How do you peform your water changes?

Well like I said, let me see where your information is coming from. And tell me the level of experience they have like I have done.

I'm open minded so I would like to see the actual source and knowledge and see if I will do it.

My source I trust because they have 40 plus years of keeping and breeding fish, and they have had a *********** show for 3 years, people call in all the time thanking them for their advise and how their advise works, if you don't believe me go to their site at www.***********.com and listen to their past shows on their archives.
 
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alright jay, let me be clear. do not pull this off topics with arguments. We all appreciate your input on these issues, but keep it to the original threads request. surely you dont think that there are'nt others here who have posted and informed me of the best practices. i comb this site. thank you and i am truly sorry to the rest of you who want this thread back where it was intended. That is all.
 
I believe the topic is "How do you perform water changes." How is this off topic? We are aguing if we should treat water or not, which falls in the same class.
 
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homer3d455840 said:
Lets try an experiment to end this debate. Jay773 shut yourself in a small airtight room with a open container of bleach and tell us how it feels. :thm:

That is not the same thing, again are you going off your own judgment or can you proof to me that it is the same thing?

Seems to me you people are just getting angry at me because I'm not giving the answer you guys want. Which is sad because this is site for open discussion. All I'm asking is the source you guys are getting your information from and their experience level, and you guys get tipsy.

If you want me to discuss this on another thread then I will do that.
 
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i have a planted tank with sand, so i don't actually gravel vac, since i would just end up disturbing my plants and sucking up all my sand. i do use a gravel vac siphon though and use it to suck up some of the poo and whatnot sitting on top of the sand. i do shut off the filters because i do 50% changes and that drops the water level low enough that the filters actually stop working on their own and the motor struggles, and if i were to leave them on i would burn it out, so i do unplug them. i leave the heater though, because its submursible and i have it down at the bottom sitting horizontally.

when i go to put water back in, i take the bucket (yes, i use a bucket, i'm old school, i don't have a python, but i will get one for my 45g coming soon) and fill it in the bathrub with water close to the tank temp, as close as i can get just by feel, which is pretty close actually. while the bucket is filling, i add dechlor so the agitation in the bucket from the faucet mixes it up, then i dump it straight in the tank. i use my hand to keep the water from throwing up sand and stuff.

i change my filter sponge when it looks like it needs it, which is about every 3 months. every couple weeks i rinse the filter sponge out in a bucket of old tank water. i have whisper HOB's, so it has the carbon filter pouch thingie, and a biosponge. the biosponge, i never wash or replace, its the carbon filter pouch thingie that i replace and wash and stuff.

and i don't remove any decor. the only non plant decor i have is some wood which is attached to a piece of plexiglass which is buried under the sand and has plants growing on top of it, so if i moved it, it would seriously disrupt the plants.
 
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homer3d455840 said:
Here is some scientific research done in the U.S.:

http://www.mdiwqc.org/pages/chlorine.html#

No where in that site do I see that 20 percent of the water with chlorine in the water is harmful. I see that too much chlorine is harmful and I think everyone knows that. My source proves it's not harmful because they have kept fish and bred them for 40 years with no problem. And like the quote Arkin posted they say the fish have done better because it wards off some diseases.

So show me that 20 percent of untreated water to the fish is harmful in other words.
 
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jay, seriously. just shut up. your just being argumentative. people are telling you over and over and giving you plenty of proof and you just keep getting all nit-picky, "oh, its only 20% or more, blah blah blah" just drop it. chlorine is a deadly chemical that has been used to kill people in the past, and is commenly used to kill germs in pretty much every house in the country and other countries. people get sick if they swallow too much pool water, it sucks moisture out of your skin, it turns your hair green. its nasty stuff, and i don't see any benefit of not removing it, and i DO see potential nasty side effects of leaving it in when it comes to fish.

if you want to be cheap and lazy and not spend $2 on a bottle of Wardley's chlor-out at walmart and add a few drops to your tank, whatever. its your fish, and your tank. just don't go around promoting it to newbies.
 
Actually what the site says, if you had read it, is that .01 ppm is the recommend maximum amount of chlorine for any aquatic life. If you replace 1 gallon of aquarium water with 1 gallon of untreated tap water (at .2 ppm to 2.0 ppm of chlorine on average) in a 10 gallon aquarium you would now have between .02 ppm and .2 ppm of chlorine in your aquarium. Judging from the chart these levels do not sound at all healthy for your fish.
 
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