1 day Water change

[wontonflip]

I saw a few articles here (I think) and online about doing a "big" water change -- taking out 20%, putting 10% of that in new saltwater, putting that in, taking out another percentage etc....anyone know what I'm talking about? LOL Can someone send me a link to an article/post that explains that? I'm making my rodi'd water now, and when I've got enough, I want to do one massive change to bring my nitrates down (which i know I can do with partial changes everyday, but if there's a faster and safer way to do it, I'd like to try it.

 

[daugherty]

just change 30% every couple days

 

[daugherty]

and find the source for the nitrates to much food old unclean filters and so on

 

[wontonflip]

Yeah, the nitrates have been off the charts since I inherited it. And tap water change didn't help since my tap has nitrates. heh. So, now that I've gotten my rodi filter, I'm collecting my water and preparing to do my water changes. But I read somewhere about a 1 day fix that will significantly lower my nitrates with one shot (something you do for extreme levels like mine). I don't have fish yet, just lr's and crabs and snails. Ammonia and nitrites are zero, ph is perfect. The nitrates are just from the poorly cared for lrs. I plan to do my weekly changes, but I was hoping to significantly drop the levels in 1 day, instead of spreading it out over a few days (which was my original plan). I read of the type of water change you do by taking old water, adding a percentage to new, adding it in the tank, then repeating 3 or 4 times. It is supposed to reduce the nitrates without getting rid of too much essential bacteria from the tank. Any clue?

My plastic tub is almost full of nice clean rodi'd water. Yay!

 

[daugherty]

do a 50% change one day and it will drop the levels by 50% you can do more than that but anymore than the will be a big shock to the life in the tank even a 50% will be a shock. just make shure that the new water is very close to the same temp and salinity before you add it to the tank.

 

[dustin_P74]

i dont see how adding some of the old water to the new water will work because the new water will have a nitrates reading of 0 but once you add old water to it your just putting nitrates in it and your not lowering it by the same amount that you could by just throwing out the old water

 

[Bifferwine]

I see what you're saying here. Instead of doing a 20% water change once a day, doing a 20% water change every hour or something?

Since you do not have fish, it's not really going to do any harm to try that, however your snails and crabs may suffer from the shock (after all, you still are taking out a lot of water and replacing it with new water, whether it's spread out over one day or ten).

I think that if you want to do up to a 50% change first, then smaller ones after that, it'd be okay.

Keep in mind that you are still not going to see a drastic reduction in nitrates very quickly though. With each water change you do, the effectiveness goes down.

For example, if your nitrates are at 100, and you do a 10% water change, they are now at 90 (a 10 point drop). If you do another 10% water change, they are now at 81 (a 9 point drop). If you do another one, they are now at 73 (an 8 point drop), etc. So you will be taking out fewer nitrates with every successive water change.

 

[sen5241b]

Equalize temp and salinity. If all is well you don't worry about equalizing PH but if your tank's Ph is off for some reason and the change out suddenly changes the tank Ph --your fish could die of Ph shock.

 

[wontonflip]

I found the article I found on melevsreef about the 1 day water change if you have high nitrates....http://www.melevsreef.com/reducing_nitrates.html

Any takes on this? While i'm still battling with nitrates (mainly because I haven't been able to buy a huge bulk of salt in one visit, so I kept running out of salt), it has gone down significantly. Before i would get 'red' with my test kit as fast as 2 minutes into the test. now i'm at a light orange -- I attribute it not only to the few water changes I've done as well as to completely eliminating my bioballs, wet/dry, and implementing the new sump with fuge. I'd like to do this suggested 1 day change, since I only have crabs and snails anyway, and even though I'm sure they don't like the high nitrates, they're doing well so far...no fish to kill :)

 

[yote]

Since you dont have any fish or corals yet.I'd about just set up a little 5 gallon tank or even a goldfish bowl.Then drain the display down to the sand.Then fill it back up with clean saltwater thats at the same salinity and temp as what was siphoned out.

 

[Oscarsdad608]

If you don't have any fish regular water changes should get rid of the nitrates.

 

[wontonflip]

LOL I was ready to just empty the tank, but didn't want to wipe out my crabs and snails. The process they talked about in that link seemed to be less stressful than just doing a 90% water change straight. thank god I'm patient and don't have a ton of money burning a hole in mypocket, otherwise I'd be quick to do the major change and buy my first fish asap once nitrates were done LOL