Question about water changes

Dooz

New member
I have had my reef tank for 3 years now and the last year or so I've been doing weekly water changes. I have 90 gallong tank and I usually take out 15 gallons each week. I have to say, it's a lot of work! I used to do water changes every 2-3 weeks or so and take out more water but I've read that it's always better to do them more frequently. I would like to get back to doing it less frequently, but I don't want to mess with anything since my system is used to weekly. I was thinking I would gradually get back to once every 2 weeks. Any suggestions?
 
That'll be fine...the more mature and stable a tank is, the more you can spread the water changes out...as long as you don't feed too heavily.
 
I used to do 20% wc once every 2-3 months on my reef but that was from the start. Now with the new tank, I thinking once a month same amount.
 
I like to do my WC every week but only 5 gal. at a time. I feel it is less stress on my fish and corals than a bigger volume of water being changed, and only takes me about 5 min. total to do it. I don't think you have to do 15 gal on your tank every week. My tank is 120 gal. and 5 gal. is more than enough IMHO.
 
I do 15 gallons every 2 to 3 weeks on heavily stocked 75g sps reef and everything is ok once a week is a waste imo unless its like 5gallons or so
 
I do 10G/week on my 90G reef. My tank does better with weekly changes and i get better sps growth than when I used to do 20G every 3 weeks.
 
Thanks guys. I figured I was doing WC too often and taking out too much water. Am I doing more harm then good with what I'm doing now? I am going to scale it back gradually and hopefully I can get back to doing something once every 3 weeks. Less work for me!
 
IMO you aren't harming your livestock by doing weekly water changes. I don't think you'll have a problem doing biweekly water changes though.
 
What kind of skimmer do you run? The more efficient the skimmer, the longer you can get away with WC's. I've done one so far on a 75G system that was set up in June (mostly because I'm lazy), but I run an ASM G3, so it can pull out enough to keep it going. If upgrading the skimmer is a possibility, I think it would help toward your goal.
 
My tanks is doing much better cutting down on water changes. I'm doing them now every 2-3 weeks and dosing with c balance. I use to do it every week
 
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