Topping Water Off= Waterchange Replacement?

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C

carsona246

Gambusia
MFK Member
Feb 12, 2009
553
2
18
Arkansas
ok, before anyone starts flaming me I just want to state that I am always going to do weekly waterchanges. However I'm just curious as to why it would be necessary to do them if I had enough plants in my tank to keep my nitrates at 0 all the time, and had to do large top off's on a weekly basis. For instance, I keep axolotls so I have a large fan running on my tank. I top off at least 5-10 gallons of water a week in my fish tank(40 breeder). If the point of waterchanges is to replace trace minerals in the water and to get rid of nitrates, wouldn't topping off my tank solve the problem of adding new minerals to the water column, while the plants would solve the nitrate problem?
Just wondering
 
Sorry accidentally hit post button before I was done...
By only adding water, you aren't removing anything, just diluting, but not getting rid of the bad stuff because the water that evaporates doesn't contain and nitrates to my knowlege, wouldn't it be basically like distiller water that you aren't collecting?
 
Would ph really become a problem? I have extremely soft water and actually add crushed coral to all my tanks to help balance the ph. If topping off did increase my water hardness I don't know why it wouldn't increase it slowly and steadily, seeing as I think it would take a very long time for the hardness to change drastically. Nitrates wouldn't be a problem for my particular fish tank, because I have enough plants in there to remove any nitrates. I do remember reading about growth hormones(or something) collecting in water affecting fish in tanks whose water is not changed on a regular basis, but I think this was all speculation if I remember right.
 
Your TDS will rise until even small water changes will stress your fish out a lot. That's the main threat. Dissolved solids staying in your water and raising osmotic pressure.
 
There we go, I was sure there must be a reason for it. Should I be concerned about topping off my water now? I haven't had any problems whatsoever that I'm aware of, I mean what else am I supposed to do when the water level gets low? Also why isn't my water much harder? I actually have extremely soft water in my tank. I'm sure the weekly waterchanges help, but shouldn't I have experienced a hard water problem after the month long absence of no water changes, and the house sitter topping off the tank?
 
No, it won't test for hardness. Waste nutrients are bound into more complex molecules and really screw with test kits. You need a TDS meter to really know how saturated your water is with crap.

Topping off is fine as long as you know it didn't do much of anything to the water quality. My water is also extremely soft here (6.4) and I use pothos, spider plants and deep sand beds to keep nitrates low, but I still do a good 60% water change about every ten days. Used to be every week but my new job totally pwns me.
 
Laziness doesn't go well with fish keeping
 
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