Is there any risk in doing to many (much) water change?

[edulover]

I was just wondering if doing to much (as in volume) and many (as in daily or bi-weekly) water changes will hurt fish or coral. Will large volume or regular water changes put your tank at risk in any way? What about new tanks? This is not related to my tank....just curious. Thanks in advance for the input.

Eddie

 

[jdavid]

If the person is fighting algae, and doing WC without RO/DI water then they are not doing much of anything to remove the fertilizer for the algae, phosphates.

I have read that doing many small WC is not harmful, but nothing about large volume, but also never heard of anything over 50%.

Only what I have read though

 

[heathlindner25]

I could be wrong but I seriously doubt it would hurt, I've done up to 100 percent in a week, from what I can tell corals and fish love it. buy 100 percent I mean 2- 15 gallon water changes a week on a 30 gallon tank

 

[jdavid]

lol Kohl's. autocorrect?

 

[heathlindner25]

JDavid;839785 wrote: lol Kohl's. autocorrect?

I fixed it...lol hell, I did a 12 gallon water change Friday and I'm making another 8 gallons , and this is on a 36 bow front I call a 30 because of sand and rock

 

[rdnelson]

If parameters are very close to identical I would see no problem with very large water changes. But, since the water is not identical, a large enough WC will change the chemistry in a very short time frame. Fast changes are tough on both coral and fish in my opinion. To me, anything over about 30% would worry me.

 

[heathlindner25]

rdnelson99;839790 wrote: If parameters are very close to identical I would see no problem with very large water changes. But, since the water is not identical, a large enough WC will change the chemistry in a very short time frame. Fast changes are tough on both coral and fish in my opinion. To me, anything over about 30% would worry me.

this tank is all sps, and growing like crazy. my parameters don't have time to go out of whack,

 

[rdnelson]

heathlindner25;839792 wrote: this tank is all sps, and growing like crazy. my parameters don't have time to go out of whack,

You never should have said that!!! You know that when it comes to reefs, Murphy was an optimist.

 

[ripped tide]

I've bumped up to doing 60 gallon water changes(in a 120total volume) weekly.

 

[heathlindner25]

Ripped Tide;839798 wrote: I've bumped up to doing 60 gallon water changes(in a 120total volume) weekly.

I'm telling ya! Corals love it

 

[jdavid]

I have heard that corals love real ocean water even more. It is filtered, and ph balanced. expensive though

 

[falos]

large wc with matched parameters are fine as long as it is a constant you can do 100% week full drain and refill but only if you do it from day 1 of the tank being set up if not eny rapid drop in nitrate or phosphate will shock sps and can lead to lots of problems lots of nano tanks do this you have 5 to10 min to refill without hurting the corals or bio filter as long as you spray the corals down so they dont dry out

 

[darren24]

I have a 60 cube with about a 20G sump. I do 2 5g water changes a week sometimes 3.

Darren

 

[ralph atl]

I do 30% to 40% weekly water changes, and as long as parems match including temp.....you are good to go.

 

[jennm]

Brian found out the hard way this week, that a 30% water change can crash some corals

 

[cedzaquaddiction]

I do 15 gallons a week or 35 gallons every two weeks in my 120g and 30g (20g water volume) sump. Depending on what kind of week I had, and if I've done anything to my tank or accidentally overfed too much. LOL...

 

[rdnelson]

JennM;841097 wrote: Brian found out the hard way this week, that a 30% water change can crash some corals

While it could be something else, I am leaning that way too. Because I worked all weekend the week before last preventing my normal water change, and thought I had a nitrate problem, I did 15% Saturday and another 15% Sunday. Many of my corals look like dog doo doo at the moment.

 

[jennm]

In our case, the big water change was the only variable. My huge chalice crashed. (And a handful of others). Not all the corals crashed... but the one that meant the most to me, did.

Jenn

 

[rdnelson]

Oh no!!!!! That was such a cool coral. :-(. Did any of the frags make it?

 

[jennm]

Oh we have frags of it. The novelty of the big one was its sheer massiveness.

Bummed... and hard lesson learned. System had a 30% water change, water was well mixed, heated, parameters matched. Something didn't bode well with the chalice, and a few others. When a huge coral RTNs, there is collateral damage.

Jenn