A rant

[crxlsturbo]

I do water changes once a week on all my tanks. I have 2 10 gallon, 30,55,100,120 and a 240. None of my tanks are over stocked and have good filtration on all. I just do 40% water changes on all. I gravel half of the tank one week and the other side next week. I wait about month before I gravel again. My canister filters I clean once every 4-5months. Some tanks I have 2 canister filters. So I clean one and wait about 2 weeks to clean the other. I wash out the sponge in my own tank water. Change the carbon when I clean my filters. Never had a problem with a breakout at all. Only time was with my ebjd juvi. But they get it easy.

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[koltsixx]

Nitrate is a chemical indicator species, and high nitrate is telling of water degradation, but not the only reason we do water changes.
High nitrate indicates a condition where pathogenic species of bacteria, low water quality preferring algae and other phages find hospitable, and where normally non-pathogenic bacteria species become a problem.
As a former water chemist/microbiologist we use nitrate, and the indicator bacteria species coliforms, to get a take on "general" idea of water quality and because they are "easy" and inexpensive tests.
It is very expensive, time consuming, and difficult without a highly equip lab, to test for the other host of chemical and microbial species that are, or could become a potential problem.
Hormones, pheromones, build up of certain dangerous minerals, large bacterial colonies in detritus and D.O.C. that create biological oxygen demand (or become epidemic), and algae are also removed with water changes.
Alkalinity buffers, and other important depleted chemicals, are replenished with water changes.
If nitrate is seen as the be all, end all in determining frequency and amount of water changes, the larger picture is being missed.
In nature water is constantly being changed by tropical rains, and flowing rivers.
Most non polluted waters have a nitrate concentration of <5ppm.
Where I live the nitrate concentration of Lake Michigan is < 1ppm, these kind of numbers indicate excellent water quality.

Thank you for the informative and concise response. It's too bad I don't have a better understanding of water chemistry. While I try to educate myself I find either my access to the info. is lacking or my knowledge about how to find such info. is insufficient. Since my interest in water quality stems from this hobby my searches for more info. usually use keywords I see on the forums or I've heard else where in regards to the hobby. Since my key words are limited in this way and they're the basis of my searches it of course ultimately limits the info. I wind up accessing. As such my understanding of the nitrogen cycle, redox and the build up of unwanted excesses that are detrimental to water quality is pretty basic. So it's nice to see some info. I haven't seen before mentioned here and in such a concise way since I think it benefits the community as a whole.

 

[DDK]

I use pothos, algae scrubbers and do small partial water changes at least every other day, basing any large water changes on rising nitrates, dropping alkalinity and dropping pH.
I try to keep nitrates at between 2-5ppm, my make up water has an alkalinity of about 100pm, at 60ppm in the tank, its time to change, and pH is normally 7.5, if it drops to 7.0, its time to make a change.
My filtration is a number of filter socks in sumps, sponges on top of bio towers, and planted refugiums.

Ah thank you, so instead of monitoring only nitrates i'll essentially be watching the ph and also the alkalinity of the water. Could I possibly ask how you personally test the alkalinity of the water?

 

[duanes]

When working as a chemist I would bring in a sample every morning and titrate for alkalinity, and other parameters. I have log books filled with data and kept on my tanks to watch trends.
Over the years test strips have become available that are accurate enough for our purpose.
Fischer Scientific has a group of test strips I became familiar with in the lab for everything from alkalinity to nitrate and between.
Many strips out there may be produced with varying degrees of accuracy, (and by the same company) but since Fischer Sci was considered accurate enough for drinking water testing, and approved by the agencies I reported to, I still like to use them.

Ammonia test

 

[spiff44]

+1 on taking weekly tests. Another +1 for Purigen.. I keep two sacks of the stuff so that when one is dirty I can swap. Then I can let the dirty one dry out and it makes it very easy to flush out the dried junk. Trying to rinse these fine filter bags when wet and dirty is almost futile as the water doesn't want to penetrate the bag at this point and just rolls off.

But initially when I first started using Purigen and hearing that its good for at least 6 months, I didn't test for a couple months expecting this stuff to keep my nitrates at 0, but when I started seeing fish flashing, did a test and found it worse that it ever was..around 40PPm. Turned out I had too much Purigen in the sack which caused it to clog too quick. So having just the right thickness of this stuff against your flow is crucial too. This is when I broke it down to two separate filter bags of the stuff.

Now its about 1.5 inches of Purigen forming a layer at the bottom of a 5gal bucket.. just about perfect for 2400GPH flow. It was twice that at first, but didn't take long to stop flow when that thick of a layer.

 

[spiff44]

Put it this way, I only do water changes when I feel like it. Sometimes it goes months without it. Why? because I have proof and understanding that fish can tolerate more than what majority here believe. You guys take everything at face value. If someone says 20ppm nitrate is the threshold everyone gets OCD about water changes. People also want to act like elite fish keepers. truth is, no one gives a damn about your fish and your fish keeping abilities. Get off your ego trip. MANY fish live, thrive, and survive in crappy water conditions. There is proof out there proving this time and time again. None of my fish die with my lack of water changes. Go ahead and continue to waste time, money and energy all because of your ignorance. I have been keeping fish for many years, I've kept a wide range of species, have bred many species, and this is how I keep my fish and will continue to do so.

Nice. You know crappy puppy mills give the exact same excuse right up to the point of being arrested for abuse...."well, gee, look, they're healthy enough to breed!"

Talk about ego and ignorance.

 

[soul_assassin]

thanks for posting duanes

 

[Adamrhh]

Man I couldn't imagine doing only 20 percent. I do roughly 60 percent on both my tanks weekly. Mainly so I can redo something I the tank lol

 

[ccp2007]

Wow, talk about a subject of controversy...ouch! We have some know-it-all's with an attitude. Everyone has to start somewhere. Research only goes so far, you can read all day long but the best way to get where you want to be is trial and error which builds EXPERIENCE.

I'm OCD about testing my water and keeping my levels strait. Even when my levels ate good I still do a partial water change weekly. Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday are my water testing days. Water change days are Sundays unless something is elevated on one of my test days then I'll do a wc.

I am by no means an expert but I'm also not a slacker when it comes to any of my pets. I'm still learning daily after only 3 years of keeping fish.

This is supposed to be a place that new fish keepers can come to get advice, opinions and support. People need to remember that they too were new and clueless about the hobby at one point. If you don't want to offer sincere advice to people without being cruel and judgmental then don't post or read the "need help" threads.

Where did the morals and kindness go in this world?

Oh, and it's not "ignorance" it's lack of experience. Experience comes with time.

Be kind my fish friends

Happily married Mommy of 3 babies, 2 fur babies and 15 gilled babies

 

[BuffaloPolypteridae]

I do not toatally agree but there is proof.

The 43 year old pacu "butkiss" that was inna 75 or whatever

The 20 year old comet goldfish in a bowl

Among many others.


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One offs like those shouldn't be used as a standard for fish keeping though, sure they survive but that pacu looked like it went through a meat grinder, the comet didn't have the nice body structure properly raised comets have

I just can't believe p. Party went off like that about my post haha a lot of people have very similar care schedules, duane's included.

Anyone who doesn't run pothos get it!! By my calculations from before pothos the plant sucks out at least 10 ppms a day. That was shortly after I installed them and they were pretty small, now they are MASSIVE (about 3-4 months later) and I'm sure the size of pothos has something to do with the amount of nitrates taken so I'm betting its more like 20 now but I don't want to take it out to test to be sure haha

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