Water Change Ideas

M

mermaiddreams

Premium Member
I have set-up a brand new 90 gallon tank with a 30 gallon refugium/sump that I have just done a leak test on. The plumbing looks great (no leaks!) and I am ready to drain everything in order to add the live sand, live rock and salt water. Draining the tank today won't be a problem because there is nothing in it - but I was wondering how most people do their maintenence water changes? The canopy for the aquarium stand is too heavy for me to remove by myself, so it would be really difficult for me to try to remove the water from the top of the tank. Does anyone out there pump out the old water from their sump? And if so, what type of pump do you use? I'm only removing 15 gallons at a time, so I don't need a monster sized pump. Are there any drawbacks to doing it this way? I am doing my best to anticipate these types of things - and this will be the first of many questions I'll have for you experts! This forum is a great resource for newbie's like me- and thanks in advance for your advice!
 
Use a powerhead with a hose to drain tank for water change.

I use a siphon hose without a powerhead for mine though.
 
I believe most people with sumps do the water changes from there. This will also keep the water level in the display the same during the water change. Like Please_Fly_AA said, put a power head in the sump and pump the used water into a waiting bucket on a roller dolly. Then put the pump in the waste bucket and pump it into a drain. Next fill that bucket to the same level with new water and pump it back into the sump so that you know you've added the same amount that you removed.

An extra powerhead and a length of hose are one of the reefer's best friends. It saves having to lift heavy buckets of water.

Go to www.melevsreef.com and look for the link on changing water - study every link on his site to learn a lot of great stuff.
 
Thanks for your input! I'm nervous about this giant box of water in my livingroom - and like your ideas for minimizing fish water spilling on my white carpet. Thanks and have a great weekend!
 
@MermaidDreams wrote:
Thanks for your input! I'm nervous about this giant box of water in my livingroom - and like your ideas for minimizing fish water spilling on my white carpet. Thanks and have a great weekend! said:
Honestly there isn't a best way do it other than to be careful :) You can get a rubber mat though, cut it in the size of the tank with wrap-arounds about 1ft or so deep on the sides of the tank and a few ft in front, with enough to lip up around the base so it goes up the front of the stand. Just roll it up when you are done (after drying any water that spilled.

If you are referring to spills in the stand itself, the best thing there is to add wood trim around the inside border then epoxy it into a 'tray'. Some people actually put plastic trays or rubberized trays under their stands and set the sumps and the like inside it.

One thing that you will want to do is put something behind the stand (provided you left 4 or 5 inches behind it) over the carpet, like a plastic chair mat or something like that. Most of the problems I have had have come from the salt creep and such that falls behind. You can easily vaccum it up, but you need some room behind the tank for that and even then, you still get salt on it. The plastic eliminates the contact and makes it even easier to vaccum up.

You might also want to put something on the wall... spalshes and salt creep can get on the drywall too. If you have a good paint, it should hold up, but over years the salt will break down that paint.
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Thanks for the rubber mat idea. The mats are much more substantial than the plastic I had planned on using. I drained the tank tonight (with no drips!) and I’m all set for the sand, rock and salt water to get here tomorrow!
 
i just use a hose and siphon water from the sump in an old salt bucket. put a few towels down under it first. when one bucket fills, i start on another. my hubby totes them out for me since i can't lift them with my bad back. thank goodness for him! then i just do the reverse and siphon in the new water in the sump. i usually pull my coffee table over to the aquarium for that and set the new water in the 5 gallon jug on the table so it will be higher than the sump so it flows in better. its really easy to just siphon the water. i usually don't even get any yucky salt water in my mouth any more! lol! :)
 
Hi Mandy,

Thanks for responding to my post. I'll be doing my first water change tomorrow and I'm glad to see that other people just siphon water out of their sump. Mine holds 30+ gallons so it will be nice not to have to disturb the display tank. How nice to hear that you have a hubby that can help with the lifting part too - the water is heavier than it looks! Candace
 
I have a display refugium sitting beside my tank, but the same principle applies- I pump water out of the fuge after turning the pump off and use that same pump to pump in new water. A water change takes about 3 minutes, and then I can drain the old water at leisure using a python.
 
Hi Scott,

Glad to know someone else in Coppell! Just a quick question for you - my live rock (some what pre-cured) has been in my tank just a week today and I plan on doing a 20% water change each week for these next 3 or 4 weeks. Should I be changing more than that, or should I just watch the water chemistry and base the % water change on that? There isn't alot of dead sponges or debris coming off of it, but the stuff coming out of the protein skimmer is pretty stinky. Thanks for your advise...Candace
 
Scott and others...

Maybe you guys can shed some light on a question that has been on my mind when considering a automatic water change, or constant water change addition to my system.

The setups I have seen, like the Litermeter water exchange module... is that it will pump out water as it pumps new in. Obviously you do this over time, but what I don't understand is if its small amounts over a long period of time, does it really do a water change? If you pull out say 30 gal all at once and replace with 30g of new, that is a change. Bad out, good in... but if its slow like 30g over the course of a day, your taking some of the good out with the bad so the effective change would be much less. If you want the same results you get with a the all at once method, I would think you would end up having to pump in/out much more volume.

Also I have seen some constant change setups, where they are pumping small amounts in/out over the course of days. In that case, what happens with the evaporation?? Seems that if you are normally evaporating 3-5G per day, a constant change method would end up causing salinity to rise since that evap is still taking place yet you are still pumping saltwater into the system.

Or am I missing something?
 
*nod* it is less effective, just like 3 x 10g water changes does not equal one 30g water change.

100 -10% - 10% -10% = 72.9 whereas 100 - 30% = 70

The smaller the amount, the less effective the change.. BUT.. if you increase the frequency, it comes back up. Additionally, more frequent smaller changes keeps things stable, rather than the potential of a large shock.

Re: ATO w/ continuous water changes- as long as you're putting back in exactly the same amount you're taking out, you're not affecting salinity. Sure, the ATO might kick on when an amount of water is removed, but when the water change puts it back, you'll be "over" your float level, and the salinity will come back to the same place.
 
I do fifty gallon water changes once a month on a 220 gallon tank. I siphon the water out of the tank while at the same time pump the new water back into the sump. I slow the pumped water a little at times to keep it even. I am sure some new water is mixed and comes back at out. But it keeps the tank pretty stable and level during the water change process.
You will also find that Home Depot carries these 4x6 pieces of indoor/outdoor carpet that are fairly cheap to use near the tank when you are working on it. They absorb some water when you make small spills, which helps.
 
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