What do you use for water changes ?!?!?
- Thread starter Peacock Rey
- Start date
Here is a pic of the bar I hook up to my garden hose for water changes. It uses 1/16 holes to degas my water. Without this I would have to age my water because it is super saturated with nitrogen gas and possibly co2. If I was to just let the hose fill the tank( even above the water line), it would fill up with bubbles and kill all my fish. I'm not sure if everyone in nyc has this problem but in the 2 areas I own homes in the water is exactly the same.
The plumbing for our water changes is plumbed into our mechanical filtration system. Here's an overview of our filtration. Our 300 gallon tank which houses two large pacu has a 400 gallon capacity ProClear wet/dry filter running with a CA-6000 pump 1560 gph. This sits on the floor behind the tank and is plumbed in to one of the overflow boxes. We have the spraybar return from the wet/dry filter hanging in a plugged off overflow box which also has the heater for the tank. For mechanical filtration, we have two Rainbow spa filters run by a Hammerhead pump (5800 gph). The mechanical filtration system is housed in a converted old furnace room which is directly behind the tank.
I had ordered an FX5 which was fairly new in the USA and was backordered. By the time it came, the tank had cycled and the fish moved to it. We were getting great water parameters. We connected the FX5 for backup filtration, and later added a 40 Watt UV sterilizer to the FX5.
The FX5 and UV sterilizer also sit on the floor behind the tank
The unique part of my husband's design are the poop suckers. These are two pipes that come down to 1/4" from the bare floor. These are connected to the mechanical filtration and quickly whisk away feces and debris from the tank. They were strategically placed where debris tended to eddy and concentrate. In the 5+ years the tank has been running, there has been no debris to vacuum out of the tank.
Poopsucker:
In the filter room, we have a 55 gallon tank sitting on a high shelf. We have a line running from the utility sink up to the tank to fill it. The tank is plumbed into the mechanical system. We have a heater in that tank, and keep it full of conditioned water. When we are refilling the main tank, we add conditioner to the 55 gallon tank and turn on the hot/cold faucets that feed the holding tank. Refilling the main tank involves simply turning on the faucet from the 55 gallon holding tank. The water gravity flows into the main tank. Once the main uptake is under water, we pump in the last 100 gallons of water.
The vertical line on the right is from the holding tank. Opening the valve sends the heated conditioned water to the main tank. Directly behind this pipe you can see an elbow with a pipe going downwards (against the wall). This pipe goes under the house and and then outside to the patio. Turning the valve on outside, starts the siphoning action in the tank. We can very quickly siphon out 200 gallons. The poop suckers and the main mechanical uptake work very well siphoning out the water. The horizontal lines are the uptake lines for the mechanical filtration. There are valves at the tank and at the filter end on every line. If the valves for the uptake lines are shut, the water siphons through the mechanical return, rinsing out the spa filters before being dumped outside. The return nozzle is only a few inches below the waterline, so it isn't too long before the nozzle is out of the water, and the poop suckers siphon out the rest of the water.
Here's a picture of the back of the tank. We had to drill several more holes in the top of the tank to accomodate our poop suckers and the FX5 we threw into the mix:
The pipe in the front left is the main mechanical return line. On the right and also past the overflow box are the two poop sucker pipes. The hose from the FX5 is also there. The main mechanical uptake is on the far side of the second unused overflow box. There is a very swift current in the tank which our fish love. When we do water changes, we usually very quickly pump in the last 100 gallons of water. Here's an old video of our fish enjoying the turbulent action as water is being pumped back into the tank!
[YT]7v2Vyr5NbNs[/YT]
Water changes are super easy and involve turning valves on and off and pumps off and on. The water parameters are excellent, and nitrates are kept under 20 ppm.
I had ordered an FX5 which was fairly new in the USA and was backordered. By the time it came, the tank had cycled and the fish moved to it. We were getting great water parameters. We connected the FX5 for backup filtration, and later added a 40 Watt UV sterilizer to the FX5.
The FX5 and UV sterilizer also sit on the floor behind the tank
The unique part of my husband's design are the poop suckers. These are two pipes that come down to 1/4" from the bare floor. These are connected to the mechanical filtration and quickly whisk away feces and debris from the tank. They were strategically placed where debris tended to eddy and concentrate. In the 5+ years the tank has been running, there has been no debris to vacuum out of the tank.
Poopsucker:
In the filter room, we have a 55 gallon tank sitting on a high shelf. We have a line running from the utility sink up to the tank to fill it. The tank is plumbed into the mechanical system. We have a heater in that tank, and keep it full of conditioned water. When we are refilling the main tank, we add conditioner to the 55 gallon tank and turn on the hot/cold faucets that feed the holding tank. Refilling the main tank involves simply turning on the faucet from the 55 gallon holding tank. The water gravity flows into the main tank. Once the main uptake is under water, we pump in the last 100 gallons of water.
The vertical line on the right is from the holding tank. Opening the valve sends the heated conditioned water to the main tank. Directly behind this pipe you can see an elbow with a pipe going downwards (against the wall). This pipe goes under the house and and then outside to the patio. Turning the valve on outside, starts the siphoning action in the tank. We can very quickly siphon out 200 gallons. The poop suckers and the main mechanical uptake work very well siphoning out the water. The horizontal lines are the uptake lines for the mechanical filtration. There are valves at the tank and at the filter end on every line. If the valves for the uptake lines are shut, the water siphons through the mechanical return, rinsing out the spa filters before being dumped outside. The return nozzle is only a few inches below the waterline, so it isn't too long before the nozzle is out of the water, and the poop suckers siphon out the rest of the water.
Here's a picture of the back of the tank. We had to drill several more holes in the top of the tank to accomodate our poop suckers and the FX5 we threw into the mix:
The pipe in the front left is the main mechanical return line. On the right and also past the overflow box are the two poop sucker pipes. The hose from the FX5 is also there. The main mechanical uptake is on the far side of the second unused overflow box. There is a very swift current in the tank which our fish love. When we do water changes, we usually very quickly pump in the last 100 gallons of water. Here's an old video of our fish enjoying the turbulent action as water is being pumped back into the tank!
[YT]7v2Vyr5NbNs[/YT]
Water changes are super easy and involve turning valves on and off and pumps off and on. The water parameters are excellent, and nitrates are kept under 20 ppm.
well its like this. 125 gallon tank . 13 6 inch piranha nitrates go off the chart. 60 gallon water change every other day got plants to. to do this with 5 gallon buckets is not going to happen. so i do this. hook up 25 foot pool vacuum hose inch and a half to fx5 and 60 gallons out the door in 4 minutes. fill back up with 5/8 garden hose hooked up to shower takes about 10 minutes.
I usually leave the gravel alone and only clean the top layer. I let the bacteria break down what ever is caught deep in the gravel pores. And use tap water that's been air-stoned for 24 hours or until it just stops smelling like Chlorine. I also use filtered water from my rain harvest barrels.
25% twice weekly on my 125, I hook my python up to the kitchen sink, drain and vac the sand....add Prime, refill at appropriate temp. Takes about 1/2 hour and that is only because my house has crappy water pressure!
ziggyzang;5086425; said:
Thats what I do....just the top area of the gravel.....since I have gravel that have larger particles and also really small particles.
