Africans dropping like flies...

[NatakuTseng]

If you all stress testing your tank water, why don't any of you test your tap for its parameters as well? Ever think of that, its a very basic idea and you should be doing it as often as you test your own tank. The more water you change out the healthier the environment becomes. Most discus,angel,guppy, betta breeders change out their water twice daily, meaning over the course of a day the fish recieve essentially 2 100% changes. These are all on automatic systems of course, but if you look at the show quality fish from these breeders you see why they do it. The temp shock thing is a rarity, and has to be a super extreme change for it to cause problems, I've recieved discus, unpacked them, and used the plop and drop method every time, water in the bags sometimes was around 70, temps in my tanks were 86, and an hour later the gosh darn little things were begging and eating, but that must have been one of the side effects of temp and possibly pH shock too huh? No acclimation at all there for them, but its standard proceedure for shipped fish.

As to the whole water pipe and crud thing, I agree with JS, ya, it could happen, but you have to be completely ignorant to not know you called the plumber in to work on them. And if water changes are so bad, why is one of the first things we all reccomend when a fish gets sick is to do a water change? Hmmmm interesting, maybe because cleaner water is better perhaps? Go figure.

Those of you who want to continue doing your monthly or whatever WCs go right ahead, but I know doing WCs every day like I do, or twice weekly on my other tanks is just gonna make the fish healthier.

 

[dergibog]

I agree with Diana/LuvMyKribs.
Not necessary. Probably won't hurt, but not necessary.

 

[CajunCC]

I think it really depends completely on the fish you keep. Like I said earlier, my africans seem perfectly fine with only weekly changes, but my discus and angels are far healthier with changes every other day.

 

[JSchmidt]

For those truly interested, here are some good earlier threads on various water changing practices:

http://64.191.28.50/forums/showthread.php?t=33004
http://64.191.28.50/forums/showthread.php?t=42171
http://64.191.28.50/forums/showthread.php?t=18683

Jim

 

[f8ldzz]

Water temp is pretty easy to control, too... and I think the risk to fish from 'temperature shock' is pretty much exaggerated, or at least too broadly applied.

My 60G temps close to 90F.
The water out of the tap can drop as low as 70F.
I haven't tested if the fish can stand about a 20F drop, but I'd be scared too.

Many fish come from waters with thermal layers that can vary by ten degrees or more, and fish have been observed swimming from one themocline into another in the wild without ill effects. Furthermore, in some areas, the influx of rainwaters of different temperatures can encourage spawning. Some fish can be sensitive to temps, but most of us who keep those species know about that.

See below.

I suppose if someone worked on the plumbing you'd have crud in the water, but how often does that occur? We usually know when that's happened, and we just run the water for a while before we drink it, bathe in it, wash clothes in it, etc. I think this point is a red herring.

I live in an apt.
They regularly work on the plumbing, and the water gets turn off / on almost monthly; I can guarantee the pipes get worked on every other month.
I know they work on the cold water supply side (the side I get the fish tank water from), cause when I turn the tap on, it spits out all kinds of cruddy stuff.
Maybe your community area has pretty good public plumbing (i.e. pipes outside of your property), but right now the county of Honolulu has really bad water pipe problems.
There's a major water pipe break almost weekly!

My thinking is that the waters from which our fish come are vastly less polluted, in terms of nitrates, dissolved organic compounds, hormones, etc., than are our best-kept fish tanks. Frequent water changes may not be absolutely necessary, in that the fish may appear (and be) quite healthy. But it seems reasonable to me that more frequent changes will be better for the fish, in that their water will be less polluted.

Now this I gotta argue against...
You're assuming the fish are wild caught?
I.E. F0 stock?
I'm assuming my fish come from a commercial fish farm.
In fact, I've confirmed that on LFS I frequent gets their fish from a commercial fish farm.
I've also seen this particular LFS have stacks of boxes labeled "LIVE ANIMALS"..."Vietnam", so they are from SE Asian commercial fish farms.
Now, I'm not bagging that these (SE Asian) commercial fish farms have "bad" water, but it cannot be as pristine if the stock was wild-caught, right?

I know from hanging out here that Diana/LuvMyKribs knows what she's doing and I have no doubt she changes enough water, etc, to keep her fish healthy. My point is that there is no harm, only benefit, in frequent water changes (given a stable water supply).

Uh, I'm not doubting that.
I guess our cases might be different, as I refuse to pay for "expensive" fish at this point in my life.

Sorry if this is getting kinda blah blah blah, but I like a healthy debate every now and then.

 

[f8ldzz]

If you all stress testing your tank water, why don't any of you test your tap for its parameters as well? Ever think of that, its a very basic idea and you should be doing it as often as you test your own tank. The more water you change out the healthier the environment becomes. Most discus,angel,guppy, betta breeders change out their water twice daily, meaning over the course of a day the fish recieve essentially 2 100% changes.

Are you saying the do 100% water changes 2x a day?
Or are you claiming 50% water changes 2x a day?
If it's 50% water changes 2x a day, then that effectively comes out to a 75% water change daily.

As for your other points, see my previous reply.
I have this feeling that it has to do with my relatively "cheap" fish compared to your (assuming) more expensive discus...

 

[NatakuTseng]

The volume of water that those breeders change out is equivalent to two 100% water changes PER DAY. Regaurdless of how expensive the fish you have are, water changes are essential to them. My guppy fry get the 50% daily change, everything except my plant tanks get that. The plant tanks get two 60% or so changes a week. All I know is I used to do things the way most of you still do, and then started doing it the way I am now, and wow what a vast difference in the health of my livestock. They eat better, they are much much more active, their colors are 10 times better, and I haven't had any that I've had for a while get sick in a long time, even when being harassed by other fish. As to the SE asian breeders and their water quality, see my above statement about what they do for WCs. Some do less, but they still do a lot of WCs, they simply have too as well. They stock their tanks very heavily, feed heavily and want to get the fish to a sellable size as quickly as possible. Best way to do that is very frequent massive water changes coupled with heavy feeding of high protein foods, and in the case of some fish a supplementation of amino acid complex and calcium +D.

 

[JSchmidt]

My 60G temps close to 90F.
The water out of the tap can drop as low as 70F.
I haven't tested if the fish can stand about a 20F drop, but I'd be scared too.

Unless you change 100% of your water, the temp drop won't be near 20 degrees. If you changed 50% of the water, your drop in temp would be less than 10 degrees, given the mass of decorations, rocks, tank, etc. Most of us who keep tropical fish probably keep fish in the upper 70s or lower 80s; it's not terribly hard to keep the new water within a few degrees of that.

Now this I gotta argue against...
You're assuming the fish are wild caught?
I.E. F0 stock?
I'm assuming my fish come from a commercial fish farm.
In fact, I've confirmed that on LFS I frequent gets their fish from a commercial fish farm.
I've also seen this particular LFS have stacks of boxes labeled "LIVE ANIMALS"..."Vietnam", so they are from SE Asian commercial fish farms.
Now, I'm not bagging that these (SE Asian) commercial fish farms have "bad" water, but it cannot be as pristine if the stock was wild-caught, right?

I don't think that matching the lowest denominator is something to which we should aspire. Yes, there are commericial fish farms that keep animals in deplorable conditions. But the waters to which our fish are native -- not most recently kept in, or were bred in, but the waters to which they are native -- are certainly cleaner than our tanks. That's what I meant.

I've lived in apartments. I know that sometimes plumbing repairs were conducted in other units, but how often does that occur? How often would a partial water change be the first opportunity to discover that the water was rusty, cruddy, etc.? I still think that partial water changes are way more beneficial than detrimental, even given those concerns.

Jim