Water Change Routine

Hey guys, I want to know how all of you do your water changes. I feel like my way of doing it is a bit tiring/time consuming. Here is how I do mine, please let me know how you do yours to maybe give me an idea of how I could make it easier for myself. Will be attending college in the fall but will be going there and back to home. Would like to make it not so time consuming.
Also, I don't make my own rodi water, I get 5 gallon jugs at the supermarket and then make my own saltwater.

Wash 5 gallon Rubbermaid pot
Dry Rubbermaid
Rinse with distilled water
Poor 5 gallons into Rubbermaid
Add right amount of salt
Circulate water with powerhead
Wait 3-4hrs
Use 1 gal jug to take out tank water
Add freshly made sw to tank

I'm not sure if all of you do the same way as I do to make your own sw. It kills a lot of time just to clean the pot everything I make sw. Do you guys have a mixing station or something? How long does it take to get everything ready for your wc and what do you use to hold water? Let me know!

 

When i do waterchanges, i go through some few important steps to make sure the waterchange isnt gonna hurt the fish. The day before i do the waterchange, i'll take my reef crystals salt, and mix it in a big bucket, with some RO/DI water. I will test the water, to make sure its the right salinity. Then, i'll let it stand and mix with an air pump for about 24 hours. I do this because, if there is undissolved salts in the water, they can actually land on corals, and burn off tissue, which can damage them. I'll then do a waterchange and change 10-15% of my water. I always turn the lights and pump off on my tank during the waterchange, to make sure no fish gets stressed, and also, my frogspawn is so high up in the water, that when i do waterchanges its tentacles will touch the surface, and if that strong LED lights touches the coral, it can actually burn it and damage it. Anyway, i also remember to scrape my glass with a scraper, to make sure that the tank looks super clean. I also remember to empty my skimmer cup, and rinse it out. Then, i'll sit and look at my tank, check that everything is ok. And thats it I do that every week, and its really easy to do. I reccommend you get an RO/DI system at some point, since you save quite alot of money, than buying them from your LFS.

 

2 30 gallon trash cans. 1 always full of RODI water, the other with salt water. Whenever I do a water change, I refill and remix the saltwater to keep it circulating.

Empty sump using shopvac (exclusively used for this purpose). Refill using 5 gallon buckets.

 

One thing no one has mentioned yet is that you need to heat your water before adding salt. Heat it to 76 or so degrees F. Then, it should be the same temperature as your tank when you add it.

Here is what I do: I keep a 13 gallon rubbermaid trash container in the basement. I feed RO/DI directly into it with a float valve. Once it is filled with water, I heat it to temp (I keep a heater in the container 24/7). Then I add salt and keep a powerhead in the container to mix (I usually aerate the water as well using an airline on the powerhead). I mix it for a minimum of 24 hours, although I usually fill this up directly after changing water, so sometimes it will be mixing for a week or so.

Then I drain off water from the tank. If I need to do any cleaning, I will siphon anything I want out of the DT (macroalgae, Kenya Trees, etc). Then I transfer the same amount of water I took out into the water change bucket, and using a Maxijet 1200, pump water back into the DT. I blow this water directly onto the LR, into all of the crevices to blow off the detritus build up. When complete, as mentioned I turn the valve back on and let the mixing container fill back up with RO/DI.

 

Like others have said. I have two 30 gal barrels. One for Freshwater and one for salt water. Each if fitted with a auto shut off float valve and they are both fed from my RO/DI system. The saltwater barrel has two pumps in it as well as a heater to make sure its the same temp as the tank.

Each barrel has its own pump and tubing. When I need water I just plug in the pump from the respective tank to a bucket.

I also have a pump in my tank for pumping water out. I just run a piece of tubing from my tank to the sink to let it drain.

seems to work pretty well.

 

Oh yeah i do that too! I always warm up my water before adding it to the tank. Temperature changes can cause stressful fish and corals, and fish will be more likely of being attacked by parasites.

 

To make your water change quicker I have similar recommendations.

1. Get your own RO/DI.
2. Get 2 Barrels (larger the better that have wheels if your not storing your water near your fresh water source)
3. Get 1 pump for the saltwater barrel (this makes it so you dont have to scoop water manually.)
4. Get a top off.
5. Use the freshwater to refill your top off.

Having the saltwater pre-maid will help you save time from having to measure your salt every week.

 

As I noted, you need to heat your water before adding salt as well.

 

Thanks got the advice everyone. Yeah, I know all the basics of making sw, as in heating water, circulation, ect.. It's just the process of making it that wouldn't be so time consuming. I like the idea of pre-making it in a trash can. If I did it this way, and I used up all the sw in the trash, would I have to routinely clean it out or do you guys just keep making more?

 

Fill up garbage can with rodi
warm until 78 degrees
Add salt
Circulate for a few hours
Use pump to send to tank

Once a month 20%