Series of questions related to water change stations

[islanddave]

Hello All,

First post here.You seem like a friendly bunch, unlike some other forums.:biggrin:

I will be assembling the component parts for a 250 gallon deep dimension reef tank mostly softies at least to start until I get my skill set up.

First things first. Water! RODI for sure!
I know this is a highly variable question but what would a starting point for % of saltwater to be changed and at what intervals?

Second what would the recommended size of the water change tanks be? Within reason I mean. I would love to have 200 gal storage tanks but they wont fit. What would the minimum sizes be for these vessels so that water changes are not going to be a pain in the $ss? Should one be larger than the other?
Third question related to the previous two is it feasible to place this station in my unheated Ontario dead of winter garage, even with heaters in the tanks with flow? Im guessing no , but you never know.
This is my favorite forum!:lol:

Thanks David

[Aquattro]

moved to Reef

[islanddave]

Thanks realized that I had made a mistake!:mrgreen:

[Aquattro]

Happens a lot :)

[WarDog]

I would aim for 25-50% every 2 weeks. Others might suggest a smaller amount every week, but I find that too much work. Personally I do 25% every other Saturday, mixing and aerating the night before. This works well for what I've got.

As far as the Ontario winters and mixing outside, I wouldn't have a clue, never been there. Here in BC, zero is considered low in winter.

[shiftline]

I do 15% every 1-2 weeks

[islanddave]

I guess water change size dictates water mixing station size huh?:wink:

[newbie2]

Hey there. I think there are some water change stations within various tank builds on the forum (keins, dez, "project mayhem" that I can think of). I like to keep enough water mixed for a 25% water change at all times
(then again my water changing station is a brute bin on wheels lol), but I know that some like to keep up to a 50% supply which for some large tanks makes logistics hard.

As far as the winter thing- I'm sure that if you keep the water circulating in the tanks you wont have a problem (even with RODI unless it gets very cold) but the lines to and from the tanks would be another matter. It might end up being better to look at heating the garage to keep it just above freezing.

[Scythanith]

My water change system was brutes on wheels before my new setup :) I'd recommend ~25g every couple weeks. That would be ~20% per month. That's plenty as long as you have good, skimming and don't overfeed. Plus you will get a feel for it as the tank matures and you can tailor your setup to match. Maybe you'd rather do water changes than heavily dosing your system with chemicals, then you will require more water changes on a heavy stocked reef system. If you don't mind dosing the required chemicals and have good nutrient export through either skimming, algae turf scrubber, bio-pellets, etc. then you can really stretch out the required water changes. The triton method of testing suggests never changing your water again unless you can't export the nutrients and adding the chemicals and trace elements the inhabitants are consuming.

As for the garage idea, sounds iffy. You may be wasting a lot of power just trying to keep the water warm enough. No room under the stairs or in a closet in the house?

[untamed]

Think long and hard about HOW you are going to do water changes. Plumb pumps, drains and valves into the plan so that you have to move water anywhere by hand or by siphon. Long term...if it is difficult, you won't do it.

Municipal water pressure is free. Use that pressure to store your RODI water high so gravity can deliver it where you want later. (Including into your SW mixer). Have a convenient way to dump a measured amount of your aquarium water so you can replace it with fresh mixed.

[Myka]

^ Very good advice.

I have a maintenance company and find that most reef tanks do well with 10% per week. For those that tend to overfeed their fish or don't use skimmers, I do up to 20% weekly.

For water change stations I like the saltwater mixing tub to be either the same size as the water changes or twice the size. So I can either fill it up every second week, or every week after the water change. Mixed saltwater is very stable, and really it can be as large as your heart's content. Once it is fully mixed and dissolved (a few hours) you can turn the pump off and restart the pump a few hours before your water change. using a smaller saltwater tub allows you to also turn off the heater in between uses.

For the RO/DI tub, I like it to be at least 2x the volume of the water changes, but preferably closer to 5x. You don't want the RO tub to be too big though because RO/DI will absorb "stuff" out of the air and your 0 ppm TDS RO/DI doesn't remain at 0 ppm forever. If I need to do a large water change then I can add salt to the RO/DI tub as well as the saltwater tub and have lots of saltwater.

Also, I like to put a tee in the RO/DI product water line and have one go to the RO/DI tub and one to the saltwater mixing tub. This way you can fill either one up independently of the other, and you don't have to worry about transferring water from the RO/DI tub to the saltwater tub.

Since we're at the storage tank size stage...if you're going to use an auto top off (highly recommended) don't make it any larger than about 10% of the tank's entire volume. This way if there is a problem with the auto top off sticking on (yes it does happen) then it doesn't have enough volume to crash your tank by diluting the salinity, and if you're smart about sump design, there will even be enough soom in the sump to hold that extra 10% and not get your floor wet. :)

Some people direct plumb their ATO to the RO/DI and some people put the ATO right into their giant tub of RO/DI. Either action is laziness and playing with fire imo, and I can easily think of at least half a dozen people on these forums that have crashed their tank this way.

[shiftline]

Garage can work if you automate it. If you do small daily ones you won't have to worry about pre heating the water.