Maintenance

[Brett A Ross]

Hi everyone, my 75 has been set up for awhile now and I have read around here and on RC looking at different maintenance routines. I'm a little concerned that I have not seen my methods mentioned. With this in mind I would like to run them by you guys. So let me have it.

Dailey. I top off with ro/di in the AM feed then in the PM I change out around 1 gal of sw, empty the skimmer cup, it fills up daily since I added macro algae to my sump. Its very wet but I cannot get it to pull out the black stuff like before I added the macro, still nasty but wet. I also change the strainer pad I put in my overflow when it looks bad.

Weekly clean glass, mostly biweekly. I have never vacuumed the dsb, never looks bad clean-up -crew seems to take care of it

Monthly clean skimmer

Mostly is was wondering about the daily water changes I do this so I don't have to worry about heating the water. I keep 30 gal mixed and aged. I always dump the new water in my over-flow so it must run the complete distance of my 55 Gal sump and does not seem to effect my main tanks temp. This works well for me seems easier and was wondering why no one else appears to be doing this could there be a problem I was not thinking of ? Also anything I may be missing let me know. Thanks

[Reefland]

Looks like you've got it covered although your not doing water changes so to speak and I don't think 1 gallon per day is cutting it. You should always replace the skimmate water with saltwater, on top of doing water changes.

I would suggest starting a routine of 5-10% water changes weekly or bi-weekly. You'll be surprised when you start doing them the improvement they'll make.

[Brett A Ross]

I pull out gal. after top off and replace it with around 1.5 gal to make up for skimmed water. 10% in two weeks figures to 7.5gal. I should be changing around 14 gal in that same time period am I thinking correctly.

I also check my SG once a week and no3,po4,ph are also weekly. I check Amm. daily when i add anything new.

[Reefland]

I understand what you were saying and although you are changing water, I think you would still see benefits from doing a larger, 5-10% change in addition to what you are doing now. Nothing like pulling out 5 or 10 gallons of water and comparing it's color to the same amount of new ASW getting ready to go in the tank. ;)

[kevinpo]

I think the reason you don't see other people doing daily water changes is that it is too much work. Sometimes I'm so busy I don't even look at my tank for a few days.

Regards,
Kevin

[Poseidon]

Remember that 10 1% water changes will not have the same effect as a SINGLE 10% change does... By changing out such a small percentage the "toxins" still remain in a relatively high concentration.

Heres an example, if you have 100 ppm of X and you remove 1% of the total volume in the tank you may not even make a dent in the 100 ppm total since such a small percentage was changed, However if you take 10% of the total volume and replace it, then a larger portion of the toxin will be dilluted by the addition of the new water... like this: 1% of 100 = 1, 1% of 99= .99 etc etc then add them together equals 9.55% reduction over a 10 day period, so very SLOW. The longer you play out that formula the LARGER the difference becomes. A single 10% change will give a 10% reduction THAT DAY.

I guess what I am trying to say is a 1% change may be inperceptable to the tank inhabitants, but a 10% change will certainly be noticed.