Water changes

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M

Michael.M

Candiru
MFK Member
Apr 16, 2012
139
0
46
Southern California
Hey MFK....so we always done water changes.....but bow i think of it....why do we do water changes??? what is beneficial??

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Remove nitrates.

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I honestly thought by now some genius would have came up to the solution like a mini full water purification process that would be affordable for home use in aquarium setups. When I have this discussion and this is my argument the fish you currently own in natural habitat the water isn't perfect and they swim in their own crap. I tested the lake behind my house 16 acres where large bass inhabit and the ammonia was through the roof.

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Johnnylightning said:
the fish you currently own in natural habitat the water isn't perfect and they swim in their own crap. I tested the lake behind my house 16 acres where large bass inhabit and the ammonia was through the roof.
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A puddle in your backyard is hardly indicative of parameters in natural bodies of water around the planet. And I find it hard to believe that a 16 acre lake had ammonia readings through the roof unless there was millions of fish in there. Case in point...

jcardona1 said:
Not sure if folks here would find any interest in this, but I found this study on another forum. Pretty interesting so I thought I'd share! It took place in the 80s / early 90s and they covered several rivers along the Amazon basin. What really caught my attention is the ph and nitrate readings.

The study: ftp://daac.ornl.gov/data/lba/surf_hydro_and_water_chem/CAMREX/comp/Pre_LBA_CAMREX.pdf
The data: ftp://daac.ornl.gov/data/bluangel_harvest/camrex/data/chemistry/chemdata.txt



In the tables, you'll see that the Rio Negro has ph readings in the 4s!!!!

With nitrates, the highest reading I saw was for Rio Jurua at 22.8uM. I converted that as follows:
Nitrate (NO3) has a molecular mass of 62.0049 g/mol. So:
62mg/mmole = 62ug/umol
22.8uM = 22.8umol/L, so 22.8umol/L x 62ug/umol = 1414ug/L = 1.414mg/L.
Rounded off, this would be about 1.4mg/L, or 1.4ppm of nitrates (I think I did that right!)

That basically supports that nitrates are nonexistent in the wild. I still don't get how some guys justify having 40-80ppm in their tanks and saying it's ok ;)

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jcardona1 said:
A puddle in your backyard is hardly indicative of parameters in natural bodies of water around the planet. And I find it hard to believe that a 16 acre lake had ammonia readings through the roof unless there was millions of fish in there. Case in point...
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Because every fish in the wild lives in bodies of water bigger than our great lakes. If we were talking saltwater fish point taken but have you ever been to Brazil? Have you gone fishing? I recall catching some of the biggest peacock bass out of a 5 acre lake where cows took craps in daily. I bet the nitrates where non existant there.

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Johnnylightning said:
Because every fish in the wild lives in bodies of water bigger than our great lakes. If we were talking saltwater fish point taken but have you ever been to Brazil? Have you gone fishing? I recall catching some of the biggest peacock bass out of a 5 acre lake where cows took craps in daily. I bet the nitrates where non existant there.

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Click to expand...

I have no idea what point or argument you're trying to make. Are you trying to make a justification for keeping toxic water in your tanks?
 
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