Water changes

[FreshyFresh]

I'm still curious of what size tank, what type of fish, how many and what type of plants could go a year without a water change.

 

[ktrom13]

I'm still curious of what size tank, what type of fish, how many and what type of plants could go a year without a water change.

The guppies and whatever plant it was i had when i bought my first fish when i was 9

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[FreshyFresh]

The guppies and whatever plant it was i had when i bought my first fish when i was 9

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Lived for a YEAR with nothing but adding water that evaporated off?

Like I say, I'm really intrigued by this concept, and would like to know what setups, stocking and maintenance will work in a true self-sustaining manner. I find it curious that the anti-water change fella won't elaborate on that.

 

[mesto]

Mesto, when I initially setup my tank the TDS did steadily increase over time due to increased conc. of salts and other ions I assume. TDS was my trigger to do a WC.

But since then I have done many things to improve my tank (lots of plants, good lighting, a bit of ferts, liquid CO2, not over feeding, algae scrubber, over filtration, Purigen, high quality carbon). The chemical filters should be adsorbing organics such as hormones.

With all this my TDS is relatively constant as you can see from the previous pic.

So at this juncture, I am going to wait months to see where my measurements head and not do WCs and per suggestion previously I will not vacuum my sand. My last thought on this was if I had a pond, I certainly would not be doing 30% WCs and many ponds do just fine right?

Sorry Fishfanman! When I wrote that reply somehow I did not see your post about the meter. That certainly is a head scratcher, I don't know where your TDS are going. I have a tank with ADA Amazonia and it eats KH (decreases to 0 quickly after a change) but not GH.

I have another tank with a deep sand bed and I never vacuum that sand. It is overstocked with shrimp and snails, and there is so much turnover in the top layer of sand there is no need. That tank (40B) is also my most stable and can easily hang for 2 weeks w/o a water change.

This certainly is an interesting thread. I am an ecologist by trade and I study natural wetlands so I find it interesting so many people want to bring the study of ecology into the hobby, and think that is probably a great thing. But as others have pointed out in nature you have quite a lot of natural turnover in small basins, both from rain and groundwater flow. Where you do not, such as in vernal pools, the water quickly becomes only suitable for fairy shrimp and species like spade foot toad, and often doesn't support many (if any) plants either. I have tested waters with pH over 10, high turbidity, and TDS off the charts in these types of basins that are drying down (i.e. no new water turnover from precip and no groundwater influence).So in my mind striving for a no-WC tank is actually looking to do something that is more "unnatural". Not that that is bad, that is just how I see it. I would be interested in walstad's "reference wetland" that she is setting up the no-change tanks to emulate. I will continue to do WCs because it is clear to me in the 3 systems I have set up (you can see in sig below) they are clearly very beneficial.

 

[jpappy789]

Sorry Fishfanman! When I wrote that reply somehow I did not see your post about the meter. That certainly is a head scratcher, I don't know where your TDS are going. I have a tank with ADA Amazonia and it eats KH (decreases to 0 quickly after a change) but not GH.

I have another tank with a deep sand bed and I never vacuum that sand. It is overstocked with shrimp and snails, and there is so much turnover in the top layer of sand there is no need. That tank (40B) is also my most stable and can easily hang for 2 weeks w/o a water change.

This certainly is an interesting thread. I am an ecologist by trade and I study natural wetlands so I find it interesting so many people want to bring the study of ecology into the hobby, and think that is probably a great thing. But as others have pointed out in nature you have quite a lot of natural turnover in small basins, both from rain and groundwater flow. Where you do not, such as in vernal pools, the water quickly becomes only suitable for fairy shrimp and species like spade foot toad, and often doesn't support many (if any) plants either. I have tested waters with pH over 10, high turbidity, and TDS off the charts in these types of basins that are drying down (i.e. no new water turnover from precip and no groundwater influence).So in my mind striving for a no-WC tank is actually looking to do something that is more "unnatural". Not that that is bad, that is just how I see it. I would be interested in walstad's "reference wetland" that she is setting up the no-change tanks to emulate. I will continue to do WCs because it is clear to me in the 3 systems I have set up (you can see in sig below) they are clearly very beneficial.

Funny, I'm in wetland/aquatic biogeochemistry myself...which is why I've been thinking along the exact same lines...

 

[Fishfiles1]

Fish live in rivers, lakes,ponds, and seas. All have big water columns with rain. Evaporation. And larva amounts of water moving, flowing and renewing itself. Who are we to deny our fish of fresh new water on a regular. Our fish diserve as close to real as we can give. How do we do this without regular WC

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[authmal]

I'm still curious of what size tank, what type of fish, how many and what type of plants could go a year without a water change.

I had an array of fish that lived for nearly 2 years with just top offs, or the quarterly 1 gallon (it was my first 55 set up) water change. Mostly tetras, but a striped raphael as well. Ironically, they died when I did a 50% water change. Guess it was Old Tank Syndrome.