gravel cleaning

[CaptnDan]

24/7 water change??? blimey, pretty good!! I bet the parameters are a bit up n down tho if you get complacent...

Actually he says it remain pretty constant. He's dripping the water in at the rate of about a gallon an hour, so he's changing 24 gallons a day, give or take.

The more I think about it, the more I want a setup like that. I think I will incorporate it into the design of my built-in tank when I do the plumbing for it.

 

[CaptnDan]

also i did a water change on friday so that was why i was asking about replacing the water with filtered water from tank as i was unsure if it was too soon to do another water change.

Most people do water changes based on when they have to do it to control Nitrates. If you had the time, you could do more frequent changes with no harm.

 

[fishn10s]

sorry what i meant was if i filtered it so that the water was clean, is that better than fresh (treated of course and not just tap water)

When you are siphoning water out and vacuming the gravel, you are removing the large particles of waste and uneaten food in your gravel that will eventually break down and create more biological load on your tank. One of the main reasons that you are doing water changes is to reduce the concentration of nitrates which simply put are the end product of the biological process. The nitrates continue to increase in concentration in your water. Higher levels of nitrates is not harmful to your fish but will cause algae to grow in the tank. So to answer your question, to return the filtered tank water back into your tank would not reduce the nitrates in your tank. Replacing the siphoned water with fresh treated water is unquestionally the best thing to do for you tank!

 

[madroosta]

thank you all for your help.