Water Change Help

Hello everyone, I have been fighting algae in my aquarium for months now. Even with twice a week water changes it would still get out of hand. Finally I broke down and bought a TDS monitor to test my RO/DI system. Well it turns out that it was not pumping out clean water. As a matter of fact it was pumping out water with a higher TDS reading than what was going into it.

I changed the filters every three months and after doing research the last couple of days I found that the system I have (Coral Life Pure Flo II) is not the best. It was a suggested unit from another site and budget friendly.

Yesterday fed up with algae, I broke down and bought a Spectrapure CSPDI 2:1 model. The company comes with good reviews on this site.

My question is, when the unit comes and after setup should I do one massive water change (15 plus gallons) on my tank or a series of small ones over the course of a couple of days?

Tank:
29 gallon
Reefbreeders Value fixture
CPR Overflow to a 10 gallon sump
TLF biopellet reactor
Protein skimmer (SC150 Ebay item)

Stocking:
2 Clowns
2 Chromis
1 Fire fish
Trumpet coral
Galaxy
Torch
Zoa's

 

Great choice on new unit! Just question what's your water pressure? I got best efficiency at 80-90psi. But to your op point... I would start with a 20% change. Then test next few days nitrate levels. Would be best to test the, before and after. Also manual removal sucking it out, pulling it out, whatever gets it out!! Then continue with 10-15% changes every 3 days. Giving tank time to stable a few days from change.

 

I would suggest a big change 50% to start and then smaller ones if needed a few days later - trying to manually remove, sucking, and pulling the algae out....I just think it's easier to do a big one and go real thorough on pulling gunk out once than a few smaller changes, just my .02 You really can't go wrong either direction....

 

Sorry to hear about your frustrations, but one thing to check before you spend the money on a new RO/DI...

There are two water lines that come out of the RO. One is "clean" water that has had most of the TDS removed. The other is a dirty water line that has all the TDS that went in plus the TDS that was in your now "clean" water. The only way I know of that you can have dirtier water coming out than going in is if you have the two RO lines mixed up and you're using the concentrate (dirty water) line as your "clean" water.

 

+1 Excellent point, HeiHei29er!

First let me say, algae is NOT your enemy. It is keeping the water clean for you while you find and fix the problem.

What I do in such a case is stick with normal routine water changes. The algae has already taken up the current nutrients. With regular water changes with clean water, the algae will die off. You can then vacuum it out. This method will keep parameters the most stable, something far more important than killing algae.

JM2C

 

I double checked but the lines are not crossed. My routine was to reverse the lines, per the instructions, and let the unit run for 15 min. The instructions said this would flush the membrane. Then when that was complete I would change the cartridges.

I don't know what the pressure going into the unit is. It did not come with a pressure gauge. I ran it off the hose and into the garage where it is mounted on the wall. Military housing doesn't allow me to mess with the plumbing. This was the other reason why I wanted a new unit that came with pressure gauge.

I seem to get mixed rules on this. some say large water change and others say several small ones. One bit of info I forgot to mention in the OP was that every time I do water changes I scrub the rocks with a tooth brush and blow out all the rock with a turkey baster. But even doing this the algae keeps coming. I know algae can be beneficial and if it was a little her and there I wouldn't mind, but this stuff is just over running the tank at times.

 

I say go with bigger change. The more water you initially take out the more nutrients you take out. When you add back the water you're now mixing the nutrient rich water with your new RODI water making it diluted, requiring more water changes than one big one.

 

+1,a large change will give you more of a chance to vaccum out the unwanted stuff and give you a good start.One 50% change followed by smaller ones as needed should do no harm.

 

Thanks everyone. I will go with a bigger one with smaller ones in the following days.

 

My Ebay RO/DI, after 1 yr, still puts out 0 TDS.
No maintenance done, and no backwashing.

One of the few times I feel lucky!