HELP: How to perform Large Water Change

[np73]

How large a water change can I perform?

2 months back, I took over a 4x2x2.5 tank from previous home owner, so inherited everything in there lock stock and barrel.

Livestock include:

- 2x yellwo tang (1x juvie)

- 1x palette tang

- 2x firefish

- 1x false perc (juvie)

- 3x wrasses (red corris, green, some other)

- 1x spore angel

- 2x damsels

- 1x flame angel

- assorted mushrooms

- 1x sand sifting sea star

- 2x turbo snail

As I have been rather busy with renovation works on the house, all I have been doing up till now is top up with distilled/NSW via the sump tank, and once-a-month WC of around 5% only. In between I have been feeding the livestock with Form1, Form2, mysis, spirulina and such.

Noticed the 2x yellow tangs and the 1x regal tang showing signs of ich. They could have had it for a while now. The 2 tangs showed have very bad fin corrosion and looked very pale. So I did a test on the water params. I have also had 1x spore angel and 1x damsel disappear in the tank (prob died somewhere in the tank).

I found that:

- Ammonia close to 0ppm (not zero thats for sure)

- Nitrite 0ppm

- Nitrate - ard 40ppm

- Phosphate - cant remember, but its in mid range in the colour chart

Having gone through some of the resources on the itnernet, its recommended to do water change to reduce the nitrate and phosphate levels.

Problem is this is my first attempt at such a tank size, and first shot at marine tank too. I have never in my life had to handle such a large body of water..........so..............

1) How large a water cahnge can I perform? 50% at one go?

2) As for the water, i suppose then it must be treated NSW (ie from Irwana etc)?

3) How do I perform such a large change? What equipment must i use to do this?

I only have this teeny weeny cheapo siphon at my disposal, and up till now I have been siphoning only from the sump tank below.

4) Can I get professsionals to do this large water change?

In the meantime, I have dumped in 3 bags worth of AquaPharm Pur-II into the sump tank to temp stop the ammonia-nitrite buildup.

5) Should I also get the phosphate removers?

6) Should I invest in a nitrate filter thingy?

Im really hopelessly lost in this whole thing, and I just dont want the tank inhabitants to live a hard sad existence anymore.

Advise?!! Pleaseeeeee!

[yikai]

the nitrate 40ppm is fine. for a FOWLR, 40 ppm is no problem. for a reef tank, its rather high but nothing to worry about. don't need to do massive water change. slowly do smaller changes and bring it down. the other bothering thing is the PO4. are u running a reef tank? if so, get the PO4 down quickly. if FOWLR, dont need to worry so much.

ammonia is not zero? your ammonia should not be anything except zero. try to test again using another test kit. if ammonia is present it means that the biological system isnt fast enough break ammonia down into nitrate and nitrite radicals. dose bacteria and do WC.

your main prority now is to get the ammonia to 0, reduce the PO4. NO3 can deal slowly for now, don't panic.

you can either change water by getting NSW from iwarna or get your own salt mix. i suggest getting NSW instead of salt mix now since you're doing such large scale WC and salt mix is too expensive and needs time to settle down. Get a second hand pump and attach a hose to it and drain out the water from the sump tank. any pump will do, cheap 1 is best. i use my chiller's eheim to do the job. pump the water out from the sump into a pail and dispose. then replace with NSW.

WC slowly. start with around 40-50%? then slowly reduce until you see good results. use a good reliable test kit like salifert please. good luck!

[arcanehacker]

Prepare really BIG pails of saltmix water first.. depending on how much you need.. good to leave it for a day with flow. You can just put in a small pump or wavemaker.

or you could just buy NSW but still check the salinity levels and buff up if required..

Amount would depend on how much is large water change. 50% can be quite stressful to the fishes. You can actually do 20-30% the next few weeks or every 2 weeks is ok.

Then just siphon out water from main tank with a hose. Stop at the required level (this you gotta gauge). Then just fill up you tank with the newly prepared water. If you are using a sump, just pour the water in there and the return pump should do the work..

[np73]

thanks arcanehacker and LemonLemon for the advise.

Think I will go down to Irwana again. Problem is - just how big is a jerry can? I have 2 currently, but am not sure just how much water volume each holds, so I cant really gauge how many cans worth of NSW to get. I am assuming each is 30l?? All I know is they are damn heavy when full. Always run the risk of spraining my back when fetching the 2x cans back home. Assuming each holds 30l, then all I can do per WC is only 10% of tank capacity, which also means I will need to do this WC routine many times over to get to the desired water params.

This is the exact reason why I was (actually still am) contemplating getting someone to supply 50% NSW (ard 250l) and change for me. Surely someone who has access to this huge amount of water should also have the appropriate equipment to perform such large WC quickly and efficiently?

Assuming getting the NSW suppliers to do WC is not possible, can I on successive days do 10% WC, ie do 10% WC over an entire period of 5-6 consecutive days??

[np73]

On a side note, anyone used the AquaPharm Pur-II to successfully contain the ammonia and nitrite levels? Coz i have 3 bags worth in my sump, and Im expecting to see my ammonia drop to 0 any day now... Of course I am going to get bottled bacter too for dosing. And WC too.

And as for the yellow tang fin corrosion, it really is looking horrendous. I have seen pics after pics of yellow tangs and each of them shows a nice rounded dorsal fin shape. Mine is very ragged and looks in very bad shape. The tail fins look like someother fish has taken chunks out of them. They look pale on some days, almost whitish. On one of the 2 yellows, I can almost make out the red veins (or capilaries (spelling?)) underneath the skin.

They look so miserable. Can they even be nursed back to full health??

[yikai]

you can ask iwarna to deliver for you i think.

[yikai]

On a side note, anyone used the AquaPharm Pur-II to successfully contain the ammonia and nitrite levels? Coz i have 3 bags worth in my sump, and Im expecting to see my ammonia drop to 0 any day now... Of course I am going to get bottled bacter too for dosing. And WC too.

And as for the yellow tang fin corrosion, it really is looking horrendous. I have seen pics after pics of yellow tangs and each of them shows a nice rounded dorsal fin shape. Mine is very ragged and looks in very bad shape. The tail fins look like someother fish has taken chunks out of them. They look pale on some days, almost whitish. On one of the 2 yellows, I can almost make out the red veins underneath the skin.

They look so miserable. Can they even be nursed back to full health??

signs of ammonia poisoning... and other water quality related conditions. change water asap.

[teebs]

thanks arcanehacker and LemonLemon for the advise.

Think I will go down to Irwana again. Problem is - just how big is a jerry can? I have 2 currently, but am not sure just how much water volume each holds, so I cant really gauge how many cans worth of NSW to get. I am assuming each is 30l?? All I know is they are damn heavy when full. Always run the risk of spraining my back when fetching the 2x cans back home. Assuming each holds 30l, then all I can do per WC is only 10% of tank capacity, which also means I will need to do this WC routine many times over to get to the desired water params.

This is the exact reason why I was (actually still am) contemplating getting someone to supply 50% NSW (ard 250l) and change for me. Surely someone who has access to this huge amount of water should also have the appropriate equipment to perform such large WC quickly and efficiently?

Assuming getting the NSW suppliers to do WC is not possible, can I on successive days do 10% WC, ie do 10% WC over an entire period of 5-6 consecutive days??

You can get Iwarna to deliver the NSW to you. Charge is $80 for the NSW. If you drain your tank before they arrive, I believe you can ask them to pump the NSW straight into your tank. Anyway, ask Victor is this is possible.

[LaW]

standard jerry cans i seen most is of aout 20liters. but they do varies in volume for different types.

my advice is to doze bacteria.

get those 100litre and 200litre buckets if you are doing salt.

if not, you might give steven of lck or victor of iwarna a call to see how much he charge for a large waterchange with his NSW. on serveral occasion i have done 80%-90% WC. which is about 1000litre.

didnt post a problem for me but for sure, there will be relatively some theoritical risk of shock.

[LaW]

On a side note, anyone used the AquaPharm Pur-II to successfully contain the ammonia and nitrite levels? Coz i have 3 bags worth in my sump, and Im expecting to see my ammonia drop to 0 any day now... Of course I am going to get bottled bacter too for dosing. And WC too.

And as for the yellow tang fin corrosion, it really is looking horrendous. I have seen pics after pics of yellow tangs and each of them shows a nice rounded dorsal fin shape. Mine is very ragged and looks in very bad shape. The tail fins look like someother fish has taken chunks out of them. They look pale on some days, almost whitish. On one of the 2 yellows, I can almost make out the red veins (or capilaries (spelling?)) underneath the skin.

They look so miserable. Can they even be nursed back to full health??

thats sign of ammonia burnt or extremely servere HLLE. hope u didnt do any hypo during these period of time and keep your salinity in check.

when its of ozone or ammonia induced HLLE, its very difficult to nurse it back.

but dun give up, i didnt for mine.

all the best.

[np73]

thanks all who have replied in this thread. Im awaiting Stevens arrival this morning for the WC.

As for the ammonia poisoning/ shock etc. Im really hoping the yellows can recover in time.

I also noticed last night when i did another water test the following params. very glaring, thats why i need a largeWC

ammonia 0.5 ppm !!!!!!

nitrite 0 ppm

nitrate 200 ppm !!!!!!!

Im using the API test strips by the way. Getting the selifert soon ,but the APIs are all i got for now.

My god. No wonder the tangs looks the way they look now. Its a wonder they are still alive.

[teebs]

thanks all who have replied in this thread. Im awaiting Stevens arrival this morning for the WC.

As for the ammonia poisoning/ shock etc. Im really hoping the yellows can recover in time.

I also noticed last night when i did another water test the following params. very glaring, thats why i need a largeWC

ammonia 0.5 ppm !!!!!!

nitrite 0 ppm

nitrate 200 ppm !!!!!!!

Im using the API test strips by the way. Getting the selifert soon ,but the APIs are all i got for now.

My god. No wonder the tangs looks the way they look now. Its a wonder they are still alive.

It's the ammonia that is causing the issues you face with the fishes. But take note that NSW from LCK has nitrates and phosphates also.

[samfsl]

thanks all who have replied in this thread. Im awaiting Stevens arrival this morning for the WC.

As for the ammonia poisoning/ shock etc. Im really hoping the yellows can recover in time.

I also noticed last night when i did another water test the following params. very glaring, thats why i need a largeWC

ammonia 0.5 ppm !!!!!!

nitrite 0 ppm

nitrate 200 ppm !!!!!!!

Im using the API test strips by the way. Getting the selifert soon ,but the APIs are all i got for now.

My god. No wonder the tangs looks the way they look now. Its a wonder they are still alive.

Sorry to hear about the problem you are facing. Seems like your filter has not matured properly, thus the ammonia poisoning. As a stop gap measure

till your filter bacteria builds up sufficiently to take care of the ammonia ( the best long term solution ), you could try dosing with Seachem's Prime which

can detoxify ammonia and nitrite, thereby buying your fishes some time, but you would need to dose daily ( follow the label instructions ) till test shows your filter is fully cycled.

Hope your fishes recover soon

[np73]

Just took another measurement last night, and things seem much better.

On top of the 60% water change on Saturday, I did another 10% water change yesterday.

End result is like this:

Ammonia: 0 ppm

Nitrite: 0 ppm

Nitrate: 80 ppm

Nitrate still seems to be on the high side. Guess there is really nothing much else I can do except do 10-20% WC conscientiously every few days till the nitrates get lower. All the inhabitants seem fine from the large WC, and seem to me like they are livelier now. It could be my eyes, but I swear the dorsal fines on the yellows are already showing signs of getting better.

As for the salinity of the water, I dont have any proper equipment to test it yeah i know its the single most impt thing to check but I havent yet got the hydrometer. Any good brands to recommend? Est price?

[np73]

Sorry to hear about the problem you are facing. Seems like your filter has not matured properly, thus the ammonia poisoning. As a stop gap measure

till your filter bacteria builds up sufficiently to take care of the ammonia ( the best long term solution ), you could try dosing with Seachem's Prime which

can detoxify ammonia and nitrite, thereby buying your fishes some time, but you would need to dose daily ( follow the label instructions ) till test shows your filter is fully cycled.

Hope your fishes recover soon

The filter should be matured enough by now. Tank is inherited from previous owner, and has been running for some time now.

- Maybe there is insufficient media for the bacteria to inhabitate? Not enough media = not enough bacteria = not enough to break down ammonia? Is biohome a good idea? Not sure if this can be used in saltwater tanks.

- Maybe the ammonia could have been caused by recent die-offs in the tank? I had a singapore angel, damsel disappear, but no carcass, so I assume they could have gone hiding in some crevice to die off? I have quite a fair amount of live rock and they make it virtually impossible to locate the fish at times.

- Tank crashed before I took over?

[teebs]

The filter should be matured enough by now. Tank is inherited from previous owner, and has been running for some time now.

- Maybe there is insufficient media for the bacteria to inhabitate? Not enough media = not enough bacteria = not enough to break down ammonia? Is biohome a good idea? Not sure if this can be used in saltwater tanks.

- Maybe the ammonia could have been caused by recent die-offs in the tank? I had a singapore angel, damsel disappear, but no carcass, so I assume they could have gone hiding in some crevice to die off? I have quite a fair amount of live rock and they make it virtually impossible to locate the fish at times.

- Tank crashed before I took over?

You could get prodibio Bio Digest or Bio Clean and dose it in your tank. It is pretty effective in reducing nitrates and increases the amount of bacteria in your tank also. Other than this, you should run carbon and phosphate media in a FR in your tank also.

I do not use bio home but I have some LR in my sump and my nitrates do not exceed 5ppm even though I feed pretty heavily. Previously before using Prodibio Bio Clean and Bio Digest, I was only able to maintain the nitrates between 25-50ppm with 50% water changes every month. Right now, I change abt 20% of my water monthly and my nitrates are still below 5ppm.

[FuEl]

Is your pH stable?

[np73]

An update on the tank.

Salinity: 1.023

pH: 8.0 *

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 80 *

PO4: 0.4 *

Water Temp: 29-30c *

A few points to note:

- I have coral chips in my sump tank. maybe around 5kg? Are these nitrate magnets? They are also supposed to be raising the pH but doesnt seem to work?

- I also added 5kg worth of Mr Aqua into the sump with the intention of culturing more bb. Some conflicting views here but i read this actually decreases the pH?

Not sure what's causing what to occur, but my nitrate despite large WC (around 60% of the 422), nitrate level came down, but did not get lower than 80ppm- which is still alot. Looks like another large WC over the weekend.

My pH reading seems a little low too for seawater.

My PO4 also seems a little high, but then I have only just added the Sorb4 2 days ago so figures may come down afterwards.

For the water temp, I am getting a pre-owned chiller so that should solve the temp problem.

[teebs]

An update on the tank.

Salinity: 1.023

pH: 8.0 *

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 80 *

PO4: 0.4 *

Water Temp: 29-30c *

A few points to note:

- I have coral chips in my sump tank. maybe around 5kg? Are these nitrate magnets? They are also supposed to be raising the pH but doesnt seem to work?

- I also added 5kg worth of Mr Aqua into the sump with the intention of culturing more bb. Some conflicting views here but i read this actually decreases the pH?

Not sure what's causing what to occur, but my nitrate despite large WC (around 60% of the 422), nitrate level came down, but did not get lower than 80ppm- which is still alot. Looks like another large WC over the weekend.

My pH reading seems a little low too for seawater.

My PO4 also seems a little high, but then I have only just added the Sorb4 2 days ago so figures may come down afterwards.

For the water temp, I am getting a pre-owned chiller so that should solve the temp problem.

Your 60% water change is 60% at one time or 60% over a period of time? Basically to reduce nitrates quickly you have to do a one time large water change not multiple small ones. Also if you are using NSW from LCK, do check the nitrates before changing the water. Some people who have used LCK's NSW previously mentioned that the nitrates in the NSW is around 25-50ppm.

[babareef]

Bro, I had similar problem like you. My beautiful collection of anthias die one by one. After trying so many standard wc still no cure, I followed the instruction about reducing nitrate using AZNO3 but still not successful. My nitrate keep rising even after countless water changes. Then I found out that my sump with full of coral chips is the main culprit. So with no more fish in the tank anymore, I took the risk of cleaning my coral chips using the "clean" salt water in my tank. Do not rinse the coral chips with plain water. remember this- it will kill all your good bacteria that you've previously cycled.

So for your case maybe you wanna try the same method but you need to find a temporary tank for your fishes to stay alive. Make sure u clean thoroughly and siphon every single drop of water that's in your sump and start cleaning and rinsing your coral chips. Any sandbed in the sump or refuguim all have to be siphoned out too. In other words u must empty your sump 100% before you replace them with new salt water.

By the way you have to be patient and bear with some back breaking pain for this to work. It will be good if you have another person to help you to do all these tiring process at the same time. I think u inherited a decomposing sump of coral chips.

I actually cleaned and rinsed my coral chips twice in two weeks before getting good results. Now I can visibly see that my coral chips being a lot whiter than they were ever before.

Good Luck don't give up and all the best.

[np73]

Peter.Tee:

Water Change was done at 1 shot, ie 60% at one go. that was last week. There was another WC of 10% just performed. Now that you mentioned it, its possible that some nitrate was re-introduced into the tank during the large WC. Need to monitor. Maybe I will try Irwana this time round for large WC.

BabaReef:

Seems like coral chips could be the problem, but then again I dont have much in there. maybe only around 5kg? It was not left over by owner, but was recommended to me by a LFS who happened to sell me the skimmer. This was around 2 months back. What I have done thus far is I bought 5kg of MrAqua ceramic rings into the sump, dosed BB, and intend to take out the coral chips in a weeks time or so. Perhaps I will get some more ceramic/sintered glass bio media to increase the total surface area.

So bottom line is you still retained the coral chips? Any reason why you are still doing so? Do the coral chips really serve to buffer the pH in your case?

[teebs]

Peter.Tee:

Water Change was done at 1 shot, ie 60% at one go. that was last week. There was another WC of 10% just performed. Now that you mentioned it, its possible that some nitrate was re-introduced into the tank during the large WC. Need to monitor. Maybe I will try Irwana this time round for large WC.

BabaReef:

Seems like coral chips could be the problem, but then again I dont have much in there. maybe only around 5kg? It was not left over by owner, but was recommended to me by a LFS who happened to sell me the skimmer. This was around 2 months back. What I have done thus far is I bought 5kg of MrAqua ceramic rings into the sump, dosed BB, and intend to take out the coral chips in a weeks time or so. Perhaps I will get some more ceramic/sintered glass bio media to increase the total surface area.

So bottom line is you still retained the coral chips? Any reason why you are still doing so? Do the coral chips really serve to buffer the pH in your case?

To get rid of nitrates quickly I have found that two additives work well for me.

One is AZ NO3 that was able to remove very large quantities of nitrates from my system, from ard 50-100ppm to between 10-25 ppm. The other one is Prodibio Bio Clean that I started using ard 1 mth+ back when my nitrates stabalised at ard 10ppm. Currently my nitrates are at 2.5-5ppm and doing 20% water changes every 1 mth+. My feeding is very large and some say crazy for a 3 ft tank.

I would suggest removing the coral chips from your sump as they trap detritus and can be a nitrate trap in due time. As for bio home and other similar media, I would skip these and just place live rocks in your sump instead.

Ceramic rings are basically non porous and thus not effective for housing bacteria.

[np73]

To get rid of nitrates quickly I have found that two additives work well for me.

One is AZ NO3 that was able to remove very large quantities of nitrates from my system, from ard 50-100ppm to between 10-25 ppm. The other one is Prodibio Bio Clean that I started using ard 1 mth+ back when my nitrates stabalised at ard 10ppm. Currently my nitrates are at 2.5-5ppm and doing 20% water changes every 1 mth+. My feeding is very large and some say crazy for a 3 ft tank.

I would suggest removing the coral chips from your sump as they trap detritus and can be a nitrate trap in due time. As for bio home and other similar media, I would skip these and just place live rocks in your sump instead.

Ceramic rings are basically non porous and thus not effective for housing bacteria.

Actually having gone through the Algae Scrubber thread, Im leaning towards incorporating the setup in my sump

Just need to finalise some plans before I get the setup done this weekend.

Yes I will also take the opportunity to remove all the coral chips in the sump too. As for the rings, its really such a waste to throw them away now since i just bought them fro less than a week I already have tons and tons of LR in the display tank so not sure if I even need some more in my sump

[babareef]

I'm not too sure it's a good idea to throw away the coral chips since I presume they are new. Instead its a waste. As I continue to follow this thread, I take back my word about your coral chips causing the nitrates to rise. Do you have lots of sand in your display tank or your sump? High sandbed may easily trap deritius and increase nitrate. No matter how much dosage of AZNO3 or other nitrate controlling it still won't work if you never find the real cause of high nitrate.

[babareef]

Is your display tank too full of live rocks when you said you have tons and tons of them? Maybe you can try bringing some down into your sump and do a bit of rescaping. Your tank maybe too overcrowded and hence reducing water movement and flow which causes dead spots everywhere and these dead spots trap nitrate easily. Try rescaping with your rocks not touching the tank walls at all and put wave makers or pumps behind these rocks for better circulation.

Again when you do all these you may spike up ammonia and nitrate so try housing your fishes onto another tank until your nitrate is close to zero.

Hope these help.