Large tanks and water changes....

James0816

James0816

AC Members
Feb 14, 2007
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Now here's a thought for me. Was just crunching some numbers and it looks like the tank I am getting ready to construct is going to be right around 200gallons. Wowsers. Got me thinking since I don't have the luxary as most to have city water (instead I have well water), water changes might be a bit on the difficult side as far a quantity goes. So, with these larger tanks and lightly to moderately stocked....can one push out water changes a little less frequently? Ho boy..I think I heading toward troubled waters. Hope I don't have scrap the idea.
 
I'm no expert, but if you don't have too many linear inches of fish in there, you won't need to change out as much as the normal recommendations.
 
The lighter your stock and more heavily filtered you are, the less you have to do water changes. There are times that I haven't done water changes for weeks and the water is very healthy and clear.
 
I do 30% water changes on my 180g tank every week and apart from taking a bit longer i find the tank a lot easier ot clean than than smaller tanks.
 
my concern is not time in doing a wc...my concern stems from my having to use well water and putting too big of a draw on the well.
 
It will depend on what type of well you have, the replenish rate of it and the size pressure tank you have. But if you did a standard 25% water change (50 gal), it wouldn't be any different than some one taking a bath as far as the well is concerned.
 
James0816 said:
Got me thinking since I don't have the luxary as most to have city water (instead I have well water), water changes might be a bit on the difficult side as far a quantity goes.
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Why? You don't have to pay for water. What's the problem? You don't need to worry abouit de-clor, either.

I have well water; I don't see how this is a bad thing, as long as the water parameters are OK.
 
I understand the problem. I'm lucky now; our well putrs out crazy water, I could let the hose run for days without drying it up. When I was a kid though, our well sucked at one house I lived in. During the summer, you couldn't do 2 loads of laundry in a 24 hour period if you wanted to take a shower that day - the well would run dry pretty easily if we weren't careful. You'll just have to find out a little information about your water supply as stated. The other thing you might be able to do if its a serious problem is run a trickle into a holding tank for water changes so you take out the water slowly, rather than a large quantity at once.
 
I agree with RB, it shouldn't be much more then a shower as most heads use 2 gallons per minute minimum.

You're actually lucky you don't have to pay $ per gallon. I also have a well and even with all the drought we've had in my area never had a problem with water flow. My well does run 180 ft deep though.

If I ever move to where I get city water I'll gladly pay to have my own well dug to use.In the long run I'd save money.
 
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