water change help please?

[bigspizz]

Holy crap, when do you have time for a life?

I have kids and am ALWAYS home. I do not go to bars or parties to speak of don't drink and enjoy being at my home. I work full time but 1/2 the tanks in a day and a very high pressure hose to fill a HUGE hose to drain, it actually does not take long at all.

 

[Ianab]

I agree with using a gravel vac to do the water changes. Gets most of the gunk from the gravel, and just syphon out as much water as you need.

As to how often... Depends totally on your tank size vs the amount of fish.
The only way to really work out exactly what changes you need is to test the water for Nitrate. If the Nitrate is too high, or goes up too much between changes then you need to do more/bigger changes.

If water tests show ammonia or nitrite then you have problems with the filtration. Water changes are only a temp fix for that, you need to sort out the filters (quickly).

25% per week may be the right amount, but if the tank is overstocked you might need more. A lightly stocked tank would actually need less.

Cheers

Ian

 

[pacu mom]

when you do a water change, are you supossed to mix up the gravel so that you can get rid of the waste and stuff that is left in there? and i have 1 Electric Blue Ahli, 1 JD, 1 White Assorted African, 1 Pleco, and 1 Minnow type thing that doesn't appear to be a minnow since it is more agressive then all of my other fish. how often and how much water changes should i be doing? currently i am doing weekly 25% water changes. is that too little for the fish i have?

You need to invest in a Fresh Water Master Test kit and routinely test your water for ammonia, nitrite and nitrates. In a cycled tank, there should not be measurable amounts of ammonia or nitrite. The fastest and easiest way to remove nitrate (the end product of the nitrogen cycle) is to do a water change. Keeping the nitrates below 20 ppm usually works for most types of fish. How often, and how much water you have to change out will depend on your nitrate level. In other words, do water changes to keep the nitrates at least below 20 ppm. High nitrate levels has been implicated in fish stunting, premature death, failure to thrive, Hole-In-The-Head Disease, among other conditions. Debris in the tank will result in increased ammonia which translates into increased nitrate production, so you should be vacuuming out debris/waste from the gravel when you do water changes. A python system connected to a faucet will make your water changes much easier than using a bucket and siphon.

 

[Wolf3101]

Along with the normal test Kit I'd recomend picking up an electronic TDS meter. Just changing water for the hell of it may suit some people but not me. I only change the water when it's necessary and the only way you can tell that is through periodic and through testing.

I maintain our 10 tanks with perfect water conditions and other than two "problem" tanks I only change 25% of the water in each one of them once a month or so. The TDS meter picks up on things normal testing wont and prevents "old tank" syndrome from setting in (OTS is a slow build up of heavy metals salts and other elements over time.)

I use only totally pure RO/DI water in all of our tanks. (This is IMO the safest way to keep fish but the resulting water is SO pure that you have to condition it properly to use in the aquariums. However personally I'd rather do it this way and KNOW what I'm putting in the tanks than to trust everything to fate and use tap water directly.)

One side note: about a year ago or so we ran into some major problems in a couple of tanks...followed the massive water change advice and watched the situation go rapidly down hill.... We discovered that the massive water changes were the CAUSE of most of our problems...switched to RO water from a local store and then eventually built our own filtration system. I realize that not everyones water is the same but do you REALLY know whats in your tap water? Aquarium test kits don't tell the whole story.

 

[Mystix212]

First of all, why have you got African and Central American cichlids together???

 

[Pufferpunk]

I do 75% WC on 250g of FW tanks weekly, using a Python to stir the gravel, except on my planted tank. Totally different story w/my 3 reef tanks.