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phys 
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Joined: March 04 2011
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 Topic: straight water changes are not enough
Posted: December 11 2012 at 3:10am |
so after going to the last club meeting and remembering (more so being reminded) that I have only been doing 15-20% water changes on both my 75 and 25g tanks, I decided to do some testing. And as I confirmed, my alk was terribly low at 5 KH and my calcium was 360 and 340, respectively. NO WONDER WHY MY CORALS SHOWED SLOW GROWTH! So in the next several days, I will be raising them. The last two days, I've already noticed an increase of growth after adding the first bits of supplements. I hope this bit of info will help sway those who dont supplement or test. I was quite surprised personally.
Edited by phys - December 11 2012 at 3:11am
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Adam Blundell
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Posted: December 11 2012 at 7:04am |
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Great reminder Paul, thanks for posting this.
Adam
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Molli
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Posted: December 11 2012 at 8:43am |
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When you say 15-20% water changes what do you mean? Weekly? Monthly? What kind of salt do you use? I think that weekly water changes with a good quality salt were enough for my biocube as my corals were growing quite well. Definitely not enough for my larger tank though -- its on auto dosing pumps.
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BobC63
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Posted: December 11 2012 at 12:15pm |
For small tanks (nanos and picos) water changes alone are usually enough.
But larger tanks, no way... especially with stony corals. Even a 15% weekly change is usually not enough in a larger tank.
Same reason why you can run a nano / pico skimmerless but usually need that skimmer and / or refugium on the bigger systems. Water changes alone cannot remove / dilute the organic pollutants sufficently in a larger system.
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- My Current Tank: 65g Starfire (sitting empty for 2+ years) -
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phys
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Posted: December 12 2012 at 1:39pm |
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I change 10-15% weekly to bi-weekly and even in my 20g, the parameters became that low. I'll be raising my salinity to 1.025 from now on to get the slight benefit of higher concentrations of Ca, Mg, and alk.
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: December 12 2012 at 11:29pm |
Each tank is different, but in my opinion it's not the size, but the fauna and flora that are growing in the tank. It's the demand for Alk and Ca created by Coralline algae, stony coral, snails and, a plethora of tiny bug exoskeletons that, like shrimp, use up Alk and Ca in large amounts continually.  I love Baking Soda (Alk) and Ice Melt (Ca) because it makes the hobby somewhat guilt (cash) free. It doesn't hurt that adding cheap chemicals makes water changes so easy no matter what size the tank. 10% every 1-2 months is all it takes to keep things doing nicely. Of course there is still some extra time and cash required to check Alk and Ca monthly. The good thing is that Nitrogen test kits (Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate) become unnecessary.
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phys
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Posted: December 12 2012 at 11:39pm |
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What do others use for magnesium supplements? I've been using the Seachem stuff and it's fairly expensive... anything out there that's a bit cheaper?
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Teknik777
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Posted: December 13 2012 at 12:07am |
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Bulkreefsupply! All your dosing needs under one roof!
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220 G SPS Display.
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Fatman
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Posted: December 13 2012 at 8:15am |
 phys wrote:
What do others use for magnesium supplements? I've been using the Seachem stuff and it's fairly expensive... anything out there that's a bit cheaper? |
Epsom Salts. Cheap and easy. When I get home from my business trip I'll PM you the link to the article that tells you how to make and dose it. Fat
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Akira
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Posted: December 15 2012 at 4:38am |
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for me BRS 2 part is simple , and just use the dosing calculator, then when you get tired of manual just step up to dosing the same . I have tried many things and all work , but a few extra $ to set and forget is awsome !!!!
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Dionysus
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Posted: December 15 2012 at 12:07pm |
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