View Full Version : Number of water changes
As I posted a few days ago, I lost all my zebra danios. Water chem tests says nothing. So I don't have any clue of what happened. Just to be on the safe side and up my number of water changes. instead 50% once a week I am thinking 10% daily on the 20 gallon tank, and to be on the safe side, and on the 3 10 gallon betta tanks 10% daily. I just want to be sure this will not harm the fish. So is there a limit on how much water change you should change over a period of time.
The 20 gallon get less per day, and has more filtration (3 over flow filters and an under gravel) and the betta will get more water change and have minimal filteration (spungfilters I built myself)
Holly9937
10-25-2005, 3:46 PM
I would actually just do a few larger changes, like instead of 50% a week, do that every other day for a few days. Any water changing is good, but 10% just doesn't accomplish much. As long as temp. is close, you can't do too many or too large
well I am thinking of making this a perminate thing not just for temp
richm20
10-25-2005, 6:40 PM
Once your tank is cycled (in my opinion) only do water changes when your Nitrate levels get high, provided your other levels are fine. My reasoning behind this is that, why fix what 'aint broke?
mdcordeiro
10-25-2005, 6:45 PM
yea i kinda have to agree with that if th a nitrates arent too high IMHO (above 20-25 or so) and it looks good dont play with it, within reason :rolleyes:
FisheyLisa
10-25-2005, 7:40 PM
I've heard 10% isn't worth it either. I don't know your circumstances, but I don' t think a permanent solution of small frequent water changes is going to help. It will make a ton of extra work for you and if you can't locate the original cause, it could kill more. Or something happened exclusively to the others that you had no control over. Your bettas are fine, right, and they have the same water?
Nitrate is a long way from the only pollutant in our tanks. Are you measuring the organic load?
IMHO it is not possible to change too much water or too often. All that matters is that the replacement water has similar parameters to the tank, and the more often and larger volume you change, the closer together the tank and source water will be.
I change 50% weekly on most of my tanks.
ashdavid
10-25-2005, 8:06 PM
Mike I would be trying to find out what happened to the fish ,b/c if you don't this could happen again.
As for water changes ,if you were going to to daily water changes why not 50% instead of 10%? If you do them daily the water parameters in the tank will be close to your tap waters so you wont have a problem with there.
As for only doing water changes when the nitrates get high is not a good recomendation IMO. There are other things besides nitrates that will adversly affect your fish that are hard to measure , such as DON's and proteins. Water changes should be made as frequently and as much possible.
Watcher74
10-25-2005, 9:05 PM
Ash, I'm unfamiliar with the acronym DON. What does it mean?
ashdavid
10-25-2005, 10:16 PM
DON is short for "dissolved organic compounds" or "dissolved organic nutrients", it is most commonly used in SW reef keeping area . But can also have an effect on freshwater in great amounts. There is usually no reason for concern in freshwater I must add, but I chose it just to give an example that it b/c it is hard to measure. There is also DIN which refers to "dissolved inorganic nutrients" or commonly know as ammonia,nitrite and nitrate.
MikeO
10-25-2005, 10:36 PM
Well Amonia Nitrites are at 0 and the Nitrates are at about 30. I don't know the DON is since I don't have a test kit for that. As to why not 50% I only have 8 1 gallon jugs and If i want to do every tank every day I can not do 50%, but maybe I should get more 1 gallon jugs (I do the aging of the water instead of treating, I reather do natural then cemical treatment)
mooman
10-27-2005, 10:55 AM
How about 5g buckets from home depot? we need to find out what killed all the danios though. Do anything different in you wc? where jugs left uncapped with a good amount of surface area?
Pretender
10-27-2005, 12:44 PM
(I do the aging of the water instead of treating, I reather do natural then cemical treatment)
What do you mean by "aging?" Letting water sit out will allow it to offgas chlorine, but not chloramines, which many water treatment facilities use, and is one of the things that water treatments (Amquel, Aqua-Safe, Prime, etc.) render non-toxic. If you have chloramines, this may be the problem.
I think most people here would not recommend playing with chemicals in their aquaria more then absolutely necessary, but most would consider water treatment to be necessary for tap water.
mindtonic
10-27-2005, 11:17 PM
Well Amonia Nitrites are at 0 and the Nitrates are at about 30.
Well, I'm pretty new to all of this..........I've only had my 90 gal up and running for several months, but IMHO, a nitrAte reading of 30 is waaaaaay too high unless your tank is heavily planted.........and it seems like most of the people in the aquatic plants forum keep theirs much lower than that. The nitrAtes probably poisoned your fish.
I'd do a couple back to back 50% water changes and settle into a regular weekly 50% water change schedule.
mooman
10-28-2005, 8:37 AM
IMHO, a nitrAte reading of 30 is waaaaaay too high unless your tank is heavily planted
I disagree. Although a well maintained tank should have a nitrate reading of less than 20ppm 30, 40, 50, 60, even 100 ppm nitrate is not enough to cause nitrate toxicity in most tropical fish. Nittrates just aren't that toxic in themselves. I also suspect that mike is using the test strips, which never indicate less than 20-40 nitrates. Even my tap water which contains 5ppm nitrates using a liquid test comes out as 20ppm using mardel's test strips.
I do agree w/mooman that nitrate on its own is not that toxic, but it is an excellent indicator of all the unmeasurable pollutants in unplanted tanks, and is best used as just that - an indicator of generenal pollution levels and water quality. To me a nitrate titer indicates poor overall water quality, but you do have to set your own pollution standards.
MikeO
10-28-2005, 12:50 PM
Well the tank is very well planted, I have trouble with the graval vac because I can not move around at the base of the tank.
MikeO
10-28-2005, 12:51 PM
I am using Aquarium Pharmaceuticals liquid tests.
NatakuTseng
10-28-2005, 1:18 PM
Clean water is nothing anyone should compromise on.
All my non discus tanks get 60-70% weekly, regaurdless of if they "need" it or not. The discus tanks, most often 80-90% daily.
Clean water is essential for keeping healthy fish, the more water changes the better. Its not about "fixing it if its broke" its about preventing problems and improving the health of the fish period.