Are Water Changes Actually Necessary?

[Dwarf Puffers]

Well, considering you've admitted that if you leave a tank alone and it gets "Old tank syndrome", or as you put it, the fish "adapt" (quite similar to "get used", I find...) to the water and are fine. But new fish that have HAD to change water sources (and probably have been in clean water) die from the neglected parameters. I prefer to have fish I buy live, so thus, I keep clean water. Works for me, usually when I neglect any of my tanks fish start dropping.

There have been many threads like this in the past. Hence Niko's (among others) opcorn: spam. I really don't think there's much to be gained from this thread, as what people find succesful is what they'll do, for the most part. I'm happy changing water. I think bright colours, more activity and breeding signals health (because, naturally, sick fish would be less likely to breed). I'd rather not get neck-deep in this thread though.

 

[Rbishop]

Three thoughts....

1) I need to buy a stress meter for my fish.....you never know when I might mis-read their behavior.

2) I am glad I didn't teach my fish to read....can't afford them to be reading this thread and laughing their fins off at someone not even doing what they claim others are not doing, as in proving something besdies with a lot text and saying it is so.

3) Anybody know a good way to have Mother Nature stop stressing the fishies of the world with rain...?

 

[blue2fyre]

LOL

You both bring up good points. I'm sitting on the sidelines now.

 

[Fishfriend1]

What you all have to realize is that we are trying to create an ecosystem. All ecosystems need balance. If u do not change ur water then you need to have something that purifies it. In nature thats the decomposers and producers and fungi and yes algae. If u want to have a tank without water changes then u need to get "pests" to help with water conditions and construct a food chain. That is not possible in a fish tank unless u get a really big one that can have breeding populations of all the fish, plants, fingi, and other ugly and sometimes dangerous things and creatures. By ugly i mean that u dont put guppies and minnows in a display tank. Im ganna sit on the sidlines for a wile. Except for this : "You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist." - Friedrich Nietzsche

 

[Ozymandias]

ya i have to say i'm going to do that too Blue this should be fun

 

[montanafish gal]

opcorn:opcorn:opcorn:opcorn: very interesting.

 

[kazvorpal]

What about tanks that are overstocked and have no plants?

I would think those would need water changes.

You mean because of nitrates, right? If we're excluding all of the means of removing nitrates and other nutrients from the water, then I would agree.

But one certainly could switch to one of the many means of removing nutrients, other than tedious water changes.

 

[jpappy789]

Am I the only person who finds water changes to be fun? LOL

I think there is a fine line between an ecosystem and an aquarium....you can try to simulate Mother Nature as much as possible but you will never come close to replicating it...anyone who thinks otherwise is foolish.

 

[kazvorpal]

What you all have to realize is that we are trying to create an ecosystem. All ecosystems need balance. If u do not change ur water then you need to have something that purifies it. In nature thats the decomposers and producers and fungi and yes algae.

Yes, and things like a deep sand bed with freshwater invertebrates do create a sort of ecosystem.

If u want to have a tank without water changes then u need to get "pests" to help with water conditions and construct a food chain. That is not possible in a fish tank unless u get a really big one that can have breeding populations of all the fish, plants, fingi, and other ugly and sometimes dangerous things and creatures. By ugly i mean that u dont put guppies and minnows in a display tank.

Not true at all.

I have been citing means of doing exactly what you're talking about. Algae, plants, invertebrates, deep sand/mud beds, et cetera. You don't have to use "dangerous and ugly" things.

Well, perhaps not as pretty as you'd want, though. A lot of what we do "for the fish", we're actually doing for ourselves. The fish would be healthier if we let algae grow in the tank, for example, but we're willing to sacrifice that fishly desire because we don't like how it looks.

You certainly can have pretty fish that take the roles of minnows in a tank, though. Danios, for example...I keep giant danios in my main cichlid tank.

 

[snoopy65]

Am I the only person who finds water changes to be fun? LOL

I think there is a fine line between an ecosystem and an aquarium....you can try to simulate Mother Nature as much as possible but you will never come close to replicating it...anyone who thinks otherwise is foolish.

Imperial Margarine! I find my water changes therapeutic.