Water Change Help

are you running GFO? that could help as well in addition to the water changes and reduce your light period for a few days....

 

Only bad things happen fast in this hobby, and nobody with more than a few year's experience would recommend a larger than 20% water change at a time unless it was a life-or-death situation. Algae is mostly harmless, but quick changes in parameters or chemistry can be fatal.

 

Not running any GFO only bio-pellets (3 months) and carbon in another reactor with slow flow. My lights have been turned down to 5 hour cycle on the whites and 7 with the blue's. This reduction was a result of trying to control the algae. I only feed once a day also.

Does high TDS result in a high nitrate reading.

Also Plus 1 to everyone responding. Thanks for the help everyone.

 

Bio-pellets are kinda hit-and-miss; some get excellent results while others don't see any changes at all.

High TDS doesn't necessarily end with high Nitrates-- it depends on what your exact contaminants are, and TDS is a collective measurement of all contaminants. However, if you have high TDS and you're constantly fighting persistent algae issues, there's a strong possibility that it is something in the water.

 

I beg to differ Mr. Bill - I have quite a few years in the hobby....

 

I tested the water and my phosphates and nitrates are at 0. This is down from high reading prior to starting the bio-pellets a couple of months ago.

I honestly think its the bad water. I recently changed over to Red Sea Pro Salt from Reef Crystals. I will not be doing a large water change I will being doing a series of small water changes over the course of a month in order to help the transition to the new salt along with clean ro water.

I can't wait for the new spectrapure system to come in.

+1 to everyone. Thanks for the conversation.

 

Exhausted DI resin releases the stored up TDS so the finished water can easily be higher than the tap was to begin with.

 

Glad you have a plan and I hope things go well. The beauty of this hobby is taking all information and sometimes different opinions and picking what you think will work best for your system.

 

i would do a 50% water change than small ones as needed

 

what are your silicates at?