Water Changes

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Beverly

All tanks benefit from the new water's trace elements that the corals, macroalgae, etc. remove over the course of a week. The bigger the tank, the more corals, fish, inverts it has and all remove trace elements from the water.

Um, so why are we using Ca reactors and such to put the trace elements back in? I don't think you should use a blanket statment like this because it will not hold true in all cases.. for nanos and such sure.. for skimmerless and such.. sure.. but if you spend a lot of money to get equipment that removes "nasties" and other equipment that replenishes "trace elements" then overdoing water changes is actualy counter productive.. take my tank for Eg.. I maintain my Ca at 465 as of now and my Alk at 13.2. fresh Salt soultion mixes up at a Ca of 360 and a alk of 6 or 7, so by doing water changes I actualy drop my levels. so my equipment has to work to bring them back up..

If you look at a container of ARM by Carbsea it is listed as "complete" material restoring trace elements as well as the main ones..

so I will stand by my original statement "it entirely depends on the tank and the equipment you have one it as to how frequent and how large of water changes you should do..

Steve