- You practiced those skills from last week, right?
Excellent, excellent to hear,
because you are gonna need those skills today
and for the rest of your life in this hobby.
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Privyet, everybody.
Matthew here, your BRS beginner guru,
coming at you with Episode 25
in the beginner how-to guide
for saltwater aquariums and reef tanks,
How To Perform a Water Change.
If you missed our last episode,
Episode 24, we talked about five ways to start a siphon,
and you are gonna need that skill today.
Let's jump right in with the first question
we're gonna answer today:
why are water changes important?
I can say with completely confidence
that beginners who stick with a weekly water change regimen
will drastically increase their odds
of staying in this hobby long term.
Like well past a year, three to five years,
maybe even decades.
There are so many reasons why water changes are important.
But I think one that's overlooked a lot
is that it just keeps you in contact with your tank.
What do I mean by that?
If you perform a weekly water change,
it will force contact time with your tank.
Time spent watching your fish, your livestock,
and noticing things.
So in the long run, you're gonna be able to notice problems
before they spiral out of control,
and you'll be able to correct them early.
Basically, water changes do two things:
number one, they remove stuff from your tank,
and number two, they add stuff to your tank.
So what do they remove?
They remove phosphates, nitrates, ammonia,
as well as fish food, fish waste, detritus,
and things that settle in your sand bed.
Well then what's added back in?
Your major, minor, and your trace elements.
Basically, water changes
can prevent problems from occurring.
It's just like doing oil changes on your car.
Yeah, you could probably stretch out
the length of time between doing oil changes,
but by doing them regularly,
you're gonna prevent problems from even occurring.
The same is true with doing water changes.
By removing a small amount of water every week,
and doing a light vacuum of part of your sand bed,
you're gonna be removing enough nitrates and phosphates
every week, so they don't build up over time
and create a nitrate and phosphate trap.
Not only that, but you're gonna be sure
that you're adding back your major, your minor,
and your trace elements,
which are gonna drastically help with coral growth
and coloration.
Do you need to perform water changes?
As a beginner, the answer is very simple:
yes, absolutely, 100% you do.
There are some advanced hobbyists out there
who have these ultra low maintenance systems,
often go by ULM systems,
who have figured out ways to never do water changes.
But that's an advanced topic.
I've been in this hobby for over eight years now,
and I still do water changes.
Do I do them every week?
I try to, to be honest.
But I probably don't go more than two weeks
without doing a water change.
So then you might be asking
how often should you do a water change?
Easy answer: ideally do it every week,
but if you just can't fit that into your busy schedule,
then perform a slightly larger water change
every other week.
So then, how much water should you replace every week?
I think a really good baseline would be
to replace 10% of your total water volume every week.
Or if you go every other week, replace 20%
of your total water volume.
But I really recommend that you do a weekly water change,
because it's beneficial for a lot of reasons.
Firstly, if you only change 10% of your total water volume
every week, then it's not as big of a deal
if the salinity and temperature
between the new seawater perfectly matches
that of your display tank.
A small discrepancy between the two
isn't gonna raise or lower
the temperature or salinity enough
to really cause any problems with your livestock.
And doing a smaller water change every week
allows you to do it a lot quicker,
and then you only have to gravel vac
a small portion of your sand bed every week.
There are gonna be times
when things just aren't going well in your tank.
You might have some corals dying off,
some snails dying off,
or some fish dying,
and you may know why or you may not know why.
Maybe your nitrate levels are too high,
or maybe your ammonia levels
have spiked on you for some reason.
In that situation, you're gonna wanna perform
a larger water change, 25 to 50%
of the total water volume.
But that should be the exception to the rule,
and you really should strive
to do a 10% water change every week.
Let's get started with the seven simple steps
for performing a water change.
Step number one is turn off your gear.
Turn off your return pump, your wave maker,
your auto top-off unit, and your heater.
Really, turn off anything that's either
gonna continuously run, or be damaged during a water change.
Step number two is collect all your gear
and lay it out.
I can't tell you how many times I've had to
run around because I forgot to do this.
So grab your buckets, grab your gravel vacuum,
grab your pre-made seawater, and double-check
to make sure that it closes matches
the salinity and the temperature of your display tank water.
And grab all the other acoutrements you think you may need,
and double the amount of towels you think you're gonna need,
because I don't think
I've successfully performed a water change
without spilling at least some water on the ground.
Step number three is to start your siphon.
You're all pros at starting siphons by now,
but if for some reason you don't know how to do this,
check out our previous video, Episode 24,
where we talk about five ways to start a siphon.
Step number four is to use the gravel vacuum
to clean a portion of the sand bed.
Since you're doing this every week,
you don't need to clean the entire sand bed every week,
but gently cleaning a small portion every week is helpful.
The technique for doing this is to place the gravel vacuum
into the top layer of the sand.
You'll notice sand start being sucked up
into the gravel vacuum.
You don't wanna suck the sand out.
The goal is to leave the sand in place,
but suck up any detritus or debris
or fish waste or fish food
that might be hiding in that sand bed.
So as that sand rises up through the column of water
in the gravel vacuum,
just go ahead and pinch that flexible tubing line
enough so that the heavier sand
will fall back to the bottom,
and the lighter detritus will be sucked out
and into your five gallon bucket.
One little point of warning here
is don't overdo it with the vacuuming of the sand bed.
When I was a beginner, I overdid it.
And I vacuumed the entire sand bed vigorously
every single week.
And it just upset the overall ecosystem,
because there's beneficial bacteria and livestock
that live in that sand bed.
So just do a small portion every week,
and don't go crazy with it.
Just gently vacuum the top layer of the sand bed,
and that should be enough.
Step number five.
It's not really a step.
It's really telling you not to take a step.
When you're doing a water change,
never ever, ever, ever walk away
from your five gallon bucket while the siphon is going.
I've done it, thinking, "Oh. I'm just gonna walk
to the other room and I'll remember to come back."
And I have completely forgotten the siphon was going.
And I'm gonna try to show you a video right now.
I gotta find it, but I'm gonna try to show you this video.
This was an example of when I was gonna do
a five gallon water change on my 40 gallon breeder tank,
but I forgot about it.
And then I sprinted back in,
and by the time I was back there,
I had 35 gallons of saltwater all over our wood floors.
Which definitely ended up
ruining the wood floors a little bit.
So step number five is don't take a step,
don't walk away,
don't think you're going to remember
that your siphon is going.
And if for some reason you absolutely have to go away,
set yourself a timer to remind you to go back
in one minute.
Trust me, it will save your floors.
Step number six is to double-check
to make sure the salinity and the temperature match
between your display tank and the freshly made seawater.
Now, if you're only doing a 10% water change,
this isn't a huge deal.
If your tank temperature is 78 degrees
and your freshly made seawater is 55 degrees,
it's probably not gonna bring down
the overall temperature that much.
Just be sure, if you're adding a lot cooler water
into your tank, that you don't pour it
directly over the head of a coral or near your livestock.
Maybe put it in the rear filtration chamber or the sump,
so the temperatures are allowed to mix.
Generally speaking, personally I give myself
a tolerance level of plus or minus two degrees,
so if my display tank's 78, I really don't have any concerns
adding in freshly made seawater
that's between 76 and 80 degrees.
Step number seven is just to add your new seawater back.
Just either pour it slowly in,
or use some flexible tubing to pump it
from your bucket back into your display tank.
When you're doing this, just be sure
not to hugely disturb your sand bed,
and you can do that by pouring it
directly over a piece of rockwork
or pour it into a sump,
or pour it into a rear filtration chamber.
All those options work well.
Step number eight.
I know, I only said there were seven steps.
I totally forgot to do one of the steps.
But it is turn your equipment back on.
Your wave maker, your water pump,
everything you turned off,
make sure you turn it back on.
And then you wanna look to make sure
the water height is correct.
So if you have an all-in-one system
with a rear filtration chamber,
you wanna make sure that the water height is not too high
or too low, once all of the equipment is turned back on.
So make those adjustments by either
adding a little bit more water,
or subtracting a little water,
so that your water height is correct.
Okay, so obviously in those seven - eight steps,
they were very simplistic,
so we wanna give you our tips and tricks
that we've learned in almost a decade of reef-keeping,
to really maximize the benefit of your weekly water changes.
Tip number one is to algae scrape your glass
and your all-in-one rear filtration chamber
before doing a water change.
That way, when you suck water out with the gravel vac
during the water change,
you'll be pulling a lot of that algae along with it,
removing it from your tank.
Tip number two is don't always pull water out
just from the display tank.
Pull water out from your rear filtration chamber
if you have one, or from your sump if you have one.
A rear filtration chamber
will often get covered in algae over time,
and a lot of things will also fall to the bottom.
So you can scrape your rear filtration chamber
and then suck all that gunk out and keep it clean.
A sump's a little different
because there's usually no light in there.
So you don't get much algae growth,
but you do get a lot of detritus building up.
So you can pull water out of there.
But obviously since it's a sump,
and it's already down low, a siphon's not gonna work.
So you usually have to buy some sort of power head,
and attach some flexible tubing to suck that water out.
Tip number three
is to leave your mechanical filtration in place.
After you've done your water change,
wait about two hours before changing out
your filter socks, your filter floss, or your sponges,
because those old, nasty filter socks
will be able to catch all of that floating algae
and detritus that you kicked up during the water change.
And then, two hours later, you can replace those
with fresh mechanical filtration.
Tip number four
is try not to expose your corals to air.
There are some corals that are gonna do just fine
when exposed to air, but there are other corals,
especially some of your small polyp stony corals,
that just don't do well when exposed to air.
So when doing your water change,
just be cognizant of that,
and try not to change out too much water
in your display tank, so that you're exposing them to air.
Tip number five, and I actually already mentioned it,
but it's important enough to mention again,
is don't go crazy gravel vacuuming your sand bed.
Your sand bed is a living ecosystem.
And if you disturb it too much,
you will upset its balance.
If you have snails in there, or fish in there,
or crab living in your sand bed as well,
overdoing the vacuuming can disturb them,
which oftentime leads to their death.
So go gentle when vacuuming your sand bed,
and just vacuum a small portion every week.
Tip number six: I already mentioned it,
but I'm gonna mention it again,
never ever, ever walk away during a water change.
I promise you, unless you have the memory of an elephant,
you will forget at least once,
and you will come back to an empty display tank
and your floor covered in seawater.
So trust me, don't walk away when doing a water change.
Tip number seven is to use a filter sock
during a water change.
There will be times when you don't want to or need to
change the water out in your tank,
but you still wanna clean a portion.
Maybe there's been some detritus buildup
underneath a wave maker,
or you have new seahorses and they're poopin'
all over the place.
So what you do is, you take a filter sock,
a clamp, and your gravel vacuum.
You clamp the filter sock to the edge
of your five gallon bucket.
And then you place the flexible tubing end
of the gravel vac into the filter sock.
Then you go about cleaning up those areas in the tank
that you want to,
and that filter sock will collect all of that gunk,
but let the water pass.
Then, when you're done, you can take the clean water
that's now been filtered by the filter sock,
and just pour it back into the tank.
Tip number eight is for all of those of you
with a brand new gravel vac.
Soak your gravel vacuum in really hot water
for about 10 minutes, and then you can
straighten it out.
Oftentimes when you get a brand new gravel vac,
it's so kinked up that it's almost unusable.
So soak it in hot water, and then you can stretch it out.
It will help immensely.
Tip number nine is to use
an inexpensive plastic clamp
to clamp your flexible tubing portion
of your gravel vac into place.
I've used these for a long time,
because so many times I'm vacuuming the sand bed,
and I can't quite keep my hand down into the bucket,
and then that small, flexible tubing portion comes out
and runs all over the floor.
So you can use one of these plastic clamps
to just clamp that into place,
and it reduces the chance of spilling water on your floor.
Tip number ten is to use a utility pump
to pump water from your five gallon bucket
into your sink.
I really like to use these new MP twelve hundreds.
They seem to be the perfect size,
and you can just pick up some flexible tubing
and a plastic hose clamp,
clamp that all into place,
and then you don't have to lift that five gallon bucket,
spilling it all over yourself and the floor,
dumping it into your utility sink
or your kitchen sink, like I have,
and making a mess everywhere.
Rather, all you do is you just plug in
the utility pump,
and take the flexible tubing, and put it down the drain.
It saves your back, it saves your shirt,
it saves your countertop,
and it saves your floors.
And our final tip, tip number 11,
is to always have a fresh batch of seawater made up.
So once you've finished doing your water change,
that's the opportunity to make a fresh batch.
You never know when an emergency occurs,
and you just need that extra seawater.
I always keep, what - 32, 64 gallons
of extra seawater on hand at all times.
Because something may go wrong with your tank,
or you may have a sick fish
that you need to put into a hospital tank.
So having that seawater already made up
is just so much easier than scrambling at the last second.
Well, we're coming to an end.
Hopefully, this video gave you enough information
about water changes to do them yourself.
But I was just searchin'
the Bulk Reef Supply YouTube channel,
and there are over 10 videos about water changes.
So whenever you're ready, you can just type in
BRS water changes, or we will put a link
to several of our favorite water change videos below.
If you forget everything from this video,
I beg of you to remember one thing:
do a weekly water change.
If you do a weekly water change,
you will have a greater percentage chance
of long-term success in this hobby.
The first year is when most beginners quit.
But I promise you, and I'm not joking,
I totally promise you
that if you perform weekly water changes,
you will be in this hobby for at least three to five years.
Well, be sure not to go anywhere,
because the next three episodes,
we are gonna spend all about lighting.
From the more scientific side, PAR, spectrum, intensity,
to the very practical, how do I set up my lights?
As always, everybody, thank you for watching.
Happy reefing.
Be well.
See ya next time.
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