how to do waterchange

[Jill-O]

I do really large weekly pwc's in most of our tanks. Like 80%. We are on well water and I don't have to use a conditioner. I do sometimes use Prime, but usually use nothing (the fish all do really well).

What I do is vacuum the gravel using a small gravel vacuum that I shoved the tapered end of into a 50' vinyl tube so it can drain into the yard (vs. a bucket). Then I use the Python, hooked the a sink in a spare bathroom, to fill the tanks. The python can drain the tanks, too, but it takes longer than the thing I rigged up and I also didn't want to saturate our drain field with tank water (since I do such large pwc's). So, I prefer to drain the tanks into the yard vs. down the drain of the sink.

The stocking we have is listed below. In the small tropical tank, I probably "only" do about a 70% pwc weekly and in the "baby" flowerhorn tank, 50%. I'd do more but with him being young, a little scared to and he's not really making his tank very dirty at all (given his size to the water volume and the over filtration of the tank).

I've been doing it this way since we got back into fish last summer and so far, so good

 

[scalesandfins]

it seems like everyone here does big water changes 40 +
is there a reason ?
i have always done like 10-20 % my fish have always grown fast and been healthy

 

[dwightdstjohn]

all or very little; 90% or 10%; 50% and you may be playing with the release of ammonium, and get really dead fish immediately.

 

[mamapuff]

it seems like everyone here does big water changes 40 +
is there a reason ?
i have always done like 10-20 % my fish have always grown fast and been healthy

RTC + Giraffe Cat = messy eaters and big bioload. Even with extra filtration. How big is your RTC?

 

[Jill-O]

all or very little; 90% or 10%; 50% and you may be playing with the release of ammonium, and get really dead fish immediately.

Can you explain? I don't understand why this would be the case. In a cycled tank, I haven't found there to be an ammonia issue before or after any size pwc.

 

[mamapuff]

all or very little; 90% or 10%; 50% and you may be playing with the release of ammonium, and get really dead fish immediately.

What do you mean???

 

[scalesandfins]

my rtc is about 5 in. my first "monster" tank was a forty gallon breeder with an oscar a jack dem a tsnxrtc and a florida gar. my water stayed crystal clear with a fluval 304 and a penguin 330 and weekly 10-20 water changes. but i get what your sayin it makes sense i guess i need to ease into bigger water changes. i just didnt think that was safe

 

[tcarswell]

my rtc is about 5 in. my first "monster" tank was a forty gallon breeder with an oscar a jack dem a tsnxrtc and a florida gar. my water stayed crystal clear with a fluval 304 and a penguin 330 and weekly 10-20 water changes. but i get what your sayin it makes sense i guess i need to ease into bigger water changes. i just didnt think that was safe

Id say just set a safe limit for your nitrate level to reach for example 25-40 ppm and test your water weekly before your water change. If it gets above that amount ramp up the water change a bit.

One thing that makes it difficult is source water sometimes has nitrates like mine has around 20 ppm out of the tap so I do 75-80 % changes a week to keep it below 35 . I hope this helps.

Taylor

 

[Deaths Sting]

i use $5 50' hose to siphon the water to my down stairs Laundry sink. with a $2 faucet adapter attached to the hose i fill the tank. while its filling i add my prime; i dose 2X the volume of the tank. a water change on my 120 gallon tank takes 10-15 minutes. i have been doing it this way for almost 3 years.

 

[sunvalley aquarist]

I plumbed a 1/4" line off my sediment/carbon filtration straight to the discharge side of my sump. On the inlet side of my sump, I plumbed an overflow that drains into the household plumbing under the house. When I need to do a water change, I just open the ball valve that feed my sediment/ carbon filter and let it run. I like to run it full force once or twice a week rather than a 24 hour a day drip.