How often to clean a tank

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I do my water changes when nitrates get a little above 20. I do not have to test anymore as i know my pattern.

Nitrates is the last product of the nitrogen cycle(except nitrogen gases, not easily achieved in the fish keeping hobby)and is the least toxic nitrogen compound. Once it hits 20 ppm and even as low as 2ppm! it can become toxic. Once above 40 ppm it is surely messing with your fish.
 
Nitrates can go beyond 40ppm without harming some fish, but keeping it below 10ppm is sometimes difficult.

Heres the cycle:

Ammonia is the worst thing in the tank, when broken up, it becomes Nitrite, still BAD but not as much as Ammonia, it'll still kill your fish, but when NitRITE gets broekn down it becomes NitRATE. Now this will become a problem around 60ppm+ maybe less but why put your fish in jepordy? Once the Nitrate gets beyond 30ppm, I would change it.
 
maseyferguson05;1052452; said:
I do my water changes when nitrates get a little above 20. I do not have to test anymore as i know my pattern.

Nitrates is the last product of the nitrogen cycle(except nitrogen gases, not easily achieved in the fish keeping hobby)and is the least toxic nitrogen compound. Once it hits 20 ppm and even as low as 2ppm! it can become toxic. Once above 40 ppm it is surely messing with your fish.
Click to expand...

If I posted the numbers from my first test in my 54g that had been set up and successful for a year, you'd shat your pants. High levels aren't always toxic.

Now, don't take this the wrong way. For the most part of the first year, I didn't know any better and didn't do water changes as I should and fed them way too much. I now know better and have since corrected the problems. But, my fish have thrived and have been healthy and most have had phenominal growth during that first year despite the bad numbers. And for the record, I knew my water quality had to have been bad for most of that year because it stayed cloudy, ever since starting the tank. The "lethal" numbers from the first test I ever did after 1 year backed this up.

Again, I'm not claiming you don't have to do water changes. And, I'm not saying that keeping the nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia down by proper feeding and tank maintenance is dumb. Like I said, before I didn't know any better. Now I do. I'm just saying that in my eperience, my numbers were off the chart and my fish have thrived. When I posted my numbers on another site, folks acted like my tank should be a death zone with nothing alive in it. I now know proper water changes and proper feeding is vital to water quality.

One more time, I was a dumbass for running off into a new hobby without the proper knowledge. I now know better. And just for fun, here's the numbers from my first test after 1 year of overfeeding and the only water changes being to add what evaporated (approximately 5 gallons per week or every other week)...

Nitrite- .25ppm
Nitrate- 160ppm
Ammonia- 8.0ppm :eek:
ph- 6.0

These numbers were with 13 cichlids and a big ol' plecos in a 54g corner tank. Fish grew steadily and thrived and have not had any problems. They ate like it was going out of style and I didn't lose a fish during this time except for a plecos that was murdered by one of the cichlids. Are they happier/healthier now that I change 20% every week? I honestly don't know. There has literally been no difference except in the water clarity and the test results. My water is crystal clear though and my numbers are what they should be.

All this long windedness was just to say in my case, high numbers weren't as toxic as most would believe. With all due respect, no offense meant, not trying to start an argument, etc..:)
 
Nitrates aren't the only reason for water changes though, you also need to remove all the other waste that has built up. Nitrates can go above 100ppm and still be fine according to some studies.

If you are doing a water change once a week, the fish are used to the "clean" water. But when you change the water once every 6 months, with a large water change, that is a much bigger shock to the fish.

The worst thing in a water change is the hardness swing, if the water hardness alters it is more stressful than most reasonable temperature changes and pH changes. (I can back this up if anyone wants proof).

If water changes were so awful, the people growing out fry with daily water changes, the people with auto water changers that change as much as 100% a day etc. would all have a lot of dead fish.

It all depends on the stocking of the tank, the type of fish, the numbers of fish, the age of the fish, the tanks filtration etc.

My water change schedule is different for different tanks, my fry tanks are changed once a day, growouts twice a week, main tanks once a week. Though I do more if I have a lot of time on my hands.
 
I think your friends thoughts on water changes is ridiculous. I have always been under the assumption that once a week is ok and 2 or 3 is definitely better. Recently I have been changing my water 4-5 times a week and actually within the small amount of time I have been doing this my fish have definitely gotten bigger and they look better than I have ever seen them.

I got the idea from Peanut_Power as this is a post that he made in my thread
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=83914&referrerid=12608

"I think the main thing that helped with their growth though was the consistant water changes. I was doing a 40% water change three times a week on their tank. It was a 125gal, so not horribly large, but the water changes helped out dramatically.

You can see the same results if you did a test with Oscars. You need really only need four groups of Oscars (about three, juv O's. of the same size). One for control, and the other for the experiment. I used 20gal tankz, but you can use whatever...just easier in a smaller tank. Set up the tanks the same way, bare bottom, same type of filters, and so on. Feed them at the same time, with the same foods. Only thing you will do differently is waterchanges. The first group, the control group, only do a water change every two weeks. The second group, do one, 50% waterchange a week. The third group, do three, 40% waterchanges a week. And the final, fourth group, do a complete, 100% waterchange every day. You will be surprised by the different growth rates. The ones with the 100% water change every day will out grow the other oscars so quickly its not even funny. Fun little experiment to do... So the point of this long ramble was to be very faithful on your waterchanges, they help more than you know! "
 
First have your friend get a proper home for each of her fish- 55 gal too small for either. Then she should listen to you about what to do. But with someone like that just getting them to listen is the first thing.;)
 
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