I change one gallon of water two times a week. well, I have this new filter that does not like to turn back on when I shut it off, I heard that the reason for this is because the parts inside of these little pumps swell when the are shut down and sometimes never start back up they just cease-up. So I decided to do my water changes on the fly. Here’s how I do it; Pictures to follow… maybe a video would be better…
I prepare one gallon of water, salt, heat, you know, all the good stuff.
I remove about half a gallon, then pour in a half gallon of new water never shutting down the filter, I then siphon out another half gallon then add the rest of the new water.
I do this twice a week because I feel if I waited any longer between water change the nitrates would climb too high and I would start losing corals and invertebrates.
One of these days I’m going to set up a water changer for small tanks.
It will consist of two plastic bags with lengths of tubing sealed to them (think hydration pack reservoirs or medical drain bags), in a box, and a power head that can attach to either hose. The box will be just big enough to hold one full bag and will close so it supports the bags on all sides.
I’ll fill one of the bags (using the power head…oh, after pulling out all the air in the bag using lung power first) from my mixing bucket. Then I’ll swap the powerhead onto the other hose and drop it into the tank. Put the hose attached to the full bag on the far side of the tank and start the power head.
If my theory is correct the water filling the empty bag will push against the full bag, forcing new water into the tank at a 1:1 ratio with the water removed. Once the second bag is full of old tank water the first bag should be empty. I’ll be able to do my water changes without significantly reducing the water level in the tank or turning off the filters and other devices.
I figure it will cost about $30 for a 2 liter version. You can get bag reservoirs that would work fine for this up to over 100g so it scales fairly well to whatever size a person might want.
I don’t think I’m going to get back into pico tanks until/unless I build that. I had a 4.5g tank for a long time, years ago, and water changes got to be kinda a stressful drag for everything in the tank.
Let me know if you do build it. I would love to see it in action.