Changing Water: which is more efficient/effective?

[vfc]

They use to sell a small dual hose water changer that clipped on the side of the tank. This is basically doing option #2.

One hose hooked to a sink/laundry tub faucet, the other was the drain. The end that clipped on the side of the tank was a similar design to the python; the force of the water going into the tank provided the suction to drain out the water.

It was the one thing that I (not knowing about the nitrogen cycle years ago) used that finally allowed me to keep my fish alive more than a couple months. In fact, I was able to keep a few fish alive well over five years.

I would hook it up and let it run for a few hours. It shot a fine, but strong, stream of water that maybe was 3G/hr. Back then I just had chlorine in my tap water, so the turbulence of the jet stream helped gas out the chlorine.

Recently my sister just gave me a box of fish stuff she collected over the years, and there was one in it. This is probably a good solution for the many fish keepers who want fish but don't want to invest in any real effort to maintain the tank.

 

[laura65536]

They use to sell a small dual hose water changer that clipped on the side of the tank. This is basically doing option #2.

One hose hooked to a sink/laundry tub faucet, the other was the drain. The end that clipped on the side of the tank was a similar design to the python; the force of the water going into the tank provided the suction to drain out the water.

It was the one thing that I (not knowing about the nitrogen cycle years ago) used that finally allowed me to keep my fish alive more than a couple months. In fact, I was able to keep a few fish alive well over five years.

I would hook it up and let it run for a few hours. It shot a fine, but strong, stream of water that maybe was 3G/hr. Back then I just had chlorine in my tap water, so the turbulence of the jet stream helped gas out the chlorine.

Recently my sister just gave me a box of fish stuff she collected over the years, and there was one in it. This is probably a good solution for the many fish keepers who want fish but don't want to invest in any real effort to maintain the tank.

I may be wrong here, but I would think that if you had chlorine, you would need to use something to the effect of prime to be on the safe side, or you would kill off your BB.
And IMO the only people that don't want to invest the time into a nice tank, and still have a nice tank are people who hire someone to take the time. If you don't take the time, usually you don't have the nice tank.

 

[vfc]

When I bought this thing over 20 years ago, very little was known (at least to the casual pre-internet fish keeper) about BB and nitrates. I bought one because my tank water was yellowish and the box says it makes water clear. So by accident, I was removing nitrates.

I had a nice tank back then, but I had to keep replacing fish that died from nitrate poisoning (again I knew nothing about nitrate and just thought it was bad stock from the LFS). My older sister, who always seemed to have a nice and healthy tank, just recently told me that she would buy a new batch of fish before every family gathering; then scope out dead ones for days after the party. We both had the classic "old tank syndrome" that most people know about today.

As far as the chlorine killing off BB, I had an under-gravel filter with two power heads (high-tech back then) and a small HOB with charcoal and filter floss. Since the untreated water was coming in so slow (much like a continuous drip system), maybe the BB in the UG filter was not effected all that much.