large tank water changes

[john wright]

i am looking at starting a large frag system 400 gal and was wondering what was the normal for water changes on something like that. looking for percentage and frequency i will have few if any fish lots of frags and a cleanup crew. sponsors please fill free to chime in with how you maintain your setups tanks

 

[enderg60]

Personally I have an automated system that does 0.5% daily and then I do 25% monthly on my 500g system(only about 370 actual gallons with all the rock.)

I also have two 200g tanks for mixing new water(one fresh one salt) and keep enough salt on hand so I can do a 100% water change at any moment if need be. And I have had to use it once and it was a life saver!

 

[john wright]

i do 10% weekly on my smaller stuff with fish i was just hoping to cut some cost by doing a little less on the frag system

 

[curtismaximus]

Are you planning on dosing or using a calcium reactor? Those can help keep your water changes to a minimum. Especially if you don't keep any fish in the system.

Here is a good video by BRS. If you can look through all the advertisements there is some decent info.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlpRATsz3ds&feature=youtube_gdata_player">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlpRATsz3ds&feature=youtube_gdata_player</a>

I would love to help anyway I can. Let me know if or when you get this thing rolling!

 

[acroholic]

I do daily 5 gallon automatic changes on my 450 net gallon system. Double headed Masterflex pump pulls fresh saltwater from a reservoir into the tank and pulls tank water out and to the outside.

Water leaving the tank comes upstream in the sump, and new water goes in downstream in the sump.

 

[tater]

For frag tanks 10% weekly is typically what I see. But you can never do enough water changes!

 

[curtismaximus]

Acroholic;880005 wrote: I do daily 5 gallon automatic changes on my 450 net gallon system. Double headed Masterflex pump pulls fresh saltwater from a reservoir into the tank and pulls tank water out and to the outside.

Water leaving the tank comes upstream in the sump, and new water goes in downstream in the sump.

Do you have pictures or a diagram of this?

 

[snowmansnow]

Acroholic;880005 wrote: I do daily 5 gallon automatic changes on my 450 net gallon system. Double headed Masterflex pump pulls fresh saltwater from a reservoir into the tank and pulls tank water out and to the outside.

Water leaving the tank comes upstream in the sump, and new water goes in downstream in the sump.

sounds like something I need to see

 

[acroholic]

Curtismaximus;880123 wrote: Do you have pictures or a diagram of this?

SnowManSnow;880447 wrote: sounds like something I need to see

Here is a pic of my dual head Masterflex setup. At this RPM setting my pump heads move about 13 ounces a minute, and they run for 46 minutes, which changes about 4.6 gallons in that period. Once every 2-3 weeks I add about 10 gallons to the sump, then use a Python to vacuum out any detritus that has settled, so it gets a bit more volume change than just the daily auto WC amounts.

alt="" />

Water pulls from this 32 gallon Brute container. I refill from the PVC pipe you see above the can. I notched out the Brute cover for the intake tube going to the pump.

alt="" />

Waste water goes into this Tee to the outside of the house. The two vinyl tubes are an overflow from my ATO reservoir to the outside and the other carries RO waste water to the outside.

alt="" />

 

[curtismaximus]

Acroholic;880514 wrote: Here is a pic of my dual head Masterflex setup. At this RPM setting my pump heads move about 13 ounces a minute, and they run for 46 minutes, which changes about 4.6 gallons in that period. Once every 2-3 weeks I add about 10 gallons to the sump, then use a Python to vacuum out any detritus that has settled, so it gets a bit more volume change than just the daily auto WC amounts.

alt="" />

Water pulls from this 32 gallon Brute container. I refill from the PVC pipe you see above the can. I notched out the Brute cover for the intake tube going to the pump.

alt="" />

Waste water goes into this Tee to the outside of the house. The two vinyl tubes are an overflow from my ATO reservoir to the outside and the other carries RO waste water to the outside.

alt="" />

Very nice, thanks for the info. I think I will use my free time to make my water changes easier. My mantis shrimp can wait!

 

[morganatlanta]

I have pretty much the same auto change pump setup with two 275 gallon totes to store water. It's awesome. The only limit to the changes is how much money I want to spend on salt.

 

[acroholic]

I refill the Brute from a 160 gallon water container that holds my new saltwater. I do this about ever 6-7 days. When you only do 4-5 gallons a day in a 450 net gallon system, I don't worry about temp or anything. I just match the salinity of the new water to the display.