other way to do water change

+1 to this and on more than one occasion unfortunately.

 

I don't have any problem to be solved here, so not really sure what the solutions were for... ;D

I get what you're saying. I dose for lost elements. So other than that, IMO, water changes are a band-aid for a system out of balance as you described above.

Like I said earlier, my skimmer doesn't always produce skimmate. Also, I've had consistent 0's for the nasties for over a year now. With those two pieces of trivia I conclude I have clean water.

You know you don't have particulate matter accumulating but I'm curious as to what your readings are? Are you finding nitrates, phosphates? If not and you don't have detritus build up - and if you are dosing to replenish your elements - why not just skip the WC all together. Let alone skimming out the water vs. siphoning the detritus that apparently isn't there to produce the DOC in the first place leaving the skimmer with less to do (let alone giving it superdrivetask)?

Let's see what that stirs up I'll refresh the thread in the morning, I'm curious where this goes. g'night :laughings

 

I think its a good idea. I would do 5 gallons wet skim and 5 gallons siphoned,best of both worlds.