First water change?

[toothadash]

Hi when is it best to do the first water change in a new system and how much?

:loveface

Cheers,

Rich

 

[drnsee]

I'm not sure exactly when you should do your first, but I already planned to do mine weekly, so I did my first one about a week after I first setup. I changed about 20% of my water. My levels were ammonia 0 and nitrite 0 and nitrates were at 20 ppm. I added a polyfilter a day after the water change. My nitrates dropped to less than 10 ppm.

 

[funkngroovy]

If you do small changes, you can do them daily. It would be great for you cycle if you could do 5% per day. You should be doing 10% twice a week in my opinion.


Can you give us some details on your system. Maybe start a thread similar to mine (below) or others that have links in their signatures.

 

[toothadash]

I have started a thread Geoff but not too sure how to go about how to do the links bit yet!

 

[funkngroovy]

http://www.nanotank.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6131

instructions from tim :lol:

 

[reefman23]

You should really wait for you cycle to come full circle before you do your first water change.

Jesse

 

[TimSchmidt]

^+1

The cycle needs the ammonia and nitrite so the bacteria have something to feed on. If we do water changes we then reduce them and possibly prolong the time until the live rock has a balanced level of bacteria. There is more than one way to peel an orange. This is my way. :lol:

Besides I can be a little lazy some times. :cool1: