- Today on the 5 Minute Saltwater Aquarium Guide,
we're gonna show ya how to do a proper water change,
tools needed, how to make it easier, and most effective.
All that's coming up.
(upbeat music)
Hey, I'm Ryan, your host of BRStv
and the 5 Minute Saltwater Aquarium Guide.
This is a clear, simplified, and direct path
to setting up that first successful reef tank.
It's time to do a water change.
The challenge here is all kinds
of pollutants build up in the water,
some measurable, some less so.
Some pollutants also build up in areas like the sand
and this is just a good time to reduce those as well.
Not only that, but some of the minor
and trace elements also get depleted
from the salt water and they also need to be replaced.
So there are a variety of functions
that a water change serves.
So this is one of those things
that I've been sharing from time to time in this series.
We're understanding this one statement will
dramatically change your success rates.
The BRS team and I have spoken
to tens of thousands of reefers over the years,
and there's one thing they're absolutely certain of:
newer reefers who perform regular water changes have
dramatically higher long-term success rates
than those who don't.
I'm so certain of this, just let me say it again.
Newer reefers who perform regular water changes
just have dramatically higher long-term success rates.
In fact, I'll go one step further
and say reefers who have one inch sand beds like these
and clean them as part of their water changes
also have much higher success rates.
Success meaning less algae, fewer coral
and fish mortalities, the water looks and smells cleaner.
But most important: new reefers who do their water changes
and maintain their sand will not just make it
to 12 months at a much higher rate,
but they'll make it to three and five years plus.
I will say, after two to three years,
the tank becomes less dependent on water changes
and export method and there are advanced systems,
methods, or approaches to reduce the reliance on them,
but this is something that you grow into,
not a starting point.
We already showed you how
to mix up saltwater in a previous episode.
Just like the initial water, we're going
to use Tropic Marin Pro because the entire goal here is
to increase water quality with the water change.
The effectiveness of that is 100% tied
to the quality of the new saltwater we produced.
The Tropic Marin Pro farmer grade just does that for me.
As to how much and how often,
10% a week is what I'd call best.
With both of these tanks,
that means scooping out five gallons of water into a bucket
and replacing it with five gallons of fresh saltwater.
This can be a five minute task.
Alternatively, you can do 20% every other week
in two five gallon buckets,
which becomes a 10 or so minute task every other week.
Most strategies produce about the same result.
You can go larger than 20%, then you need
to think about heating the saltwater first
and making sure the parameters are all close.
I just suggest for newer reefers sticking
to something about 10% weekly or 20% every other week.
However, while you're doing it,
your tank will greatly benefit from cleaning the sand
at the same time.
To do that, I suggest a one inch Pro-Clean gravel wash
from Python.
When you're draining the four to 10 gallons into a bucket,
put it into the sand and tumble it to clean it.
You can do it in an area of the tank each time.
It doesn't have to be the entire sand bed.
Tumbling can be controlled, like kinking one end
of the tube while you siphon with the other hand,
close to slow it down, open to make it go faster.
At the same time, you can spot a tuft of algae,
pinch it between the siphon and your thumb, pull it off,
and it gets sucked right into the bucket
rather than into the tank.
If you're gonna do more than a single bucket water change,
the no-spill water change system from Python
also makes it a lot easier.
In this case, you can turn on the faucet
and it creates a siphon that sucks the water right out
of the tank and down the drain.
Works well at cleaning the sand as well.
With larger water changes,
systems like this Python just take something
that was a pain and messy
and just makes it easier and cleaner.
Somewhere down the road, I just want to plant the seed
that water changes can actually be automated entirely.
The Auto Aqua AWC is an option
and if you ever end up with a Neptune aquarium controller,
the Neptune DOS can perform your water changes
for you with near zero effort.
The DOS is actually what I use on all my own tanks.
We got this water change thing down,
but there's some cool medias
that actually polish the water even further.
I'm talking crystal-clear, pristine,
like-new water with almost no effort.
The entire 5 Minute Guide's always available here,
but if you want to know how to polish the water,
not just for the corals and the fish,
but so your tank looks the best it can,
that's coming up right here.