anyone else do waterchanges when lights go off

so me and my buddy that owns a fish store were talking and we agreed that doing water changes at night removes more nitrates from the water column..we think that since during the day or when daylight lights are on, then the algae is using the nitrates, so by doing them at night when the algae is "asleep" not consuming them, you can remove more..anyone else ever thought about this..or does anyone else do waterchanges at night when lights are off..

 

I do them at night because all my coral is closed up.

 

I do them in the morning before the lights come on. I also have a fuge that is lit at night.

 

Did you test your water for nitrates during the day and at night and see a difference?

 

I'm usually at work or ready to go to work when my lights turn off so I don't do them at night. My days off are even on different days so I couldn't do regular nightly ones then.

 

+1
always done mine after lights out, because my corals are normally retracted (not SPS polyps but softies and LPS) and I felt that doing the water change at that time, would cause less disturbance to them in that state

Steve

 

i honestly havent test my water in forever..no problems in my tank..the only thing i measure daily is salinity..

we just figured doing water changes at night when the algae is not consuming it, allows us to remove dirtier water..does this make sense and does this have any truth or are there any results from someone doing this or etc..


we have never had an algae problem in either of our tanks or the tanks at the fish store, but we were bored today and started thinking..

 

yeah i have always done them at night since most corals are asleep

 

I will try and see. I work nights so I stay up alot of the time any way

 

from what i have read, most tanks should have a higher nitrate reading at night..but im not sure if its enough of a difference to worry about it..

we do water changes every week in the store tanks and our home tanks..

and i guess what we were thinking since we do them anyway, when would be the best time to do it, so that its more beneficial to the tank and just thought at night would remove the dirtier water..