched to 15% weekly. and ive had better results. once i get my trates down into the 2-5 range, im going to switch back to bi-weekly