largest water change?

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new2natives

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Dec 1, 2007
1,266
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ohio
whats the largest % of water you can take out during a water change, and still be SAFE ???

my 180g has been cloudy for several weeks now, and i cant seem to get rid of it.
i do 50-60% changes every 3 days or so, and it will be 85% clear for about a day, then it clouds back up.
i have a 45g sump at 900gph, and an eheim 2217, so my filtration should be good.

either way i am moving 2 large fish out of the tank tomorrow :( in an attempt to help.

what else can i do ?
 
is the tank overstocked?
wut do u have in there?
 
are your fish moving gravel around?
that can cloud your water for a large period of time.
keep up with water changes.
maybe do a big 65-70% water change next time

are you overstocked to the max?
 
sand bottom, but thats not the problem
i am stocked pretty heavy, and i feed pretty heavy. but i have to feed them, or they get more aggressive
20" aro, 14" clown knife, 14" tsn, 13" pbass, 11" pbass, 15" common pleco, 9" irwini,
and tomorrow i am moving out a 14" IR and a 11" IR, so hopefully that'll help

i had thought as long as i had a lot of filtration on there i could stock it full, but i think the fog has told a different story.
 
When I had cloudy water in the past I always thought it was because I didn't have enough mechanical filtration. I eventually figured out that it was actually caused by not have enough biological filtration.
 
Maybe I am alone on this but I have done almost 100% changes on my tanks... I will syphon all but maybe 5 inches from the bottom of my tank and then start putting water back in while still syphoning to dilute the water even more. I do this maybe once every 2 months. Other then that I do 50-75% weekly. Whats the harm if you dont touch your filters? I dont have gravel in my tanks either. Havent killed a fish yet by doing this. Just match the temp exactly and use the same ph water to refill the tank...
 
I perform 50-80% water changes at least weekly. On the sting ray tank, I try and aim for 60% twice weekly minimum.
 
If done right you can change 100% of it and be safe. As long as the water gets dechlor'ed and temp matched before you put it in then 100% is fine. But the problem is that there is a reason why the tank is clouding up. And you need to find out why and fix that. There is only 2 things that makes water cloudy if you have ruled out things getting stirred up and that is a algae bloom or a bacterial bloom. An algae bloom is from excessive light and nutrients in the water column and will give the water a green tint after it has completly formed. And a whitish tint at first. An algae bloom poses little threat to the fish. And then there is the dreaded bacterial bloom which is a indicator of poor water parameters most likely ammonia present in the aquarium. You need to check the ammonia,nitrite,nitrate readings on the tank and see if there is ANY ammonia or nitrite present in the tank. If so you might need to add more bio-filtration to support your stock list. Or if you had a die off of bio-bacteria from a med or something it will just takle some time for it to recolonize.
 
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