Advice on Regular water changes etc? updated

[justinhill]

The tank I inherited is now about as stable as it's going to get, and I'm sure it has finished 'cycling'. Up to now, I've been changing small amounts of water (about 10%) every day and rinsing the filter sponges every 3-4 days in used tank water. I'm now ready to contemplate starting a regular regime and I'd appreciate any advice on what my routine should be. So far, I've been giving the replacement water 24 hours to 'age' and warm up in a bucket before adding it; this is going to get impractical with bigger changes. I'm 'preparing' my water with Stress Coat. At the moment I've got half the lighting on for about 10 hours a day, with full lighting for 3 hours in the middle of the day.

So, what should be my maintenance task list, and what's the frequency?

A reminder of the stats: it's nominally a 125 litre tank in which I can fit about 83 litres in total. pH is 6.5, Nitrite, Ammonia and Phosphate are all holding at or near 0. It's got some immature plants, and 1 gold gourami, 13 cardinals, 2 bamboo shrimp and four algae eaters (probably siamese algae eaters but maybe flying foxes). I'm running it at 23 degrees.

 

[P J]

usually you can expect the tank to be mature after four weeks but you are running a tropical tank at a low temperature in my opinion so it may take longer. The water has a lot of bacteria in suspension, you are cleaning filters too often, you need to build up some beneficial gunks over three months or so, don’t squeeze the filter foam and I would raise the water temperature to about 76 deg C. Water changes are excessive 10% a week will do fine, if you get a lot more plants in the tank. You may want to consider a UVC filter if you are aiming for crystal clear water with a low bacteria load. No need to age tap water use AquaSafe or something similar to remove chlorines and add water at same temperature as the tank. Think about using two low powered heaters it’s safer than on big one, and get an external canister filter as well as your internal one. Best wishes Justin hope it progresses we. PJ

 

[justinhill]

usually you can expect the tank to be mature after four weeks but you are running a tropical tank at a low temperature in my opinion so it may take longer. The water has a lot of bacteria in suspension, you are cleaning filters too often, you need to build up some beneficial gunks over three months or so, don’t squeeze the filter foam and I would raise the water temperature to about 76 deg C. Water changes are excessive 10% a week will do fine, if you get a lot more plants in the tank. You may want to consider a UVC filter if you are aiming for crystal clear water with a low bacteria load. No need to age tap water use AquaSafe or something similar to remove chlorines and add water at same temperature as the tank. Think about using two low powered heaters it’s safer than on big one, and get an external canister filter as well as your internal one. Best wishes Justin hope it progresses we. PJ

Thanks for your thoughts, PJ. As ever, lots of different useful views from whoever I hear from. I inherited the tank with an insane algae infestation and I'd been keeping the temperature lower in the hope of slowing it down while I dealt with it. I am now incrementally increasing to 24 degrees.

I thought the good bacteria lived in the substrate, filters and so forth, not in the water itself?

I'm not planning to add any more plants for the time being. The 'carpet' planting will hopefully spread though.

My tank water is consistently pH 6.5, although my tap water looks like about 7.5 (I don't know if its valid to use an aquarium test kit on tap water but I assume it is.)

 

[Colin_T]

75% water change and gravel clean the substrate once a week.

clean filter once every 2-4 weeks. don't clean new filters until 2 weeks after they have cycled.

 

[P J]

Thanks for your thoughts, PJ. As ever, lots of different useful views from whoever I hear from. I inherited the tank with an insane algae infestation and I'd been keeping the temperature lower in the hope of slowing it down while I dealt with it. I am now incrementally increasing to 24 degrees.

I thought the good bacteria lived in the substrate, filters and so forth, not in the water itself?

I'm not planning to add any more plants for the time being. The 'carpet' planting will hopefully spread though.

My tank water is consistently pH 6.5, although my tap water looks like about 7.5 (I don't know if its valid to use an aquarium test kit on tap water but I assume it is.)

Hi Justin. There will be bacteria in the water (good or bad) but you are correct we always expect beneficial bacteria in the filters to provide biological filtration. I hope all goes well for your project, you seem to be on the right track. Cheers PJ

 

[P J]

75% water change and gravel clean the substrate once a week.

clean filter once every 2-4 weeks. don't clean new filters until 2 weeks after they have cycled.

Wow 75% water change every week, why do that, way too high. And cleaning filters every two weeks will not allow a sufficient and effective biological filter to develop. A clean house is not a good regime for biological filters - leave alone for three months then gently clean if clogged, the gunk is the good stuff. PJ

 

[Slaphppy7]

I do 50% every week, and rinse the media in tank water every time....never had an issue with this practice.

 

[Essjay]

The bacteria which 'eat' ammonia and nitrite live in biofilm which is firmly attached to all the surfaces in the tank. There are virtually none floating in the water.

10% a week will leave 90% of the 'bad' stuff in the water. Nitrate will build up plus all the things excreted and secreted by the fish which we can't test for. I once worked in a hospital lab and we tested human urine for many things. Fish will excrete similar, if not the same, things which will build up is insufficient water changes are not done. Not to mention the pheromones and allomones the fish use to communicate with each other.
Most of us change at least 50% every week.
The substrate is home to countless micro-organisms, and again these are not affected by water chnages, unless we fail to remove the chlorine/chloramine in our tap water.

The brown goo which builds up in the filter is uneaten food, fish poop, and bits of plant where there are live plants. The bacteria break these down to ammonia then turn it into nitrite then nitrate. Many people call this brown goo a nitrate factory. The filter media should be cleaned at least once a month to remove the brown goo. Gently squeezing the media in old tank water will remove the goo but will not disturb the biofilm. The only exception is when a tank is first cycled and the biofilm has not yet firmly attached.

So far, I've been giving the replacement water 24 hours to 'age' and warm up in a bucket before adding it; this is going to get impractical with bigger changes.

If you use a dechlorinator (water conditioner) you don't need to age the water. That was done decades ago before dechlorinators were invented to allow the chlorine in tap water to gas off. Nowadays many water companies use chloramine rather than chlorine and this doesn't gas off.
If you use a bucket to refill, put the water conditioner in the bucket then run the tap in at full force to mix it in thoroughly. If you have a combi boiler, you can use hot tap water to get the new water to roughty the same temperature as the tank, though if you have a hot water cylinder it is advisable to boil some water in the kettle to warm the new water.

 

[justinhill]

OK - so one thing we all agree on is I will now being 'doing the water' once a week, and that I won't be rinsing the filters again for a while.

Only thing is - and note that there's still a lot of blanket weed I'm dealing with, which tends to detach the odd plant leaf - when I rinsed the filter media today it was so totally stuffed with muck after three days the pump performance was degraded. I really noticed the difference when I switched it on again. So I'm guessing I will be leaving the filter alone as long as I can but keeping an eye on the pump performance.

I have an immersion tank for hot water so I'll boil kettles to get the temperature up.

 

[Essjay]

My dechlorinator dose rate is 1 drop per US gallon so I use 2 drops in 7.6 litres. I find that at the moment I need 1.25 litres boiling water to get that 7.6 litres to roughly the right temp as our tap water is icy cold. In summer I won't need as much

 

[P J]

OK - so one thing we all agree on is I will now being 'doing the water' once a week, and that I won't be rinsing the filters again for a while.

Only thing is - and note that there's still a lot of blanket weed I'm dealing with, which tends to detach the odd plant leaf - when I rinsed the filter media today it was so totally stuffed with muck after three days the pump performance was degraded. I really noticed the difference when I switched it on again. So I'm guessing I will be leaving the filter alone as long as I can but keeping an eye on the pump performance.

I have an immersion tank for hot water so I'll boil kettles to get the temperature up.

Hi Justin, bits of plant will find their way into your filter, just gently swish them away In old tank water to keep the beneficial gunk or biofloc in place to maintain a healthy biologically active filter. Happy fish keeping. PJ

 

[Essjay]

The brown goo should be washed off the media. It contains a few beneficial bacteria but the vast majority are in the biofilm tightly bound to the media and you have to scrub pretty hard to remove the biofilm. The brown goo also contains a lot of bacteria which break down the goo to ammonia, which the beneficial bacteria then convert to nitrite then nitrate. Leaving that brown goo in the filter media is a cause of high nitrate in the tank.

The only time filter media should not be cleaned is in a new tank to allow the biofilm to become fully established.

 

[P J]

The brown goo should be washed off the media. It contains a few beneficial bacteria but the vast majority are in the biofilm tightly bound to the media and you have to scrub pretty hard to remove the biofilm. The brown goo also contains a lot of bacteria which break down the goo to ammonia, which the beneficial bacteria then convert to nitrite then nitrate. Leaving that brown goo in the filter media is a cause of high nitrate in the tank.

The only time filter media should not be cleaned is in a new tank to allow the biofilm to become fully established.

The brown gunk is part of the biological filter, a regime of 50% water changes every week which seems to be favoured is wrong headed, let the filter properly mature and such excessive water change is not required. The biofloc becomes well established after at least a year and not easily removed but it will never get established with a cleaning regime that entails removing and excessive cleaning of filter media in the first case. Absolutely incorrect that a properly mature filter with all its gunk causes high nitrate - it is exactly the opposite.

 

[Essjay]

You will find you are outvoted on this forum. We always recommend that members to clean the brown goo off their filter media at least once a month.

 

[P J]

It’s not a matter of votes, this is worth considering from Swiss Tropicals:

Biofilms and Biofloc​

From the Poret Foam Supplier (Swiss Tropicals)

“The purpose of the filter media is not to filter the water as is often assumed. The filter media serves as the habitat for a vast array of microorganisms that include bacteria, archaea, worms, ciliates, flagellates, and many others. These microorganisms live in a community that is based on biofilms. The biofilms are created by bacteria that secret extracellular polymeric substance (EPS), which is often called “slime”. The community forms a bioreactor that processes the waste and turns it into food and energy for its members, and ultimately into organic or inorganic products that are then used by plants, evaporates, or is removed by water changes. It takes a considerable amount of time to establish this “filter community”; consequently, it is very important not to disturb it unless absolutely necessary. The brown filter sludge in a filter is for the most part alive and not simply waste. Removing this mud does more harm than good.

And this from a respected supplier who really care about effective filtration.