Please explain this...

[Gr8KarmaSF]

I have heard several people talk about having a tank that they only add water to when needed and never doing any water changes.

Due to life being more complicated than I would like , I now have a 45 hex community tank like this (no live plants). All I do is add water and the fish seem fine. I have been doing this for many months now. At times I would like to do a water change but am afraid that the fish will go into some type of water chemistry shock. Yes, I know that I could do several mini changes over several days for a slow gradual water change but what I really want to know is how or why this works for such a long time.

I was wondering if somebody could explain how or why tanks in these situations seem to last for such a long time. Is my tank a ticking time bomb ready to crash? Anybody else with this experience?

 

[Cyclop3000]

Is my tank a ticking time bomb ready to crash? Anybody else with this experience?

I would think that it is indeed a dangerous practice. When water evaporates, only the water evaporates and most of the minerals etc...stay in the tank. The fish can live with this, but it's not healthy and will eventually lead to death.

Think of it as if you were in aerial isolation, and that your captors would only feed you a little more oxygen each day, without removing the carbon monoxyde from the room...

 

[danny boy]

I would think that it is indeed a dangerous practice. When water evaporates, only the water evaporates and most of the minerals etc...stay in the tank. The fish can live with this, but it's not healthy and will eventually lead to death.

Think of it as if you were in aerial isolation, and that your captors would only feed you a little more oxygen each day, without removing the carbon monoxyde from the room...

theres a lot more to it than replacing minerlas. gr8karma if you look in to the tank cycle process and get an understanding of it you will realise how important water changes really are in a tank.

the key here is to remove nitrAtes, thats primarily why we remove water and replace its also benificial for a few other reasons too. in large amounts (i would think your tank would have VERY large amounts) nitrAtes are poisonous to your fish so what you are really doing is slowly killing your fish in one of the worst ways you could think of.

it would be possible to iliminate water changes buy keeping your tank stocked with the perfect amount of plants per the amount of fish in the tank, but this is a bit of a black art and no one (that i have seen published) has worked out a way to calculate these amounts. you wont find much info on this as obviously if its wide spread news you get every new fishkeeper trying to avoid water changes buy stuffing plants in to tank. so while plants do remove nitrAtes its unlikely this is happening in your tank.

nitrAtes certainly dont evaporate with your water so each time the water evaporates the amount in stronger and when you re fill you dilute it to what is was. this does nothing.

the answer is (especially that you dont have any plants) to do 30% water changes perghaps once a week. your fish will love you for it and i very much doubt they'd die but flourish. do it now and see what happens. i assure you if you dont those fish WILL die soon enough.

 

[iheartfishies]

I do it with all 8 of my tanks.
Top 'em off.
When I get a chance, which is like every three months, I'll do like a 80% water change.
All my fish breed like crazy too.
I can't stop them!
I'm not gonna try to fix what isn't broke.

Now if I had some rays or sensative fish, then that's another story.
(P.S. all I have is cichlids, go figure.)

 

[stotty]

Look at this


http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-chem.html

 

[zhuangsw]

i wouldnt recommend that cause like many of the members here, the nitrate will build up. i still believe in the good ole weekly water change.

depending on what fish species you have, a 30-80% water change would be good..

 

[twk1]

I use to not change the water for my Saltwater tank for many months just top off the water when it evaporates. And my fishes were fine!
But i don't know if you can do that for Freshwater aquariums, i change my freshwater tank bi-weekly. I never left it too long to know... but also don't intend to find out... don't want to take the risk.

 

[DeLgAdO]

their is no such thing as a

water chemistry shock

given that you do it right

by neglecting water changes you making the water very different from the water that come out of your tap, the pH, GH and KH all change the longer you put it off

and when you finally change your water (i.e large water change) you fish go into shock.

its is wise to keep up on water changes

at very minimum 50% a week more is better.


the reason why fish can take neglected water changes is because they can take high nitrate for a short term period

long term wise they will suffer, they may seem ok on the outside but on the inside it is a very differnet story

changing a 45 gal with the right tools should take no longer than 10-15 minutes

which anyone can spare that amount of time

 

[shekes]

If I remember correctly, Guppy didn't change water in one of his tanks for several years and I didn't for several months in a discus tank.

Also a big WC will most likely be OK. Most people are too finicky about the WCs and, I think, to WCs often for the fish to be healthy and most people overfeed a great amonut as well.

Studies show that is healthier for pretty much any animal to be a bit hungry all the time. Humans are not an exception.

 

[thefishofdoom]

i didnt do water changes on one of my tanks the ph was so low on a ph tester it didn't show up and every time i added fish they would die of ph shock so i say try to at least do a water change no matter how small bi weekly