Maintenance... worth it or not

[crashinc25]

I think I gave myself an advantage with a solid black sand substrate. EVERYTHING shows up on it so I find myself vacuuming it purely for looks, which in turn helps get rid of the waste. My smaller tanks have play sand or lighter colored sand so I don't see it, I don't do it unless I see the crap.
I also have powerheads in each tank to blow to poop around to be picked up by the intakes.

 

[wataugachicken]

well, my experience with gravel has been so negative that i have stopped using it, and switched to sand or bare-bottom. my first tank ever was a 10g with guppies and gravel. of course, i didn't do water changes either at first until after about 4 months, when i found AC. i would completely strip the tank once a month, because i thought that's what was supposed to be done. (and i didn't lose any guppies either!) i would take the fish out, drain the water, and wash everything in the sink. the gravel would be filthy after a month, the rinse water would be black. even when i started doing water changes, 30% weekly, i didn't have a tube that could clean the gravel, and i would still have to remove the fish, scoop out the gravel, rinse it off, and return it. it stayed just as dirty when i did water changes as when i didn't do anything at all. water changes don't do anything to clean gravel if you're not sticking it down in there and getting all the muck that's trapped.

my most recent tank that had gravel (1/2 gravel, 1/2 river pebbles) was a 30g with one goldfish. it was just gross. i would do water changes on that tank every other week, and the water always looked sparkling clean, but as soon as the python got down into the substrate, it would be pulling out black water, just full of poop. i finally got sick of it and switched over to sand. the poop stays on top and gets taken up by the filters instead of hiding and rotting where i can't see it.

 

[AlisonB]

A few years back when i really got into fish keeping i was religious about 10% water changes each week,each tank, regardless of the water's levels.
however, recently the water company [city/metro water]has been screwing around with my sources, and adding more synthetic phosphates than i'd like to admit. As soon as this water stupidity began my tanks began to suffer-uncontrollable algae, crazy ph fluctuations, GH was all over the place I really didn't know what to do. So i stopped doing un-necessary water changes.Most of my issues have resolved themselves. I keep test strips around and test usually every other week, so that i know when i actually have to do a water change.
Extra filtration really does make a big difference in your cleaning schedule. I have a 20 [and some change] long in which i use a fifty gal aquaclear, turned all the way down (two sponges and one ceramic "noodle" pack). And despite my terrible tap water, it works fine. I have to do water changes about once every month and a half. My fish seem happier than ever, I haven't had any issues with ph fluctuation exc. My conclusion, Once you know what your doing less is more.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Yeah, gravel cleaning can be a necessary PITA. Does anyone remewmber the days before gravel cleaners, when you had to hand-stir all the gravel & the fish were swimming in brown poo-soup? Then you let it all settle on top of the gravel & syphon it off.

 

[King Midas]

I just got done curing (almost cured) a case of HITH or HLLE on my Midas. I don't exactly know what caused it, but I do know when I pulled my filters out they were dirtier then I thought they were. I started doing a 50% water change every other week and feeding him Vegetables, and now the HITH or HLLE is in remission. So I think it's just as important to clean (if washable) or replace your filters, and to feed your fish their proper diet as it is to do water changes. I've only been in the hobby for about 2yrs. But all I've ever added to my water is stuff to take what the wast water treatment plant puts in it, & 1 table spoon of salt per 5gal. of water. And I've never lost a fish due to water quality.

 

[Pufferpunk]

I started doing a 50% water change every other week

That was probably a large part of your problem. If you were doing 50% weekly, he never would have gotten sick. I believe in weekly water changes. In 2 weeks, the parameters have changed a lot & large water changes can be a shock to the fish.

 

[DJ BIG T]

testing water = overrated and i dont see the point. how often would anything ever change except nitrates? you would just keep getting zero ratings over and over and over again... some chart... one flat line. and if you tank its super overstocked and you are changing enough water nitrates are pointless to test as well.

water changes = used to think they are overrated, now i try to squeeze in extra changes during the week. fish are growing much faster they they did in my newb days when i never changed the water.

gravel vac = pointless... only do it for my sand bc the poo is anoying. for the gravel tank i refuse to do it


algae scraping = necessary bc i dont have a pleco in either of my tanks

i bet your tank looks nasty...

 

[ShadowBass]

i bet your tank looks nasty...

It might look ok at a glance, but that's pretty much how the guy that we bought one of our 55g tanks maintained it.

He'd had several africans, most of them died in a power outage a year or 2 ago, there was one yellow lab left and we took it home 'cause he said he was just gonna bring it to the pet store if we didn't. He'd had this fish for like 4 years, so we felt kinda bad (still have him). Well, I wasn't there, but my husband and him were removing substrate and my husband said the gravel was completely filled with MUCK. It looked like there was a layer of mud in the gravel.

I believe it, because when he got the tank home it still had a layer of it in the bottom even with most of the substrate gone. The tank actually had mildew growing underneath the silicone. It smelled really bad like rotten eggs.

I think if this guy hadn't had 2 emp 400's the tank would have been even worse.

testing water = overrated and i dont see the point.how often would anything ever change except nitrates? you would just keep getting zero ratings over and over and over again... some chart... one flat line. and if you tank its super overstocked and you are changing enough water nitrates are pointless to test as well.

And you know you're changing enough water because....

If you refuse to siphon your gravel water changes will only keep the nitrates in check for so long.

As far as getting 0 readings, you do realize there are tests besides ammonia and nitrites, right? That's not the end of your water quality concerns...

 

[dr_sudz]

Testing your water is a very good idea! You want to mainly look at Nitrates AND your PH because that will tell you the most of what is going on in your tank. Ph goes up when you have too much bio matter decaying in your tank aka not enough gravel washing, over feeding, dead fish... ect. I can understand not testing the ammonia and nitrites after the tank has been cycled but its not a bad idea to test them when things are looking out of sorts with the other two tests.