I still want to see citation where there is some sort of something that says they are not needed.
Are Water Changes Actually Necessary?
- Thread starter kazvorpal
- Start date
- Status
I would be willing to bet my house that they haven't seen one of their own fish live for 15+ years either.
many of us who have been diligent with water changes, have.
mine was a rapheal cat I had from grade 8 until last fall..when I sold him when I bought my house.
I hope he is still alive to this day.
undergravel filters do not kill fish. they do no more harm then improperly maintained than a regular filter.
water changes are necessary to remove everything that the test kit can't pick up. even if your nitrates are 0, there are still so many other different dissolved organics in the water that you need to change at least 25% of the water every week.
water changes are necessary to remove everything that the test kit can't pick up. even if your nitrates are 0, there are still so many other different dissolved organics in the water that you need to change at least 25% of the water every week.
LMAO......Hahaha, oh my gosh, I find water changes to be so so so much fun too!!!!!
I really have to contain myself when I have the siphon in my hand. Right when I get at around 40% (I try to do 50% changes every week if possible) I have to start telling myself to take a step back, take a deep breath, and prepare myself to put the siphon down. It's so exciting when the water is siphoning out and it makes me feel so awesome and fufilling when I see all the gunk coming through the tubing (I'm a passionate gardener so my garden loves the tank water). My least favorite part is carrying the buckets of water but as someone noted earlier, there is definitely something zen-feng shui about the whole water changing process. But in regards to this overall thread; a very interesting read. I, too, many years ago, used to be a believer in the close-to-natural ecosystem (all my aquariums have been and continue to be medium-heavily planted) and used to do water changes only on a monthly basis. However, over the years, I've come to personally realize that water changes are more beneficial than hazardous to the well-being of my fishes. I do believe it is a balance. A balance that is partially achieved by man (us) emulating the changes and replenishment of new water through water changes (in natural environments, rain (light, heavy, monsoonal) would play this act.
But to the original poster - I do understand where your coming from. I grew up in Hawaii and witnessed many natural ecosystems that were far from "stellar" in comparison to the clean, sparkling, and meticulous conditions many aquarium keepers maintain for their fish. But as the "fish-geek" from PA continues to say, different people - different methods. I chose water changes because pour moi, it works.
Last edited:
So Kav - you didn't change water for a year and a half, you fed your fish twice a week...:22_yikes:
I don't know how it is that no one is saying it so plainly, but this is neglect on your part, plain and simple. The fish may not have died, but neither do people in vegetative states. Fish obviously enjoy stimulus, and it appears you gave them none except for twice a week. What is the point of keeping an aquarium if you don't interact with it?
It seems audacious to me that you want everyone to furnish absolute proof of the benefits of water changes, yet you have not posted any details about your "successful" aquarium in question. We don't know the size, the inhabitants - or what the water parameters were like during this time. Pictures would be even better. Let's see the deep sand bed, snails, shrimp algae etc. that was keeping your tank perfectly balanced.
Metabolites build up in aquariums, plain and simple, and they stunt the growth of fish. Perhaps they cause other harm - all we have observed is that a stale tank yields stunted fish. Raise a tank full of guppy fry with no water changes next to a tank full of guppy fry with small, daily water changes. Pack them both full of plants and sponge filters, maybe even use high a quality GAC like Chemi-Pure to cope with pollution. Feed them identically. See which one has more runts and S curved spines.
You know what this reminds me of? The people who prune their crape myrtles by "topping them" and think they're doing them a favor because they "come back even harder" the next year. It's a terrible thing to do to them, and people do it because they're lazy - they want to use a chain saw instead of loppers because it takes 5 minutes instead of 45.
I'm with the Mod who suggested that you've never kept "difficult" fish. I think this just proves how tolerant the community fish you kept are, just like those poor crape myrtles which get butchered year after year...
I don't know how it is that no one is saying it so plainly, but this is neglect on your part, plain and simple. The fish may not have died, but neither do people in vegetative states. Fish obviously enjoy stimulus, and it appears you gave them none except for twice a week. What is the point of keeping an aquarium if you don't interact with it?
It seems audacious to me that you want everyone to furnish absolute proof of the benefits of water changes, yet you have not posted any details about your "successful" aquarium in question. We don't know the size, the inhabitants - or what the water parameters were like during this time. Pictures would be even better. Let's see the deep sand bed, snails, shrimp algae etc. that was keeping your tank perfectly balanced.
Metabolites build up in aquariums, plain and simple, and they stunt the growth of fish. Perhaps they cause other harm - all we have observed is that a stale tank yields stunted fish. Raise a tank full of guppy fry with no water changes next to a tank full of guppy fry with small, daily water changes. Pack them both full of plants and sponge filters, maybe even use high a quality GAC like Chemi-Pure to cope with pollution. Feed them identically. See which one has more runts and S curved spines.
You know what this reminds me of? The people who prune their crape myrtles by "topping them" and think they're doing them a favor because they "come back even harder" the next year. It's a terrible thing to do to them, and people do it because they're lazy - they want to use a chain saw instead of loppers because it takes 5 minutes instead of 45.
I'm with the Mod who suggested that you've never kept "difficult" fish. I think this just proves how tolerant the community fish you kept are, just like those poor crape myrtles which get butchered year after year...
opcorn:
OgreMkV
Father of Earth's Next Emperor
Here's just one paper on PubMed. I'm tired and want to go to bed. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of research on the actual aquariums out there, but there are a few things that we can say.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2644126/?tool=pmcentrez&report=abstract
Ocean acidification impairs olfactory discrimination and homing ability of a marine fish
1) Lower pH is bad for marine fish
2) Urea is acidic
3) build up of urea causes lower pH
4) addition of buffers will correct lower pH - UP TO A POINT
5) once you've added a certain amount of buffer, the negative components of the buffer mixture will lower pH despite the addition of additional buffer.
This is basic chemistry. There is nothing that can increase the pH of marine water once certain chemical pathways are saturated.
Admittedly, this takes a much longer time than most freshwater tanks... which in many cases contain fish that are actually more delicate than marine fish (I've had a few).
A partial water change will reset (at least partially) the chemical pathway for the maintenance of pH (indeed, it does the same for other chemical pathways as well, ammonia, nitrites, nitrites, phosphorus, etc). A regular water change will prevent the chemical pathways from ever 'clogging up' and needing emergency maintenance.
Again, it needs to be said that freshwater fish can often survive quite happily in water that is not ideal. Again, it's survival. Roughly akin to the guy who hasn't cleaned his apartment in 2 years. You can live in it, but who wants to.
Now, as far as anecdotal evidence goes... I had two tanks: a 55g freshwater tank planted with cories, black skirt tetras and neons, and a 46g reef tank with much natural life (in fact the entire tanks was basicaly 75 pounds of Gulf of Mexico reef removed and dropped into my tank (arguably as close to natural as you can get)).
Hurricane Ike comes in and we lose power for 6 weeks. The SW tank was the third most disgusting thing I've ever dealt with in my entire life. The freshwater tank had some algae growth... didn't even lose a fish. As far as I know, every fish I had is still alive.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2644126/?tool=pmcentrez&report=abstract
Ocean acidification impairs olfactory discrimination and homing ability of a marine fish
1) Lower pH is bad for marine fish
2) Urea is acidic
3) build up of urea causes lower pH
4) addition of buffers will correct lower pH - UP TO A POINT
5) once you've added a certain amount of buffer, the negative components of the buffer mixture will lower pH despite the addition of additional buffer.
This is basic chemistry. There is nothing that can increase the pH of marine water once certain chemical pathways are saturated.
Admittedly, this takes a much longer time than most freshwater tanks... which in many cases contain fish that are actually more delicate than marine fish (I've had a few).
A partial water change will reset (at least partially) the chemical pathway for the maintenance of pH (indeed, it does the same for other chemical pathways as well, ammonia, nitrites, nitrites, phosphorus, etc). A regular water change will prevent the chemical pathways from ever 'clogging up' and needing emergency maintenance.
Again, it needs to be said that freshwater fish can often survive quite happily in water that is not ideal. Again, it's survival. Roughly akin to the guy who hasn't cleaned his apartment in 2 years. You can live in it, but who wants to.
Now, as far as anecdotal evidence goes... I had two tanks: a 55g freshwater tank planted with cories, black skirt tetras and neons, and a 46g reef tank with much natural life (in fact the entire tanks was basicaly 75 pounds of Gulf of Mexico reef removed and dropped into my tank (arguably as close to natural as you can get)).
Hurricane Ike comes in and we lose power for 6 weeks. The SW tank was the third most disgusting thing I've ever dealt with in my entire life. The freshwater tank had some algae growth... didn't even lose a fish. As far as I know, every fish I had is still alive.
OgreMkV
Father of Earth's Next Emperor
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_cleaning.html
OK here you go. This is a commercial website, but note that references are included at the end of some of the detail pages.
Read carefully... everything.
OK here you go. This is a commercial website, but note that references are included at the end of some of the detail pages.
Read carefully... everything.
You may not think your fish are unhealthy, but it is inhumane to make a fish live in its own waste. I like the analogy of leaving someone in a port-a-potty for a long period of time. Ammonia and other things build up, and these are toxic. Your fish may have been very hardy species, and you must have gotten lucky. Not only can fish be sensitive to the toxins, no wc's stunts growth.
As for water changes being stressful, maybe minutely, but I often have fish that won't even go away from my gravel vac (which makes a decent amount of noise), and these are not stupid fish. From the respect of the chemistry changing, if you do it every week, the chemistry does not change that much.
I can't believe that people would consider not doing wc's. Even when I was 5 years old with a betta in a little plastic box, I knew to do wc's. And no one told me that, it just made sense.
As for water changes being stressful, maybe minutely, but I often have fish that won't even go away from my gravel vac (which makes a decent amount of noise), and these are not stupid fish. From the respect of the chemistry changing, if you do it every week, the chemistry does not change that much.
I can't believe that people would consider not doing wc's. Even when I was 5 years old with a betta in a little plastic box, I knew to do wc's. And no one told me that, it just made sense.
- Status
