Best way to do a Water Change

[Melk]

Given that i do not have any pre mixed up supply of water, what is the easiest way to go about doing a 10 gallon or so change on a 75 gallon tank. I keep my salinity at about 1.024, and temp about 78 in my tank. How do i match this with the water I am putting in, and whats the easiest process for this. I was thinking in my head of buying 10 gallons of water from the acme and adding the salt to each one at a time etc and taking 10 gallons out...lol, sounds really stupid..has to be a better way.

 

[RMPD109]

get a 20 gal rubbermaid tub to mix it in. Put in a heater and powerhead and that is all you need. Any water added to the tank should be aged for at least 24hrs and kept aerated and heated.

 

[wlam18]

I always have 3x2.5G of saltwater pre-mixed a week ahead, no aerated, no heater. Each weekend, I shut off the return pump from the sump. Remove 7.5G of old water and add the new water to the sump. The sump heater will warm the water. After a couple of hour, when the temp are the same as display tank, I turn the pump back on. Re-mix the 3x2.5G water for next week. Also, during the sump pump is off, I dose the MarineKent PhytoPlex for the corals. Works great for me. The 2.5G bottle water container is perfect in size and weight. The 5G bottle is little too heavy for pouring water.

 

[saltwatersmac]

I have a 30 gal rubbermaid container upstairs that I mix and heat the water in for at least 48 hours ahead. I have a bulkhead with a ball valve and enough vinyl tubing to reach my aquarium downstairs. I pump 20 gals out and drop the tubing back in and let gravity do the rest.

Stephen

 

[X the Outsider]

I have a five gallon bucket that I mix my water in a few days in advance for a water change. I keep a cheap heater, and a powerhead in there to mix up the salt when added. Usually I have water ready just in case something happens, but it's been a hectic week. IMO it would be best to have some ready for an "accidents" or spikes in your water chemistry.

 

[MarineFlake]

I use 2 5G buckets from Home Depot. I mix with RO/DI thats sitting in a 'Brute' 32G (In my kitchen, wife hates it ; ) I mix until the SG reads 1024 or 1025. I don't get too picky about it since I don't use a refract and most hydrometers are a little off. I use about 2.75 cups of salt to 5G of water, let it mix (via powerhead), do the next bucket, let it mix and then drain the sump (Shut off the return) of 10G of water. Then, simply pump in the good stuff and restart the return pump. Others adjust temp and mix for hours to days ahead of time but I haven't seen any negative impact. I would not do this with larger water changes since it would obviously cause a tremendous change in temp.
As a side note I just switched to Oceanic Natural Sea Salt Mix and the corals look 2x as good as they do when I use IO. (Little experiement I doing..)

GL!