Water Changes - The "correct" way

[Kevin007]

My brother has a 20 Gallon fish tank with 2 HOB filters on it. He keeps guppies in the tanks.

Now I tell him that it is important to not change both of the filter cartridge in the HOB because of the beneficial bacteria. He disagrees. Hes been keeping Guppies for around 5-6 years and gets little to no deaths. He does huge water changes when he feels like it (leaves the water overnight to get rid of chlorine) and changes both filter cartridges every time. He also tops up the water when there are evaporation.

Why aren't his fish suffering from mini cycles? Who am I to tell him whats "right" and "wrong" when his fish are healthy and have stayed that way for a couple of years.

He argues that:

1. there are enough beneficial bacteria on the sand/driftwood/ornaments/ filter (excluding cartridge).

2. He has enough guppies so that one or two losses won't make a difference.

3."If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

I'll show him this thread.

 

[Paladinpress]

You should tell him his way is the correct way, you know reverse psych. Think about, okay.

 

[gmh]

What kind of filters does he run? If he is changing out the outer floss but leaving the inner layer of biomedia, that would explain why he has no problems.
Or if he has biowheels, that would also explain it.

 

[NUMB3RS]

hes lucky!

 

[yhbae]

Roughly how often does he change water? If he is doing it often enough and very large changes each time, he might be keeping them alive by keeping ammonia and nitrite levels low through water changes which obviously is not an ideal way to keep them alive.

 

[Kevin007]

What kind of filters does he run? If he is changing out the outer floss but leaving the inner layer of biomedia, that would explain why he has no problems.
Or if he has biowheels, that would also explain it.

Top Fin Hang on the back, not an canister, no bio media and not a bio wheel

Roughly how often does he change water? If he is doing it often enough and very large changes each time, he might be keeping them alive by keeping ammonia and nitrite levels low through water changes which obviously is not an ideal way to keep them alive.

He changes 40-50% of the water every 2 weeks or so.

 

[PuppyFluffer]

At least he does water changes. My brother tops his tank off - he's never done a water change or a gravel vac EVER! He's got the wrong sized filter on his tank which means it's grossly underfiltered. It's frustrating to me.

 

[Kevin007]

in other words, does it work?

 

[yhbae]

in other words, does it work?

If he is only changing water every two weeks and completely change over his existing filter media, no that's a terrible way to keep an aquarium. Ask him to measure his ammonia and nitrite levels just before water change. That will show the real picture.

 

[Kashta]

Ask him to measure his ammonia and nitrite levels just before water change. That will show the real picture.

We're talking about a third person here, who's obviously not interested in tank maintenance. I highly doubt this guy is going to test ammonia and nitrite levels.

Offer the advice you have to share and leave it at that. You can't make him pay more attention to this if he's already decided to blow it off.