Topping Water Off= Waterchange Replacement?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
There are plenty of people who set up heavily planted tanks that do water changes only 3 or 4 times a year sometimes less. Topping off wont cause all that much of a change so long as you don't wait for half the tank to evaporate. This is even further reduced if you already have soft water, it will take a long time for the minerals to accumulate especially with the plants consuming some of them. If you want to be absolutely sure that nothing will accumulate, top off with RO/DI water.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/low-tech-forum/80371-super-low-tech-20h-new-fish.html
 
If you want to be absolutely sure that nothing will accumulate, top off with RO/DI water.
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So you just don't feed your fish? What are you talking about? You have to add something for the fish to eat, and that accumulates. Doesn't matter how pure your water is if you're still adding protein, veggies and fillers to the water. Growing plants don't use everything your fish create.
 
knifegill said:
So you just don't feed your fish? What are you talking about? You have to add something for the fish to eat, and that accumulates. Doesn't matter how pure your water is if you're still adding protein, veggies and fillers to the water. Growing plants don't use everything your fish create.
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I was referring to the accumulation of water minerals.


But also: Plants may not use it all but bacteria will convert everything left in the tank into either something plants can use, something that evaporates or something that other bacteria can then use. Proteins will be degraded, hormones degraded, etc. Nature is very good at decomposing everything into the most basic components. There is a bacteria that can use nearly everything, if there are bacteria that survive off of hydrocarbons from oil spills there are bacteria that can decompose every part of fish waste.
 
I'm actually wondering how the tank in the link postal provided was doing so well if the fish do have to work so hard at osmoregulation if the TDS rises that quickly. The linked tank log Postal provided went over a year
 
carsona246 said:
I'm actually wondering how the tank in the link postal provided was doing so well if the fish do have to work so hard at osmoregulation if the TDS rises that quickly. The linked tank log Postal provided went over a year
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If you top off the water at regular intervals, and don't wait til the tank is half evaporated, the TDS will raise very slowly. Slow enough the fish will acclimate fine. If you wait til the tank is half evaporated you will actually lower the overall TDS when you refill the tank(since the evaporating water concentrates the TDS, adding more water will then dilute it). Still this will cause wild swings in TDS which isn't good for fish and why if you refill regularly it wont cause those wild swings.
 
but what about when a large water change is done? I've actually pm'd the guy in the thread you linked asking if he noticed any problems in his tank when waterchanges were done, so hopefully he'll have some insight on the matter.
 
In my opinion, fish are far more resilient to water parameter changes than people give them credit for. Save for sensitive fish like discus, fish can handle the swings. In the wild fish have to deal with rain storms that flood their habitats with virtually distilled water or flood them with runoff full of silt and dirt drastically raising the TDS. Not only that the rain can cause a sudden drop in temperature as well. Yet fish do fine in the wild. So as long as you aren't keeping discus or other very sensitive fish I wouldn't even worry when doing the large water changes.
 
been doing some more research on this, and I came across a discus tank that only got 1 waterchange a year. Still looking for how much of a threat mineral buildup would actually be, but the more I read on planted aquarium forums the less I'm convinced it's a threat
 
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