Water Changes

[devildog999]

So, yesterday I finally added to H Erectus to my tank, yay. But this leads to something I did not think of. Now that they are in the system, how often should I be doing water changes and how much of a change? I was doing a bout a 20% change every 2 weeks but think frequency needs to get better now.

Total stocking is:

2 H Erectus
1 Green Mandarin
2 Harlequin Shrimp
CUC made of red and blue leg herms and assorted snails

Have a Purple Firefish, Firefish, and Blue Spot Watchman in QT. Let's pretend those 3 are already in the system so that my WC's start where they gonna need to be.

As for any concerns about stocking - the second one of these tankmates appears to not fit in, they are out. Tank is for the SH's.

Danke in advance

[devildog999]

Someone has to have some information on how often I should be doing water changes and volume to be changed.

[vlangel]

Originally Posted by devildog999

So, yesterday I finally added to H Erectus to my tank, yay. But this leads to something I did not think of. Now that they are in the system, how often should I be doing water changes and how much of a change? I was doing a bout a 20% change every 2 weeks but think frequency needs to get better now.

Total stocking is:

2 H Erectus
1 Green Mandarin
2 Harlequin Shrimp
CUC made of red and blue leg herms and assorted snails

Have a Purple Firefish, Firefish, and Blue Spot Watchman in QT. Let's pretend those 3 are already in the system so that my WC's start where they gonna need to be.

As for any concerns about stocking - the second one of these tankmates appears to not fit in, they are out. Tank is for the SH's.

Danke in advance

This is not an easy question since we don't know anything about your filtration or volume. Could you go into more detail about your tank and its filtration. How many gallons is this tank? Do you have a skimmer and what is it rated for? Do you have a refugium or algal scrubber?

[devildog999]

Originally Posted by vlangel

This is not an easy question since we don't know anything about your filtration or volume. Could you go into more detail about your tank and its filtration. How many gallons is this tank? Do you have a skimmer and what is it rated for? Do you have a refugium or algal scrubber?

Fair point.

The aquarium is an SC Aquariums 50g rimless with 19g sump. Total water volume though is about 50g. Sump is three chambers with a refugium which has some chaeto and a protein skimmer. The skimmer is the SCA-301 65 g skimmer (I do plan on eventually upgrading to their 180g skimmer.

No other filtration in use. I have about 50lb sand and 70ish lbs rock.

If any more info needed, please let me know.

And thank you

[rayjay]

IMO it is STILL hard to give a proper answer as each hobbyist can have differing husbandry and feeding protocols that will affect how soon the water becomes a potential breeding ground for nasty bacteria.
There ARE NO TEST KITS available to the hobbyist to be able to tell when those conditions are becoming better to aid in the bacteria expansion so we have to just be extreme in our husbandry and water change frequency/volume.
In my early years of seahorse keeping I ended up determining that many problems I developed in the tanks, were not recent occurrences, but rather things that were an accumulation over a fairly long period of time. Skip a cleaning or water change here and there and the water gradually degrades until all of a sudden you can actually see the problem via the seahorses themselves. As I'm basically a lazy person, this was hard to overcome.
The skimmer is an excellent aid, better when larger though.
Sand beds can be gravel vacuumed maybe 25% at a time weekly to help remove potential feeding/bedding grounds, and having mechanical filtration, especially like a sock on the overflow, cleaned at least once a week but more often is better before the trapped particulate matter starts to decay. I found that with the rock, it trapped an enormous amount of uneaten food and had to take a powerhead to blow off the rockwork and allow for settlement before vacuuming out, to at least lessen the amount of decay potential.
If you DON'T have a sock on the overflow, I'd advise finding a way to remove any uneaten food/detritus that settles in the sump compartments as that too will add to the potential bacteria problem.
Lastly, for a 50g tank you may be overloading it somewhat but that can be partially mitigated with a little more frequent and larger water changes than if it was just seahorses. (I personally have seahorse specific tanks as when I started I ended up with problems with adding pathogens the seahorses didn't do well with from adding other fish)

[vlangel]

Originally Posted by devildog999

Fair point.

The aquarium is an SC Aquariums 50g rimless with 19g sump. Total water volume though is about 50g. Sump is three chambers with a refugium which has some chaeto and a protein skimmer. The skimmer is the SCA-301 65 g skimmer (I do plan on eventually upgrading to their 180g skimmer.

No other filtration in use. I have about 50lb sand and 70ish lbs rock.

If any more info needed, please let me know.

And thank you

Like rayjay states, there are still variables that relate to each hobbyist's maintenance habits but I will try to give some guidelines using my tank as a comparison.

My tank is a 56 gallon display with a 20 gallon sump. My water volume is probably similar to yours. I have 3 seahorses but no fish. I have the SCA-302 skimmer and it is definitely not overkill. My sump sound very much like yours with 3 compartments with the center being a fuge with a DSB. My display is bb but with a fair amount of rock.

I do 7-8 gallon WCs 3Xs a week for a total of 21-25 gallons a week. Perhaps that is overkill but having sick seahorses is not fun at all, so I don't mind doing more than necessary. I also turkey baste all the rock, coral and macro algae at least twice a week to dislodge excess food or ditritus to be filtered out or syphoned out. I learned the hard way not to keep a seahorse tank that is too congested or with too low of flow. My tank has around 22Xs turnover and again that is not overkill as long as the seahorses have hitches in lower flow areas, moderate flow areas and high flow areas. They like a choice. I hope this helps give you a guide line.

[devildog999]

Originally Posted by rayjay

IMO it is STILL hard to give a proper answer as each hobbyist can have differing husbandry and feeding protocols that will affect how soon the water becomes a potential breeding ground for nasty bacteria.
...

I appreciate you greatly. I actually just got a filter sock about a week ago. My tank just came with some square pads and a bit later than I should have done it but I bought a sock holder and some socks and I cleaning them every couple of days. Right now my biggest issue is there is quite a bit of crud in the sump. On one hand, I want to leave as it is a good place for the pods to do their think and it's mostly just fine sand picked up by my MP40 moving water pretty fast.

I think what I need to start focusing on is blowing off rocks when I suck water. I have a bit of cyano atm and yesterday I was scrubbing some off and I wasn't finding detrius on surface so the MP is doing it's job there. It's inside the rock structure I think I need to start working on to be safe.

Originally Posted by vlangel

Like rayjay states, there are still variables that relate to each hobbyist's maintenance habits but I will try to give some guidelines using my tank as a comparison...

I just added a small wavemaker into my fuge compartment to keep the chaeto moving as it was getting pretty nasty and i thought this would help get some stuff kicked up and into the sock. What else can I do to clean sump up a bit without messing with my pod populations?

I think I'll try two 10 gallon changes a week for the time being and see how that works. I'll actually store some of that water to put in my QT and keep those couple fish with the parameters they gonna be in.

I have an MP40 for main flow and it's running at about 20% and the seahorses seem to enjoy the flow; trying to make sure to have that area with a high flow rate.

I appreciate all help and tips.

[vlangel]

Originally Posted by devildog999

I appreciate you greatly. I actually just got a filter sock about a week ago. My tank just came with some square pads and a bit later than I should have done it but I bought a sock holder and some socks and I cleaning them every couple of days. Right now my biggest issue is there is quite a bit of crud in the sump. On one hand, I want to leave as it is a good place for the pods to do their think and it's mostly just fine sand picked up by my MP40 moving water pretty fast.

I think what I need to start focusing on is blowing off rocks when I suck water. I have a bit of cyano atm and yesterday I was scrubbing some off and I wasn't finding detrius on surface so the MP is doing it's job there. It's inside the rock structure I think I need to start working on to be safe.





I just added a small wavemaker into my fuge compartment to keep the chaeto moving as it was getting pretty nasty and i thought this would help get some stuff kicked up and into the sock. What else can I do to clean sump up a bit without messing with my pod populations?

I think I'll try two 10 gallon changes a week for the time being and see how that works. I'll actually store some of that water to put in my QT and keep those couple fish with the parameters they gonna be in.

I have an MP40 for main flow and it's running at about 20% and the seahorses seem to enjoy the flow; trying to make sure to have that area with a high flow rate.

I appreciate all help and tips.

I don't have socks in my drain so I periodically syphon the bottoms of my drain compartment and my return compartment. For the most part a DSB is self cleaning but I occasionally suck a thin layer off the top of it. My macros are crawling with pods and look pretty clean. If yours looks dirty I think I would shake it in a bucket of clean saltwater and then suck the pods up 1 by 1 with a turkey baster and return them to the fuge.

[rayjay]

Right now my biggest issue is there is quite a bit of crud in the sump

That "crud" is providing excellent breeding grounds for nasty bacteria. The seahorses can survive quite well with lower densities of pods, but DON'T do well with nasty bacteria.
Pods will do just fine feeding on particulate matter, but if it is congregating into visible type batches, it's time to remove it IMO.

[devildog999]

Originally Posted by rayjay

That "crud" is providing excellent breeding grounds for nasty bacteria. The seahorses can survive quite well with lower densities of pods, but DON'T do well with nasty bacteria.
Pods will do just fine feeding on particulate matter, but if it is congregating into visible type batches, it's time to remove it IMO.

100% agree, which is why I added a wavemaker to the refugium. Gets the crud up moving; now it's in a filter sock. My sump is looking much cleaner now that i have added that.

[socalireefdood]

How sensitive are these pipe fish? can they live in a low flow tank?

[RonV]

My tank is slimier to your and I do a 5 gal. water change a week.