Improving benefits of waterchanges

I rarely do water changes and when I clean the floor in the aquarium and any other floor areas in my waters, I just run a pump over the area to lift all that is tucked away in there and what catches on pre filters gets washed out under the hose when I clean them, usually my corals go nuts when I do this due to planktonic bacteria and benthic tasty bits now on the menu.
I usually only ever clean the front glass as I value any algae anywhere that is not lowering the visual aspect of the aquarium a great deal or any that may be creating a blockage situation.
For me, if its algae, it’s valuable, oh and I don’t have a substrate, there is no room,lol!
 
mandarinman said:
Haha sounds like you would rather waste electricity than trot to get some free saltwater. Lmao
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Rather wast a few cents of electricity than liters of petrol...:whistling: Besides I don't trust Blouburgs water... Too much run off coming from Eden on the bay...
 
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MistaOrange said:
Rather wast a few cents of electricity than liters of petrol...:whistling: Besides I don't trust Blouburgs water... Too much run off coming from Eden on the bay...
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Only collect when water is beautifully blue. If not I use two oceans or if I am in the mood I do a salt mix with ro
 
Every system and reefer for themselves.

Depending on your husbandry routine. Your lifestyle. If you do not believe in water changes. And it works for you. Yeah. Good. If you run multiple dosers and do water parameter test frequently. Yeah.

I do not run any automating dosing, or any chemical reactors. OK, it is a softy dominated system. It fits my work schedule. For 2013 I left the tank for total of 28 weeks alone. My brother only dumped more food and checked the RO drum. Longest period on its own was 3 weeks. Did my tank survive? No actually it thrived. That saying to keep your hands out of the water is true.

Only thing I did was my every second week water change when I could do it. Yes, did miss at times. Longest without was a month. I do not even test my parameters. Did not test it even once in 2013. Think my test kits might just as well be expired.

Do I siphon my display. Nope.
Do I feed a lot. Yes

So yes, every system is different. Feeding volume different. Fish sizes and numbers different. Corals numbers different. Different Bio-load. Different filtration options.

I'm almost never home, and when I am there, I want to be lazy. No time to check reactors, filter socks, or any other media that can clog up. Water changes waste 30 minutes of my weekend. Whoopie
 
Yup this thread is not to discuss wether or not to do waterchanges but rather if you do waterchanges what to do to make it more effective
 
mandarinman said:
Yup this thread is not to discuss wether or not to do waterchanges but rather if you do waterchanges what to do to make it more effective
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Yip.
OK, my system is not perfect either.
Since about September I started to get detritus settlement on my main DSB. Why? not sure as I did increase my sump turnover rate.

I do siphon that DSB now when I do my waterchanges. Get most of the pea soup removed.
 
I have been doing my weekly water changes - never skipped one -until about two months ago. Our river mouth has decided to stay open so I am not that comfortable collecting NSW at the moment
(and got a bit lazy) lol. Even though the NSW I collect is not completely PO4/No3 free, the ph and CA a bit low - I have definitely lost some colour on my sps. I have been keeping my parameters stable and been dosing vits and amino acids etc. but I am not getting the same colours on my sps I must say - I am going back to my regular water changes as soon as the water clears a bit. So I am all for water changes and I love NSW water changes as I feel you add trace elements/maybe plankton, bacterias etc you dont get in mixed s.w. correct me if I am wrong. But this is my 2c.
 
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mandarinman said:
Only collect when water is beautifully blue. If not I use two oceans or if I am in the mood I do a salt mix with ro
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If the water is green, it then has a very high concentration of phytoplankton and a little zooplankton feeding on them, both are valuable to your reef tank.
If it is brown, not much is happening yet in relation to algae/phytoplankton working on it.
If it is blue, it’s cleanish and less phyto life is present.
 
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