i do 2 times a month

[tetramoon13]

if I don't change the water in my 10 gal twice a week, the neons start looking ratty.

 

[ninjaseal]

i try to change my water twice a week but most likely i get 1 change per week

 

[plah831]

Jay, I'm glad that you're asking this question and trying to get a feel for whether your current cleaning schedule is good enough.

the way to know if your water change schedule is enough is to test your water. We recommend liquid test kits because strip or dip tests are unreliable and hard to read. The test results will tell you whether there is any ammonia, nitrite, or how much nitrate there is in your tank. If there are any of the first two (ammonia, nitrite) you need to do a water change immediately. Those two are highly toxic to fish and they can die from exposure to them.

The third is nitrate, and when your tank gets matured (aka cycled), you should only have nitrate. If it gets above 20 ppm (10 ppm for some folks, the lower the better), you should do a water change.

Without having a way to test your water, you basically have to guess. I'm sorry if some of my responses to your threads have sounded mean, but I'm glad that you've asked this question because it means you want to do what's best for your fish

We can make an expert fish keeper out of you yet!