I'd imagine the same way some discus guys do daily 100% wc. 50% in the morning and another 50% later in the day.
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maximum percent of water change?
- Thread starter Death03
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Right...100% max. You can't drink 120% of a bottle of water because when you have drank 100% there is nothing left to drink.
You can't eat 120% of a pizza...cause when you finish the pizza...it is 100% gone, not 120% gone.
Total throughout the week I'd assume. 3x40% or 50% makes the weekly total 120-150% of tank volume.
90% every 3rd day on the big tanks over here, 50% weekly on the 200gal and smaller.
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I've been doing 75% water change weekly or biweekly for years or to the level there is just enough water to cover the largest fish. If you do regular water change, the parameters will be close to tap water and stable. Only if you do infrequent large water change that the sudden change of parameters can be shocking to the fish.
They probably do a water change, and then do another, sometimes I do that so I do 180% in one day.
I run ~ 30 tanks and do so the majority of the time. I assure you that it can be done.
There is no reason that you cannot change > 50% of the water.
Factors that you NEED to consider however:
1. Do not replace the water with clean water of considerably different PH. In fact it is a best practice to keep your PH as close as possible from before the WC to after the WC.
2. Fish can get stressed if they are not given enough water to breath. In other words they should be able to swim vertically and not have the water drained to the point of forcing them to turn sideways.
(When I do 100+ % water changes, I usually do 80%, and then start refilling the tank/ pond as it is filling.) This servers several purposes: I keep decor in most of my tanks/ ponds. Rather than have to remove all decor to vacuum the bottom, a strong current from the filling hose can be used to remove detritus from the tanks by squirting around them and directing the "crud" toward the siphon. I very regularly do this!
3. Temperature of the replacement water should as closely match the temperature of the water being replaced.
I have an old bottle of Pond Prime that I've decided to use up. When I saw your post, I thought, "no way, that has to be wrong."
But lo and behold: http://www.seachem.com/support/forums/showthread.php?t=319
I've been dosing using the pond instructions and have lucked out that it's been enough to not kill my fish. I think they should put a disclaimer on the label.
In any case, thanks for dropping some knowledge RD. Everytime I see the big goldfish looking Koi (your avatar), I read with a little more attention.
I normally do about 75%. The fish are used to it.
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The maximum water change percentage that is safe to do depends on the temperature/chemistry of the new water, the old water, and how fast you do the change. The goal is simply to remove undesirable attributes from your water (e.g. nitrate) via dilution. As others have said, if you do infrequent water changes, you should probably do frequent small water changes to let your fish physiologically adapt to the cleaner water. If you do frequent water changes, you can probably do big water changes without stressing the fish because the tank water is not very different from the treated tap water. And there is the big caveat to this discussion... how you treat your water will dictate how big a water change you can safely do. If you are doing python-style direct to the tank from the tap, do smaller water changes regardless of how often you do them. If you are mixing up the water ahead of time, you can do big water changes safely.
