euphylia ok for tank and water change questions

[Kunhardt]

My LFS has just received a lot of euphylia. I remember u guys saying when i first asked about frogspawn that euphylia are quite forgiving...it take this to mean hardy?

My question is will a euphylia be ok in my 3 and a half month old tank? As far as i can tell my lighting, flow, etc should meet its needs on that level. My only concern at this point is my nitrates are sitting between 15-20ppm. Plan on doing a 50% water change this weekend and hope that will bring it down a bit and would then probably look into getting it on Monday. Got a green zoanthus last week thursday, polyps finally opened up yesterday properly and its looking nice and healthy.

A follow on to the water change...is it ok to do many water changes in the space of a few days? Like doing a 50% water change 3 or 4 times over the space of a week? Reason being i am changing from the RO sea salt mix to NSW and want to try and remove all old water from tank over a period of water changes. My thoughts are...maybe wrong here, but if i do 50% water change i have 50% new water and 50% old, do another 50% water change i am then getting rid of another 25% of the old water etc? Would this be right or am i waaaaaay off here?
Started my tank by using tap water and salt mix, some poor advice given to me...and anyone who lives in EL can tell you our tap water is BAD. I am prosuming this has also been a cause for my high nitrates and GHA growth over these past few months.

Please help me out with some info. Thanks

 

[Mike]

Ok, tap water contains many nasties including phosphates and nitrates, these will be the cause of your GHA (the phosphates) and general poor conditions because of the nitrates, using a phosphate remover will rid you of the GHA.
Water changes;- much more than 10% at a time can actually upset the chemical balance of the tank, if i were you i would stick to 10%, nothing good happens quickly in marine tanks, the change from salt mix to NSW will take longer but your tank will be the better for it, but don't forget you will still need R/O water for top ups.
As long as your Phosphate, Ammonia and Nitirites are zero and nitrates are going down i would say that yes a euphylia would be ok in your tank, i had one after 2 months and it ballooned in size by the time i sold it a year or so later, it started out a tennis ball size and it ended up like a football.
To help your tank and it's inhabitants, you need to set up a regular maintenance programme of water change and replacement of filters (phosphate remover for example)
Good luck.

 

[Kunhardt]

Thanks mike. So 10% water change a week would be ok? or every 2 weeks? At the moment I am doing a 10% water change once every 2 weeks and cleaning filter materials etc once a week. In what form do phosphate removers come? Is it drops you would add to the water or is it in the form of equipment? Definately think it will be a good idea for me to get it.

 

[Mike]

Thanks mike. So 10% water change a week would be ok? or every 2 weeks? At the moment I am doing a 10% water change once every 2 weeks and cleaning filter materials etc once a week. In what form do phosphate removers come? Is it drops you would add to the water or is it in the form of equipment? Definately think it will be a good idea for me to get it.

you can get phosphate removers in a few different forms, personally i prefer rowaphos in a fluidized reactor, but it may be down to what your lfs actually sells, but as long as you remove it somehow it probably isn't that critical which method, inj fact i'm sure the experienced reefers here could argue the point of each method for now till eternity

Water changes, i'd do 10% per week, for at least the first 6 months, testing is also important, once you are more adept at looking after the tank and can monitor the subtle changes in the chemistry you may be able to go 2 weeks without a water change.