Do I need to do water changes??

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H

heatha

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Dec 20, 2009
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colorado
I got my 300 gallon tank 2 months ago and haven't done one water change. All my fish are fine ( my fish are 3 motoro stingrays one 7 and a half inches, one 6 and a half inches and one five and half inches, 2 wild tefe blue discus about 4 inches, 10 small angelfish, 2 male congo tetras about 3 inches, 2 farwello cats full grown, 1 fire eel about a foot long, 1 ghost knife about 8 inches and about a dozen danios).....we also have random snails breeding in the sump which we think came from the angels. i dont have a water testing kit but last time we tested the water at our lfs it was a little high on ph which is fine for all my fish. i clean the floss in my sump every once in a while. my tank seems to be no maintainance but i just want to be sure everything will be ok at this rate for long term;)
 
Jon M said:
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Really?..... Are you familiar with what long term exposure to excessive amounts of nitrates does to your fish?.... Not to mention I'm pretty sure most stingrays need pristine water conditions to thrive and are sensitive to poor water conditions. Is this your first tank?....

Yes, you need to do weekly wc's and NO everything will not be okay if you don't do them.
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All my fish are doing perfectly fine!!!! my biggest ray just ate more then usual tonight and i put a couple of rays in there that were extremely skinny and have grown about a half inch in a month!!!
You should read my other recent posts before u put me down!!!!!!
 
If your fish are fine then u just a a very efficient running sump. Though I would still do a water changes especially in te future when your fish get to double the size they r now.

Jon m> loads of fishand rays can tolerate very high nitrates for a long time and be fine. It's no2 and ammonia that is the bad stuff.
Look at T1, his P14s were breeding in his old tank, with nitrates averaging 100 or more all the time.
So NO , u don't need weekly waterchanges, and high nitrates is not a problem.
 
heatha said:
All my fish are doing perfectly fine!!!!
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And how do you know that? You should be testing for nitrate levels and not pH

Nitrate poisoning don't just occur instantaneously, its an invisible poison which slowly kills your fish
 
Your fish may look fine but my advise is buy an all round test kit that will give you a Ph, No2, No3 and Nh4 readings and also do at least 1 30% water change per week.
Test your tank water at the start of the week and do a wc in the middle of the week that way you wont get false readings from your kit.
 
Sorry , I mentioned u don't Need to do weekly waterchanges, but as a precaution best to do once a week at least.
 
Next purchase for your fish tank should be a testing kit to get an idea of your parameters, now keep in mind the test kits you get at te LFS are going to give you a idea but are not lab grade testing equipment.

Water changes are needed, no way around it. You fish are still small and might be doing ok currently. Without doing water changes, things can go from good to horrible very quickly. Dissolved organics are building up in your system currently.
 
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