Water changes

[rdavidw]

What is the best way to do water changes? I used to have fish only and would simply mix up the new salt water in trash cans and then drain my tank down while vacuuming the crushed coral. I would mark how far to go down to match the new gallons then pump the new water in with a power head. I now have some softies and one of them is growing up to the edge of the water. I am hesitant to drain a portion of the water and risk killing it.

 

Should I devise a way to pump the new water into the full tank and figure out a way to take the overflow out of the sump? What about a T in my return line after the pump with valves on both sides? Would it harm the mag 9 pump to run semi-dry?

 

There has got to be a simpler way to do this. Am I missing something obvious?

 

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Dave

Edited January 22, 2008 by rdavidw

[gastone]

There has got to be a simpler way to do this. Am I missing something obvious?

 

 

Yep.

 

Check out Daniel's thread here: http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=19180

 

Lot's of corals, anemones, sponges, et al come from intertidal zones and are exposed to air daily for extended periods of time. It has been documented that during coral collection often times corals will be pulled from the reef, placed on a dock (not in a holding bin either, but physically resting on the dock), often times overnight or longer, then boxed up and shipped.

 

The long and short of it... keep doing water changes they same way you were in your fish only. The corals can handle a few minutes sin water.

 

Garrett.

[phisigs79]

The coral will be fine being exposed to air. I have had SPS out of the water for a good 10 min without problems. Somepeople have their overflow hooked up to drains where you just open the valvue and it drain the water to the sewer. Then they have trashcans with new saltwater. The have a pump in the trashcan that is plumbed into the sump. Turn on pump and fill back up. You could also do something similair with two pumps and a sink

[flowerseller]

I know this Bozo that left newly mounted frags out overnight on his frag tray.

I didn't realize it until I stopped by my house for lunch the next day and saw them.

 

For me,

I add 10g of water to my system, go to church, and then vaccuum detritus from the sump.

I do this weekly and never even have to shut my system down to do so.

[phisigs79]

so did this Bozos frags make it?

[treesprite]

Sand instead of crushed coral and having a sump will make doing water changes a whole lot easier. I used to do what you are doing, and the amount of time it took to do a water change was double what it is now.

[rsarvis]

I have a 180g, 40g sump. I use a 20g trash bin full of saltwater (so about a 10% water change).

 

OLD METHOD:

I used to vacuum sand while doing water change, but that was laborious, it required me to turn off the return pump from the sump (and powerheads near the top of the tank, too), and it required another trash bin to siphon stuff into, draining down the water to a certain level, then adding the new water, then pumping out the nasty water and cleaning the nastified trash bin--i.e. at least tripling (if not more) the time it took me to do a water change. Plus, coralline doesn't do as well outside the water as people are saying corals generally do, so there'd be a die-off at the top of the back wall. Result--I didn't like doing water changes.

 

NEW METHOD:

Now, I don't bother with the sand-vacuuming at all. I start pumping the new water into the sump and after the water level rises a bit, I have a 20' tubing that I string from the tank itself to the kitchen sink drain--I just suck on it to start the gravity siphon. The pump and gravity siphon don't go at the same speed, so I always make sure to pay attention to the water level in the sump, but it's not that big a deal. And that's it, no need to turn off anything, only takes 10-15 minutes, plus another 5-10 to get tubing out and put it all away. Now, I actually WANT to do water changes, and that's probably the most important part of it all.

 

Some people have auto-water-change systems, which is awesome. I don't really have the space for such a set-up, but I'm happy now that I have this streamlined process.