How do you do water changes?

I have a 180G total

I change out about 15-20. Once a week when I do my det vacuum.

I run Seachem Reef Salt. I have run Reef Crystal, didn't like. Then Oceanic liked it but like the Seachem the best.

 

since ill only be doing what i consider small water changes, 30 gallons every few weeks ill just set up a tank in the basement with a powerhead and fill a culligan bottle with the premixed water.

i do plan on drilling the tank on the bottom or low n the side to install a bulkhead with a shutoff so i can just sit the bottle underneath it and fill it.

in the past raising discus, i would change 200-500 gallons of water a day.

when your doing that much water its all gravity, except for your tap water.

 

About 220 gross. I used to change about 35 gallons every two weeks. Now I have automated it to change 1 gallon twice a day giving me about 60 gallons a month. I love this setup but I have to tweak it a bit. It drains more than 2 gallons some days. I use exclusively Reef Crystals.

 

I have a 90 gallon tank with a 27 gallon sump and I change out 15 gallons a week pretty religiously.  My RO/DI unit and storage tank are located in the basement and my tank is in the living room on the first floor.  I lug the 5 gallon buckets of water from the basement and mix it in a sturdy rubbermaid container close to my tank.  I use two powerheads, a heater and let it mix per PH for usually 6 or more hours (is this bad that I don't do it longer??)
When I'm ready to do the actual water change, I have a 20 ft piece of tubing that goes from my tank to the kitchen sink and I put a little PH on the end of it into my tank and pump it to the sink.  I have "5"   "10"   "15" markings on an inconspicuous side of my tank marked so I know when to stop the emptying phase.  Then I have a short hose that I pump my new water into the tank.  Once I am ready to empy and then fill, I can do it in about 15 minutes.  I generally clean my glass and blast my rock with a baster before I start emptying. 
Figuring out how to syphon right from my tank to the sink has been the greatest time saver for me and cut down on lots of lugging of buckets and spilled water.  I use a cloth tie to secure the hose to the faucet so it can't get loose during the draining part.
Good thread as usual Slovan!

 

I have about 200 gallons total volume and change about 20-25 galons every ten days or so. I use 5 gallon jugs currently to lug water both ways. I keep 30 gallons of RO and 30 gallons of salt water mixed up at all times in the basement. I am starting my tank on a low nutrient system, so I hope to do less water changes, or still do them as often, just smaller.

The basement tank room is being set up to to dump 30 gallons of water into the system which will overflow around the same out and into the drain. I want it to be fully automated so I can do a water change remotely if I see something going on with the tank and am traveling. I have details to work out on this, but I am going to set it up this way for sure.

 

jtessall, how do u automatially do a water change to your tank, be u have one of those new waterchanging robots! /site/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/_default/emoticons/smile.gif

 

Posted By davidm199 on 12/21/2007 9:35 PM
jtessall, how do u automatially do a water change to your tank, be u have one of those new waterchanging robots! /site/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/_default/emoticons/smile.gif" align="absmiddle" border="0">I have a 1/2" solenoid valve on a siphon tube set twice daily to turn on for 2 minutes with my ACII. Then I have an MJ in 30 gallons of mixed saltwater to refill which is also controlled with my ACII and goes to my sump on a float valve to protect against over filling. Not a perfect system yet as the Solenoid is not consistent and will drain more than a gallon. This causes my return to get too low and suck air. I am going to work on ball valving the drain down to a trickle and keeping it on longer to see if I can get better consistency.
I also topoff through the same float valve 6 times a day with Kalk from a DIY kalk mixer.

 

I have about 70 gallons total volume,  my tank is in the basement and my RO is near by.  I use Oceanic salt that I mix in a 2 5 gallon buckets with titanium heaters and  powerheads.  I mix it overnight or start it in the morning and change it in the evening, I adjust the SG to 1.026.  I have been changing appox 4 gallons twice a week, I 'll probably reduce it down 5 gallons once a week in a couple of weeks once the tank becomes more established.  
Slovan what are your CA levels in you oceanic mix?  I think mine measured around 360 last time I checked.

 

My water changes are pretty simple.  Being i have no floor drain in my basement i drain water from my display tank.  To do this i just use a chunk of garden hose.  I figured out that the garden hose drains about 5 gallons a minute, so what i do is set the timer on my microwave for 5 minutes and drain using a syphon until the timer goes off.  From there i go down stairs and add my make-up water that i have pre-heated and pre-mixed the night before in this.

Usually a night or 2 before i do a water change i had 13 cups of salt and a small dose of Mg to this container and flip a switch that turns on the heater and mag pump inside the container.  After i do the 5 minute drain from the main tank i just turn the valve on the container and my tank fills back up to the proper level.  I don't even have to get my hands wet.  Another cool thing about this container is that it has a float valve in it so it fills itself back up after i empty it.  Not to worry the float valve is on a solenoid that is only on from 5-9 daily, so if it does stick open and floods at least it will be when i am home and will only flood for 4 hours.  /site/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/_default/emoticons/wink.gif" align="absmiddle" border="0">
I was thinking instead of using the garden hose i could just put a "T" in my return line and have a permanent line going to a drain somewhere that way it would just be a a matter of turning two valves instead of using the garden hose.  Maybe I'll do it that way on my next tank build or when i get really bored this winter......
Someday i would like to have an automated system but i think without proper maintenence the system could fail, and that worries me.  Plus that would take all the fun out of it. 

I think the easier you make water change process the more you will do them.  I have seen people using buckets to scoop water and haul water, that just seems like way to much work, i let my pumps that i already have, and gravity do all the work for me.

 

Not to highjack this thread. But how long do you guys/girls leave your saltwater mixed up before using it? I accidently left about 30 gallons in my drum mixing with my heater and ph. i was wondering if it is still good? It has been 3 weeks running in there.

 

Posted By Wayne1 on 12/22/2007 11:05 AM
Not to highjack this thread. But how long do you guys/girls leave your saltwater mixed up before using it? I accidently left about 30 gallons in my drum mixing with my heater and ph. i was wondering if it is still good? It has been 3 weeks running in there.
 i wouldnt use it, its possible that without any biological filtration going on that you could have some sort of new fungas or other type of unwanted growth going on in the water.
in the past with freshwater i have noticed that cleaning barrels of all the slime that builds up on them helped in getting rid of problems with fish eggs hatching problems like fungas, fertilization and other eggs related problems.
mind you that this is freshwater and not salt but i still see a risk of fungas.
by the way, thats another question that should be adressed about water changing habits we have, does everyone clean their barrels periodically?

 

Posted By slovan on 12/22/2007 11:07 AM

Posted By Waverz on 12/22/2007 10:41 AM
I was thinking instead of using the garden hose i could just put a "T" in my return line and have a permanent line going to a drain somewhere that way it would just be a a matter of turning two valves instead of using the garden hose.  Maybe I'll do it that way on my next tank build or when i get really bored this winter......
I did something similar to what you're talking about when I had my 210.  I had valves on the returns lines and one on the tee'd off line for water changes.  All I did was hook up polytubing to the T and closed off the returns.  The old water went into a nearby bathroom sink.

WOW nice setup you have there.

 

Posted By slovan on 12/22/2007 10:00 AM
Posted By Atram on 12/22/2007 9:29 AM

Slovan what are your CA levels in you oceanic mix?  I think mine measured around 360 last time I checked.
I have never tested the mix but my tank stays anywhere from 425-450ppm.  Oceanic is notorious for being high in calcium so I would get your test kit checked against if you're only reading 360ppm from the mix.
Ditto I ran Oceanic for 2 years and it never mixed below 450ppm.

 

call me old fashion, but I mouth syphon water out and manually dump 5 gals back in.  I try and do 5gal a week on my 24 gal.  Should prolly cut down though.....