How can this be!??

[Sunpoe]

My friend at school has 125 filled with 5 adult red-belly P's. Normal enough but here is the kicker; he has not done a water change in two years!! He just tops up the tank!! Though the fish have grow to as much as a 12". How can this be? Shouldn't the fish be died from the nitrates and all the other crap that must be trap in there?

 

[dannyboy]

Is it a planted tank?

 

[bmxer4ever]

My friend at school has 125 filled with 5 adult red-belly P's. Normal enough but here is the kicker; he has not done a water change in two years!! He just tops up the tank!! Though the fish have grow to as much as a 12". How can this be? Shouldn't the fish be died from the nitrates and all the other crap that must be trap in there?

Completely depends on the filtration... if the bio load is significantly less then the filter bacteria can deal with, then the need for water changes is minimised.
Also depends on how often and what he feeds them...

 

[Sunpoe]

I pretty sure the tank isn't planted and the fish are feed a chicken breast each month. The filtration consists of two canisters, a fluval and ehiem (not sure what models). I still think after two years there would be some high level of toxins in the water.

 

[RadleyMiller]

Hmmm you never know. Sometimes things work out like that, but I like to test my water just to make sure everything is OK. Since it is a closed system, you would think it would need to exchange sometimes, but you never know! However, I wouldn't take the risk and definatly not recomend doing that.

 

[kody1192]

haha my bro had a 29gal bought 2 piranas the bigger one ate the smaller one and the big one got huge prob 6-8" mabye bigger idk it was a while ago and he never did a water change i think its the species...they must not be use to messy water since they are always eatin fish and junk

 

[JD7.62]

I think its because of lack of food. One chicken breast a month is NOT enough!

 

[WyldFya]

Yeah with that little in the way of food, the waste product definitely would up the amount of time between w/cs. I'm just curious, do you know what the nitrate levels are at, or could you find out?

 

[dannyboy]

maybe anoxic bacteria then...

 

[DeLgAdO]

Completely depends on the filtration.

completely does NOT depend on filteration, nitrates are not affected by normal aquarium filteration.

if the bio load is significantly less then the filter bacteria can deal with, then the need for water changes is minimised.

can you rephrase this?

Also depends on how often and what he feeds them...

it does? even after two years?