Water Changes When Nitrates consistently read zero?

[PoonTang]

Originally Posted by Lance

I just read an article by Dr. Dieter Brockman who says:

Quote: "It is the experience of many aquarists that a change of between 10 and 20 per cent of the water per month is optimal for reef aquariums; higher percentages are, in my opinion, counterproductive. For fish-only tanks, the percentage can be significantly higher, up to 50 percent per month. Partial water changes that go beyond this limit for reef aquariums endanger the system's stability and increase algal growth. For any aquarium system, small and frequent partial water changes are also preferable to a single large one per month: Small volume changes are less hard on the chemical parameters of the system. The current approach to my 220-gallon tank is to replace 12 percent (aproximately 25 gallons) per month, divided into four weekly changes of roughly 6 gallons.

Yaaaaaaay, now I can cut back on my water changes with a clear conscience.

[mark]

any picture of Dr. Dieter's 220g

[Lance]

Originally Posted by mark

any picture of Dr. Dieter's 220g

Nope, no pics in the article. Maybe it's an algae-enfested mess: Sometimes the experts can't grow anything.

[raceit]

Are you suggesting I may be an expert? From diatom farmer to expert in one day. How great is that.

[Lance]

Originally Posted by raceit

Are you suggesting I may be an expert? From diatom farmer to expert in one day. How great is that.

I don't know about expert but if Japan went crazy over algae like they did with the pine mushrooms a few years back, I'd be rich. Algae exporter extroardinaire!

[steve fedyk]

I do daily water changes, in my 120G. I do about 1.5G a day. Its automated on a timer and drain.
My tank has never looked so good.

[christyf5]

There for awhile there was a thread on RC advocating waterchanges via wet skimming. It was quite an interesting read and I did think about it for awhile but it was still too labor intensive for me

[Lance]

Originally Posted by christyf5

There for awhile there was a thread on RC advocating waterchanges via wet skimming. It was quite an interesting read and I did think about it for awhile but it was still too labor intensive for me

Yeah, I read that thread. I even tried it a few times, but like you said, it was more trouble than it's worth.

[Eb0la11]

Hmmm, interesting topic. I think I might do the larger changes once a month though. Just "easier" haha. Mostly cause Id need another barrel to mix in for the smaller more frequent changes.

[Delphinus]

Salt buckets work pretty good for that sort of thing though, and odds are you'll have a half dozen of those before long in this hobby anyhow.. I find that the size of system makes a big difference too. My big tanks get by with a 25% monthly w/c if need be. Any nano (well let's say 40g or under) that I've tried that on ends up as a mess. Whereas 10% weekly and they do great. And the big tanks do better on the same weekly schedule. So I think it stands to reason that perhaps even more frequent, but smaller (and thus more manageable) w/c's might even be that much better.