advise on water changes for 125 gallon tank

d.french

d.french

Reef enthusiast
been neglecting water changes to my tank and dosing for trace elements, but fighting phospates and hair algae so i'm gonna take some advice finally(cause i'm hard headed) and start water changes i just did 20 gallons tonight. So my question is what would be the a good schedule on a 125 gallon tank with softies(mushrooms, ricordeas, polyps, leathers, etc. 2nd how much should i change is 20 gallons good enough and how long should i mix new ro/di water with new salt(instant ocean).
 
right now using rest of instant ocean brand, than i'm gonna go through a different pet store thats got big 5gallon bucket of oceanic brand good for up to 200 gallons. i'll post a link
 
I like Oceanic so does alot of club members due to the buffering capabilities and calcium I was actually going to recommend it now as for your water canging 20 gals is actually succeptable due to the 10% rule of thumb which would be 12.5 you also need to think about your water placement due to LR and substrate which means you dont have 125 gals of water.
 
i think i'm gonna feed fish every other day also since most of what i got is either an algae eating fish or sandsifter, and pod eaters, i got gold stripe maroon clown, dragon goby, cleaner wrasse, sixline wrasse, lawnmower blenny, sailfin tang, yellow tang, flame angel, one mated pair of sailfin mollies, and pink spotted goby and also freshwater flounder acclimated to saltwater. Got light cycle at 8:00a.m. actnic come on until 10:00a.m. then 10k halides come on until 8:00p.m. than actnic until 10:00p.m. and all night white moonlights. So hopefully this will impact algae problems
 
yeah i thought about that also so i wanted to see what everyone thought about it in here. Hopefully get some helpful hints from big tank keepers in here, i went ahead with 20 gallons due to the fact water quality took a dip in last week, but need to know how much i should change percentage wise and how often.
 
you know that tank one the homepage of the forums beneath it it has RevReefers name he uses oceanic. So does Tin-Man, so do I and pat that I know of.
 
also one of my powerheads shot craps last week also so that could have contributed to water quality issue so i ordered a new last night one of the guys in our reef club slash(reef central) has a nice website and seio's were on sale i just ordered a seio 2600 for 59.00 with discount for being slash member so that was cool. website is thereefstop.com decent prices
 
rev's got a very nice tank love his aquascaping, i seen somewhere don't have a link but there was a site with top reef tanks and out of tons of tanks revs was no. 4 i believe.
 
as far as water changes go, 20 gal a week seems a bit much. I have always hear that less more often is better for the bacteria to keep up with the addition of new water. I only change 5 gallons a week in my 125 and it is fully stocked with fish and corals. I have 13 fish and 16 corals - all of which are doing great. I use instant ocean salt and I do have to dose alkalinity (sp?) and amino acids. My LFS has cheap I.O. salt versus Oceanic (which is a better salt, but is $15 more than I.O.) My parameters are perfect, although I have a touch of Phosphates, which is probably why I cannot keep Xenia alive for more than two weeks. All of my other LPS and softies as well as my three bubble tip anomenies (SP?) are doing great. Hope this helps.

-Dr Marco:sfish:
 
Dang,Yall got me thinking that I might be changing to much in my little 30.I been changing 5 gallon a week in it.
 
10% is a great rule of thumb. I believe each tank is different with the amount of live rock, fish waste, food added, and coral needs. changing 5gal in a 30 is probably too much. It is better to change less more frequently than one big change less often. I cannot judge any one elses tank, but my 5 gallon a week seems to keep every happy, even the shrimp - 3 cleaner and a blood shrimp, which the radiata has totally ignored for some fabulous reason. I love my tank. I wish I had a bigger one, but my wife would divorce me, so I will wait until I am rich and famous. :bounce:

Dr Marco:sfish:
 
I think my tank is overstocked (at least I admit it!) so I used to change 20% weekly but am seeing if 10% still keeps my water quality high.
 
things are looking a little better tonight since water change last night bobby came up this evening and traded me some coral i got his moon brain and gave him lots of free stuff, pom pom xenia, kenya tree, red star polyps, hairy mushroom, xtra rod and small propellar for mj mod kits. Bobby your daughter is sweet my daughter about started crying when she left she wants to come over and play already nice meeting you and family have to get together again later on and trade some more free stuff you got to find me one of those rock urchins never see them here.
 
i'm sticking with 20 gallons once a month i add 10 to 15 gallons a week in top off water, but gonna wait 2 weeks and do another water change than do it once a month.
 
I agree that you should wait about 2 weeks for your next water change. I always respect individuals own management of their tanks and will not bug you again about doing weekly water changes of a smaller amount. The reason behind it is less shock to the tank and the bacteria has more time to adjust to new water. Doing a large change less frequently depleats the bacteria on a larger scale and shocks the system. Good luck with your tank.

-Dr Marco:sfish:
 

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