Fish pooping after water changes

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SeaHorseRanch

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 16, 2025
17
24
3
United State
Does anyone have the same problem? I just got done with a water change on my 200gal and I work on my other tanks and come back to see a whole bunch of fish poop at the bottom 30 minutes later. Now im going to have to spot vac it. I fed them last night so I thought they should have flushed at least most of it out by the time I did a water change.

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As suggested, you can introduce no-feeding days.
Other than that, one has to understand that happy fish means fish poop., even shortly after a water change.
Perhaps more important is to realize that the problem with physical fish poop is just one of aesthetics. Of all of the waste products released by fish, physical poop is among the least dangerous, well less concerning than invisible ammonia, pheromones and others. Just keep doing your water changes, and increase if desired.
 
I think this is perhaps what is meant to happen:

Before the water change, the water is nutrient rich - nitrogen rich, and so is the fish. After the water change, the water is devoid of nitrogen, and then the fish has a comparatively higher nitrogen load to the water, and so dumps it into the water.
 
I believe many fish keepers see those obvious turds laying around on the substrate are the main contributor of of degraded water quality.
But compared to mammalian digestion byproducts, in fish what you most see is mostly ash. (unsightly but benign (especially when using prepare fish foods) check out what % is ash in the ingrediants in mamy prepered foods)
But the main contributor to bad water is what we cannot see, a majority are nefarious chemicals usually invisible such as proteins, ammonia and nitrate,
It's those that sometimes rise to the surface and appears as film, when surface agitation slows, that are the culprits.
It is these invisible components that we eliminate with water changes,
They only become obvious when using fractionation, and separated when the air/water interface is cracked.
Looking at a few random turds, turbidity, particulates or water clarity is not as significant as what we only see when testing for nitrates, and phosphates.
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The water in the above river, is heathy, and contains many fish.
In the clear river below, there where no fish to be found, because it was down stream from a pig farm, due to the organic nitrate waste products.
Only algae grew in this section of high nitrate water.
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Not an entirely rare occurrence, something like going for a brisk walk after a meal to 'speed things up.' It may seem like a 'problem' when you want to see pristine looking sand, but to the fish it's more like a benefit. The difference between our tanks and nature is we don't want too much waste building up in our tanks while in nature it recycles nutrients to the environment where they return to the food chain. In a biologically robust tank with good current, etc. it breaks up pretty fast ime.
 
I haven't vacuumed my tank, in about 3 years, ever since I filled my sump with aquatic and emergent plants
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The submerged aquatics are vallineria, and water lilies, and the emergent are Hydrocotyl and mangrove trees
And yet the floor (substrate in the main, (what I consider overstocked) cichlid tank, is reletively devoid of turds.
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Some fish are over 8" so, turd production is substancial, yet disappears almost over night.
The main tank ( a 180 gal), and is also draped with many terrestrial bare root plants, such as Dieffenbachia.
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These plants in the tank and sump remove, and use up visible fish waste, as fast as the fish crapp it out, but more importantly.... include the invisible waste producys such as nitrate.
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Althogh I am fairly anal about doing weekly 100% water changes, the 28" height of the tank, does make vacuuming a challenge, so this use of plant uptake of waste has a definite advantage.

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While it's true that the big solid logs of...stuff...are the most benign of fish excreta, I admit that I hate to see them. But, honestly, those delicate little dribs and drabs shown in the OP photo hardly seem worthy of notice, IMHO. :)

If you want to see big ugly poops, you need to have big ugly fish with big ugly appetites, and preferably who are fairly sedentary so that they are not constantly moving around and breaking up the chunks. My dearly-departed Jelly Cat was the poster fish for this kind of stuff; his droppings looked like hamsters that had fallen in and drowned. I tended to "spot-siphon" his tank almost daily just because I didn't want to look at them.

If, for some inexplicable reason, you want to see no fish poop in your tank...you need a couple of Goldfish. Geophagus and other bottom-sifters got the idea and learned the craft by watching Goldfish, and none of them have mastered it to the same degree as the Goldies. They will meander down to the bottom, grab a mouthful of...stuff...and swim around with it for many seconds, even minutes, thoughtfully chewing and swishing it around as though they think it contains a pit or seed that they don't want to accidentally swallow. I've seen some that work on the same mouthful for so long that I begin to wonder if they have something wrong with their mouths. When they finally decide they've gotten all the flavour out of it, they puff it out in a cloud halfway up the water column, so finely masticated and pulverized that your filter whisks it away as though it never existed.

Once a week or so you need to redistribute the substrate from the gently rolling hills of it that accumulate in favourite spitting-out areas. This is way less work than vacuuming the substrate. If Goldies cold be trained to spit it out where the aquarist wants it...they'd be perfect! :)
 
While it's true that the big solid logs of...stuff...are the most benign of fish excreta, I admit that I hate to see them. But, honestly, those delicate little dribs and drabs shown in the OP photo hardly seem worthy of notice, IMHO. :)

If you want to see big ugly poops, you need to have big ugly fish with big ugly appetites, and preferably who are fairly sedentary so that they are not constantly moving around and breaking up the chunks. My dearly-departed Jelly Cat was the poster fish for this kind of stuff; his droppings looked like hamsters that had fallen in and drowned. I tended to "spot-siphon" his tank almost daily just because I didn't want to look at them.

If, for some inexplicable reason, you want to see no fish poop in your tank...you need a couple of Goldfish. Geophagus and other bottom-sifters got the idea and learned the craft by watching Goldfish, and none of them have mastered it to the same degree as the Goldies. They will meander down to the bottom, grab a mouthful of...stuff...and swim around with it for many seconds, even minutes, thoughtfully chewing and swishing it around as though they think it contains a pit or seed that they don't want to accidentally swallow. I've seen some that work on the same mouthful for so long that I begin to wonder if they have something wrong with their mouths. When they finally decide they've gotten all the flavour out of it, they puff it out in a cloud halfway up the water column, so finely masticated and pulverized that your filter whisks it away as though it never existed.

Once a week or so you need to redistribute the substrate from the gently rolling hills of it that accumulate in favourite spitting-out areas. This is way less work than vacuuming the substrate. If Goldies cold be trained to spit it out where the aquarist wants it...they'd be perfect! :)
I have a bichir, flagtail, and a few datnoids. There were some logs in there but the flagtail thought it was food so thats why you see little pieces. 😅
 
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