water changes

[madison133]

hi
my son and I started our 50 g reef tank in Jan. We have 85 lbs live rock. Some mushrooms, polyps, a toadstool, one flame angel and a parasite eating fish, two hermits and a starfish. Plus I hate to admit but we still have one blue damsel that we couldn't catch. He gets along with the angel.Everything is doing well so far. We have been changing 10 gal of water weekly is this too often? Also, we usually have the water ready days before, but should I worry about the temperature of the new water? Plus, any suggestions on our next fish. Thanks for your help.
Linda

[StirCrazy]

Personally I would say you can cut down on the amount of water or the frequency off hand but this will depend on other things also. are you supplementing your Ca levels ect. with anything or are you depending on the water changes to maintain them? if the latter then you will have to keep up the frequent water changes to maintain the stability of your tank, so there are a few more questions that need to be answered be for we can say for sure.

Oh and welcome to the board

Steve

[madison133]

Thanks Steve. We have just been adding prime chlorine remover. Lately we have been adding coral accel to the tank because we added our first piece of soft coral (frogspawn) and fox something... I'll look into adding Ca.

[Beverly]

Hi Linda

Weekly water changes are perfect Make sure you also clean any foams in your filtration system in the outgoing changewater weekly as well. A 10g water change in a 50g system is about 20%. If it was my 50g I would probably only change about 7-8g weekly, but 10g is okay too.

Temp of the new water should be the same as that of the tank, plus the new water should be aerated. Put a 50w (or smaller) heater into your new water container as well as a small powerhead for aeration, and the new water will be just the way it needs to be.

As for new fish, I'm fond of tank raised ocellaris clownfish. They are often available at lfs. Get two and they will pair up, becoming constant companions.

HTH

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by madison133

Thanks Steve. We have just been adding prime chlorine remover. Lately we have been adding coral accel to the tank because we added our first piece of soft coral (frogspawn) and fox something... I'll look into adding Ca.

are you using tap water Linda? the water here in Victoria is very soft and pure but it does have a high free algae count which seams to transfer to tanks that use tap water here. another option you have is lowering your amount to 5 gal/week and use RO water from save on foods, this would cost you about 3 bucks a week for the water. by doing this you do not need to use prime which can be expensive and recent studies are suggesting that it doesn't behave quite as we would like in salt water.

If the 3.00 a week gets to expensive you could look at a RO unit down the road (big initial cost but water for less than 0.15/gal once you have it)

your frog spawn and fox are going to consume Ca, as well once Coraline algae takes off it is a huge consumer of Ca, so you want to keep a eye on that and supplement as necessary, a few ways to do this are by using a good two part additive, adding kalk to your make up water , or eventually if the demand justifies it adding a Ca reactor. of those mentioned the Kalk addition is the cheapest as long as you are evaporation enough water to allow its addition.

when mixing your new salt water you should, like Bev said, have a heater in the bucket to raise the tamp to close to that of the tank, also have a small power head to mix it and to keep it oxygenated (if you aren't already doing so)

My schedule for water changes is an 18 gal water change once a month, but I supplement my water chemistry with a kalk reactor and a Ca reactor (once I get it fixed ) so i am doing water changes solely for the purpose of replenishing trace elements and not for maintaining primary elements. some months I forget or am gone so it gets missed with out any detrimental effect.

So if you test for Ca, Mg, and ALK on a weekly basis and those levels are staying nice on a weekly schedule try lowering the amount of the water change to 5 gal.. if they still remain steady that is good and a cheep way to maintain levels, if not look at additives (which can get expensive) or a kalk drip (if you have water evaporation you can make up with a drip)

Steve

[madison133]

Steve & Beverly I can't thank you two enough. Yikes it's a miracle that we haven't killed everything off yet. Want to hear a true confession...we use tap water (were in Sooke, I just say Victoria because people don't seem to know Sooke). I worried about the temperature so I would add hot water and a bit of prime before changing the water so it felt warmer! How stupid is that.... We test nitrate, nitrite, ammonia ph etc...but that's it so far. We do have alot of puple algae. I asked about Kalkwasser when we started because I read it on the internet and the pet store said I didn't need it. Well I guess now I better do some more homework and buy some more tests...

Thanks again. I sincerely appreciate your great advice. Linda

[Skimmerking]

well you can always get a cold water distilled machince that throws out lots of waterits like a
ro machine
I have nevered botherd with tap water actually i have my 280 setup with most of cold tap water and ran it for 4 weeks with powerheads and lots of air. But you still can never get rid of all of that crap you get in the water

like
bev and stev siad ,use the
RO if you can and save up for the machine later .it will pay of i in the long run..

Mike