Water change questions
 

I have a few questions about my top off and water change ratios that I hope someone can chime in on.

The reason I ask is that, even though my API tests says 0, I must have more if I have this brownish red algae/dust growing on the substrate and glass. It looks like the same stuff that J&L has in their bowfront display tank. I would like to find a way to make it go away and water changes seems to be the place to start. Or is it something that water changes will not make a difference to?

Sooooo.

Do I factor in my top off water when calculating how much of a water change I should do?

First, is there a product that can monitor how much top off water I use a day, week, month? Too absent minded and time constrained to visually monitor bucket volume per day to figure out

I have approx 360 gallons of water in the sump and tank. The Apex is set up to do daily water changes, about 4 gallons a day. Not sure if I need/should jump that up a bit yet, as my parameters are supposedly good by API and Salifert. (0 Phosphate, 0 nitrate, 0 ammonia, 420 ca, 1300 mag, 9.5 alk).

The daily saltwater changes work out to be around a 16% water change every 2 weeks.

If I use approx 5 gallons of ro/di top off/fresh water a day it would bring the water change ratio up to approx 25%, which seems to be a good ratio.

Do I include the top off water in my water change volume or not. Do i increase the water change to 25% every 2 weeks by adding another 35 gallons of saltwater instead of including the top off?

If it matters, I run about 2 cups of GFO and 3 cups of GAC in separate reactors, 50 mg of ozone thru a Bubble King 250 and that is all I run.

Feed frozen once a day (gone within 2 minutes, some land on substrate, but shrimp etc get them pretty quick) and very small amount of pellets (15) twice a day to 15 fish (avg 1.5 to 2 inches)

All softies,zoas, lps and sps doing very well.

Run 360w of Actinic t5 from 8 am til 7 pm and 750 watts of MH from 1:30 till 6:00 pm

Display is 290 gal has in/direct sunlight almost all day

Temp is an avg of 77, orp is 330 high and 280 low

Top off isn't changing, it's topping off evaporation. Also, I'm not one that agrees with small daily changes, as I like to use my water changes to dilute the things that contribute to algae, etc. So I do large biweekly changes, where I'm removing a fair volume of bad things.

But no, whatever method you use, top off isn't considered part of the change.

I do realize that top off is not changing but replacing, I just figured that it is new water, even if it has no essential elements, as I dose daily. I guess that leads me to ask.. Do/can nitrates, ammonia, phosphates leave with evaporated water . Do they build up or is there no change due to evaporation?

I understand your belief in larger changes, but after reading Randy Holmes article, it seems that it makes no difference if you do small daily or weekly larger water changes. I did larger ones in my 180, but had the same algae. I have not noticed any difference in doing small changes or larger ones yet.

When water evaporates, only pure water leaves, its like distilling, leaves all the chemicals behind/salts/nitrates, etc

As far as I know, nothing but water evaporates. So top off is just returning to the previous state.

I haven't read Randy's stuff, it tends to take the fun out of this hobby for me. Apparently he likes adding Mg :) I'm happier doing large changes, and it's always worked, so it's what I do. I've seen nice tanks that do small daily, so I guess it can work fine. I dunno.

I guess that is what makes this hobby interesting, seeing how everyone does everything a little different and seeing the results.

I dose magnesium as my tank was always low. I use IO reef and my mag was around 1000, which messed up my ca and all levels.

That makes sense.
So I guess I add more to my daily changes and see if the algae is reduced. Geesh, that is like 14 gals of water everyday.

My levels were always 1050 forever, no issues with any other levels. The Internet convinced me to try it with my new tank, I see no change/benefit to adding it, other than relieving me of more money. :)

Maybe I will reconsider doing daily water changes. I just did a 55gal change yesterday and everything is looking way better today.

Water changes
 

When I had my 10g nano a couple years ago I changed a cup of water everyday and the tabk thrived. Now I do 15% weekly and it seems to be working. I've got good growth from everything