Do you ever get tempted to do a really big waterchange?

If I had the ability to store the nearly 280g (whatever it works out to minus the overflow and rock and stuff) of my DT I would probably do the same (drain the tank to catch fish, and/or do the occasional "reallly big" w/c..)

What do you do with all the water you take out?

If I had the ability to make 150g of water in a single container that did NOT sit in my kitchen, then ya, I'd do one once a month.

To do the tank drain party thing, I borrow some 50g barrels from my LFS.

Having problems with chemistry? levels out of whack? Can't get those pesky nutrients down? Don't waste your money on those new-fangled and expensive additives, try new the new and improved 98% water change! Flush those problems down the drain and Presto! It's like you've got a new tank!

I :laluot_29: giant water changes

Exactly ... it is one big thing I miss about running smaller tanks!!

In the scheme of larger tanks my 280g is on the smaller side but I am still unable to do anything larger than 50g at time. I could maybe bump it up to something larger if I did a 50g changeout in the DT and then empty the sump and then use *it* as a second mixing chamber but I don't like to use water that hasn't been mixing for at least a few hours.

Buddy of mine on an acreage has something like a 1000g rain barrel (thing is massive!!). Something like that would be awesome to have onhand but there's .. kind of not a lot of options to put such a beast.

Wish I had thought to sink one of those in the ground under my deck before I built the deck and then just build that sucker around/on-top of it. :lol: Next house maybe for sure!

i was thinking that too tony... nice cistern. imagine the cost to heat it to temperature though especially in the winter.

Imagine the cost of heating it just enough so that it didn't freeze to a solid block of ice and rupture during that two weeks of minus 1 million we just had, let alone keeping it warm enough to put in your tank.

Biggest water changes I did was 160g, made it easy to mix salt and kept my sharks happy

I typically do 110g+ water changes at a time, filling 2 x 55g barrels to the top & usually mixing up a bit more. However, that takes care of the 165g, 60g 2' cube & RSM. Sometimes I will do a third barrel to give a bigger overall water change.

BTW, just caught out a whole bunch of tangs, rabbitfish & wrasse from a friend's tank and we took out the rock, rather than drained the tank.

Brad, how did your low tide similation go? Found a new home for the tang?

Todd took the yellow and the purple is recovering in the frag tank. Not sure what to do with it now. Pretty sure the Achilles will take it out if I out it back in the DT. Might try and trade for a Moorish Idol :)