- Today's problem:
water changes are just not keeping the nutrient levels down.
- But we've got the top 10 things
to get you past this.
(upbeat music)
- This is BRSTV Problem Solvers.
If water changes not keeping your nutrient levels down
is your problem,
this video is the solution, starting with number one.
- The first step is understanding that water changes,
or dilution of the water won't work on your nutrients
unless your filtration beforehand, is working effectively.
That means like particles, like whole waste.
These things get taken out by your filter stocks,
mechanical filtration particles, and organic compounds,
the performance of your skimmer,
the inorganic molecules, things like refugium, scrubbers.
These types of things will pull all of these broken down
nitrates and phosphates first.
And then water changes just helps the process.
- So if you're doing water changes and you're saying,
"Hey man, my nutrient levels won't stay down."
One of two things is probably happening,
or maybe three is:
A, I'm feeding way too damn much.
B, my filtration isn't working.
I haven't got my skin reworking.
It don't get my filter stocks working.
I don't got my refugium working, my scrubber working.
Or C, I'm just not doing enough water changes
to keep up with the fact that my feeding super heavy,
or my filtration is weak.
Number two,
you can actually select your size
of water change in frequency to a goal.
And it's actually pretty accurate,
as long as you understand the net effect of dilution.
Meaning, if we started with about one part per million
addition of nitrate every single month,
what happens as we do water changes,
and we watch that thing rise?
We'll tell you what it is
if you did a 10% water change monthly,
if 30% and 50%, and you might be surprised at the results.
So starting with 10% once a month water change.
Now this is the light end,
so don't be surprised with the results here.
My one part per million addition of nitrate
every single month at the end of six months,
would turn into 4.2.
And at the end of 12 months, 6.5.
And at the end of 24 months, it would be 8.2,
meaning times eight times your monthly addition
is about where it stabilizes at after two years.
And that might not sound so bad,
if you had one part per million addition,
and it ended at eight in two years, so be it.
But if you had a 10 part per million addition in a month,
because you feed a lot, or your filtration just isn't great,
Well, it means you're gonna land at 80,
and probably not good.
So yeah.
Understand that a 10% water change
really is reliant on the fact
that you have really excellent filtration already,
and feeding practices.
- So what if we schedule that up
to a more common size water change,
that's about 30% a month.
In this case,
that one part per million nitrate, at six months,
only winds up being two at 12 months, and 24 months,
2.3 respectively.
So that means at, oh, at six months, this thing caps out.
So whether you have one or 10,
you can expect
that you're only going to get double with that.
- But what if I didn't want my nitrate and phosphate
to rise at all?
What size water change would I need then?
And the answer is actually 50%,
meaning that it will never go higher
than the single month's addition,
as long as that stable,
meaning at six months,
my one part per million after the water change,
would be 0.98, and at 12 months, 0.99,
and at 24 months, 0.99,
meaning it will never go above whatever it is
that you adding in that single month, right?
And maybe a really good solution,
if you just acknowledge the fact
that you like to feed a lot,
or your filtration just isn't that great.
For example, the E170 that we set up,
the skimmer is kind of a mediocre.
And we didn't have a lot of filter stocks,
or any other types of nutrient export.
We were just reliant on water changes.
And you can see why that automatic water change schedule
actually produced a flourishing tank
without perpetually rising nutrients.
So number three, the solution,
and what we recommend is weekly 10% water changes.
At the end of the month,
that net result is about 34%,
so right in that sweet spot,
where you won't expect more than double
what your input is or double where it is
at the end of the month.
So that's not just nitrates and phosphates.
That also includes a dilution of 34% in a month,
for contaminants that might be in your tank.
- Yeah.
So that really fits anything that you're looking for.
It could be, you know, 30 to 40% once a month,
or that 10% once a week,
that stability that you find from not changing too much,
but making sure you stay where you want to be.
Our number four is actually understanding
the frequency effect.
And it's probably not as important as most people tell you.
So you can just think about this though,
when you're selecting the right water change
for your nutrient solution, or just pollution export,
as you mentioned.
In this case,
the net effect of four 10% water changes,
is not the same as a one single 40,
because you kind of end up
changing out some of that fresh water,
a small portion of it every time.
And people say that a lot,
but it really isn't that big of a change.
So obviously at 40% once a month
will change up 40%, the water will drop 40%.
If you did two 20% water changes,
which is probably a little bit more stable than that,
it's a 30%, 6% net effect.
So like you're missing about 4% of the benefit.
I don't know if many people care.
If you do 10, or four 10% water changes, it's 34.4.
So, you know, a 10% water change is really manageable.
It's really easy to do.
Doesn't take up a lot of time.
It's really stable,
'cause you're not changing a lot of parameters more than 10%
in any single week.
And you only lose just a few percents,
meaning like five and a half percent of the water.
And even daily, if you take that 40% and split it up daily,
it's 1.33% a day.
And that's what people do with auto water changes.
And it sounds like it might be a little wasteful.
People say that all the time, auto water changes,
but the net effect is the difference
between a 40% water change in a month, versus 33.08.
- Yeah.
- It's really not that much different.
And if you think about it, for a lot of people,
it might be the difference of one bucket of salt
Every couple of years.
- Number five is, not relying on water changes
for nitrate and phosphate reduction.
You're just slowing the progression with water changes.
The real solution is your filtration,
the mechanical filtration for large whole particles,
the skimmer for inorganic compounds,
the refugium and scrubber for the inorganic compounds.
Those are your tickets to lowering nitrate and phosphate.
- Yeah, so if you're not catching it yet,
this is a combination.
It's a combination of the input of how much you feed,
how much you export with all of your filtration methods.
And then the water changes, is actually just a catchall
for when those things aren't working,
or we haven't perfected them yet.
Number six, if your levels are already really high,
and you need to get them down,
there's one thing that's probably the most important thing
you hear today,
is water changes are a way better solution to get them down,
then using some of the magic hammers.
So if I had 40 parts per million nitrate,
and I just dumped organic carbon in there,
to explode the bacterial population,
strip all the nitrate out, bad move.
If I had four parts per million phosphate,
and then I dumped in some GFR or some lanthanum chloride,
to strip it all the way down to zero in a single afternoon,
bad move.
Way better as if I did a 30% water change
once a week,
until I get the levels down to where I want them,
which is probably three or four weeks,
and then use the tools,
to help you maintain those new levels.
These are tools not to strip it out, or hammer it down,
is to help you maintain those levels afterward,
have a much more stable tank, and better success.
Number seven, and you hear us say this all the time,
the easier it is to do something,
the more likely you are to do it,
and such is the case in water changes.
Make it easy on yourself.
You know,
use some tools, or changed the way that you do water changes
instead of lugging around five gallon buckets.
And if you had to do 20 gallons,
that's four buckets, get a big Brute trash can,
put it on wheels, so it's easy to walk around.
Instead of doing a siphon, and walking away from the bucket,
you'll put a pump in the tank,
and draw the water out much faster,
so that the water changes are quicker and easier to do.
Make large batches of salt water,
probably a month's worth of saltwater at a time.
And that way it's ready to go when you.
- Yeah, I mean, there is the heart of it.
If it's easy to do, you will do it,
and then it'll be effective.
If it's hard to do,
you will eventually stop doing it,
and it won't be effective.
There are some favorites in there for me.
The Python a big one.
You can screw it on your sink,
start the water,
start the siphon,
water pours out down the drain.
Never goes on your floor.
Really easy.
Because it's going to your sink,
you don't have to worry about leaks and stuff the same way.
Also the pump that you mentioned.
Instead of waiting on a siphon
to slowly suck water out of it,
go buy a big CJ pump.
Dump in the tank,
and you can do a 20% water change, man,
in a matter of like two minutes instead of 20 minutes.
And you're way more likely to do it.
And you can flip it around,
actually fill it in the same amount of time.
And the hose from the Python
can be in an entirely different room.
So think about all the different ways.
Number one, though,
more important than probably all of them for me,
is make up an entire month's worth of salt.
Maybe even more than that at once,
and pick a salt that stores well.
Tropic Marin for us has been the number one
for storing over a period of time,
without affecting any of the parameters.
Did really well in all of Randy's experiments.
So get a container that is the size of whatever you need
for the month,
and mix up at least one month's worth of saltwater.
You will make it way, way easier to do that..
Number eight,
obviously automating them.
is the easiest possible way to do water changes.
Make sure they're done all the time.
In this case, you could actually get a bin
that will hold three months worth of water, mix it up.
And the only thing you'll ever do with your water change now
is once a quarter, dump a bucket of salt,
and some water together.
And they're just going to happen.
You're going to want a reliable pump.
Reliability is the most important piece of this,
and accuracy.
I know Kamoer,
and maybe there's some other standalone options out there.
I haven't actually used them.
But the Neptune DOS by far the most popular one
within the reefing community.
You do need an Apex to plug it in.
But in this case you have a accurate, calibratable,
reliable pump, that the community has used
for auto water changes for a long time.
It can pump a really, really long way,
go through multiple floors even,
and we run it all over the warehouse.
We've got 50 of them going here.
And now all the water changes,
sucks a little bit out every day,
puts a little bit back.
You can do it in a even push button water changes
if you want to do larger amounts every once in a while.
But if you just set it up to do a daily 1.33% change,
you're going to have all of that benefit
that we talked about earlier,
of never more than doubling,
even over the course of multiple years,
the amount of nitrate and phosphate, or any pollutant,
that you'd add in a single month.
- Number nine, if you want to do less water changes,
consider how much you're feeding,
the inputs that are going in.
And this isn't just the food that you're putting in.
It's the types of foods, and the size of the particles.
If you're feeding big, giant Miesha shrimp,
and you can see every single piece of it getting eaten
by your fish, that's a little more effective feeding.
But if you're feeding corals, these small particulate foods,
dissolved foods like amino acids, and things like that,
these are things that inherently will not make it
to every single mouth that's in your tank,
corals' mouths or fish smells,
which means they will end up somewhere else,
and decay and turn into nitrate and phosphate.
- Yeah, broadcast feeding coral foods
requires good filtration,
or an immense amount of coral.
One of the other, they're both actually the same thing.
- And so, yeah, consider your inputs,
because you don't want to starve the fish.
But if you're overfeeding them,
and you want to do less water changes,
solving that equation is part of it.
Number 10, the people that do consistent water changes
share one unique trait.
There are more successful than people that don't.
And it doesn't mean that people
that do different levels of water changes,
can't be successful at different points of the journey.
But it does mean,
as the people that are consistently changing out at 30%,
or around that, will never have the levels rise
beyond what they would add in a month.
And that's not just the food.
That's anything that could go in the food.
And foods contain things like copper.
There's additives, there's impurities in the additives.
And all of those things will rise over a period of time.
But if you're doing 30% a month,
they'll never rise more
than you would add, double in a single month.
And if you did 50%, never more than you'd had
in a single month as well.
So, you know,
understand that part of the reason
why those people are more successful,
is it gives you that peace of mind,
and that buffer against all the mistakes
that we all make and just don't know about.
Okay, so water changes as a nutrient export solution solved.
What's next?
- How long should you mix your salt water?
Well, we have the answer right here.
I can guarantee you
that most of you aren't doing it long enough.
- And how long can you store your freshly mixed salt water?
I can also guarantee you this.
Some of them you can store almost indefinitely,
and some of them not more than a matter of a day.