Water Change ?

[psycho-killer]

hey all,

i have a 1000 litre system wich consists of a 750 litre display and about 300 litre sump,

with the 3 halides i lose alot of water through evaporation and i do about 50 litres a week that get lost to evap, will that be ok as water chages or will i still need to do water changes except just adding top ups ?

 

[thomas10051988]

if im not mistaken you will still have to do water changes to lower nitrite levels

 

[ox5477]

You need water changes no matter what. Though, for a typical marine system, the water changes are usually less frequent. An exception though is a marine pred tank in which large amounts of waste are still created, and then the typical once a week or once every two weeks is the norm.

By the way.. when doing a wc, you will be removing nitrate. Nitrite should never be present in any noticable amounts in your tank except when cycling. If it, thats not good as it can be very poisonous to your stocking

 

[jeasko]

also the maths will tell you that the percentage water top up is only 5% per week of the total system amount, where as most people will recommend either 10% weekly or a 20-25% bi weekly water change to replace trace elements and remove unwanted waste products.

 

[andywg]

The evaporation is only water that is going out leaving salt behind. This needs to be topped up with RO water (in a reef, dechlorinated tap water is fine in a FOWLR or FO system).

To perform a water change you have to acctually drain the water from the tank and then replace it with new salted water.

On a larger system, many people drop the percentage down somewhat. I perform around 5% a week/fortnight on my system.