How Often Do You Change Your Water?

[Cookielici0us]

I'm slightly new to fish even though i test my water every now and then, how often do you change your water? I always think that if the ammonia or nitrate stuff are fine why bother changing it? But what about Vac-ing? And getting rid of the poop?!

 

[mbeer21]

There isn't really a need to change just the water if the stats are fine. But vaccuming up the poop removes water anyway, so you can replace it with clean water then. I do a full gravel vac every two weeks in my tank, which changes around a third of the water.

 

[phantomlink]

30% water change every Monday or Tuesday, I have sand in my tanks and alot of plants/decorations so without removing the lights/glass lid its hard for me to get all the stuff off the sand but I dont see much anyways

 

[Cookielici0us]

30% water change every Monday or Tuesday, I have sand in my tanks and alot of plants/decorations so without removing the lights/glass lid its hard for me to get all the stuff off the sand but I dont see much anyways

I put my plants into pots and every time i vac my tank i always pick up sand... D: How do you manage to keep the sand in ur tank and not in the vac?!

 

[dbanner]

Ok, my tank is 5foot, 450 litres (120US gal)... To be precise its a Jewel Rio 400 with sand substrate, bogwood and 6-7 live plants... It's cycled and has been for as long as I can remember. Ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 20 PH 8.2

It's home to 1 fish and always will be until I either rehome him (if I ever do but not planning to anytime soon) or if he dies... Lets hope that doesn't happen.. Anyway, the fish is a Blue Thai Silk Flowerhorn that's currently a little of 5 inches total length...

The filtration in the tank is 2 x tetratec ex1200 external filters and 1 x fluval 4 plus internal giving me a combined turnover of 3400LPH (2600LPH with filter media). So around 6x my water volume.

Even with the filtration and only the 1 fish I still do 2 weekly 50% water changes and gravel/sand vacs. Each time I add water I use seachem prime dechlorinater. Even if your water stats are fine you might as well change some water whilst your doing tank maintenance like a sand/gravel vac.. Your fish will always appreciate fresh water even if its only a 20-30% change

 

[Cookielici0us]

Ok, my tank is 5foot, 450 litres (120US gal)... To be precise its a Jewel Rio 400 with sand substrate, bogwood and 6-7 live plants... It's cycled and has been for as long as I can remember. Ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 20 PH 8.2

It's home to 1 fish and always will be until I either rehome him (if I ever do but not planning to anytime soon) or if he dies... Lets hope that doesn't happen.. Anyway, the fish is a Blue Thai Silk Flowerhorn that's currently a little of 5 inches total length...

The filtration in the tank is 2 x tetratec ex1200 external filters and 1 x fluval 4 plus internal giving me a combined turnover of 3400LPH (2600LPH with filter media). So around 6x my water volume.

Even with the filtration and only the 1 fish I still do 2 weekly 50% water changes and gravel/sand vacs. Each time I add water I use seachem prime dechlorinater. Even if your water stats are fine you might as well change some water whilst your doing tank maintenance like a sand/gravel vac.. Your fish will always appreciate fresh water even if its only a 20-30% change

o_o;; I hear flower horns are very expensive and I am very... shocked or amazed I'm not sure because I'm very afraid of flowerhorns because of that odd bulge they have on their head but at the same time i get very excited because there's just something weird about it that attracts me to it i guess its amusingly weird and thats an odd way to think of it they enjoy fresh water im sure and on another note... what do u do with all that water?

 

[slimeneo]

Once a week, ~30% but sometimes nearly 50% because of the water that evaporates I quite like doing water changes actually. The dirty water is used to water the lawn

 

[Cookielici0us]

Once a week, ~30% but sometimes nearly 50% because of the water that evaporates I quite like doing water changes actually. The dirty water is used to water the lawn

Hah... There's this area in my lawn that is COMPLETELY green because i always water it with nutritious fish poop water..but the rest is all yellowish

 

[slimeneo]

Once a week, ~30% but sometimes nearly 50% because of the water that evaporates I quite like doing water changes actually. The dirty water is used to water the lawn

Hah... There's this area in my lawn that is COMPLETELY green because i always water it with nutritious fish poop water..but the rest is all yellowish

LOL really? I haven't really been paying attention to my lawn, I think my mom also waters her plants with it. It's natural fertilizer!

 

[snazy]

The water change is not only done because of debris and poop. In a non-planted tank you need to keep the nitrAtes low as well which is done via water changes. A tank with good filtration will have no problem breaking debris, excess food and poop into nothing without this ever settling at the bottom of the tank but most tanks are sold with poor filtration to start off, so it depends on your tank in regards to additional gravel vac and how often and how to clean it. If your tank is stocked as per the size of the tank, and is filtered well, with good water flow inside reaching all parts, you'll never experience too much debris inside the tank, or in the gravel even, or ammonia and nitrIte spikes unless you nuked your filter with medication or non-dechlorinated tap water. Regardless of all that, the other important point of changing the water regularly is to add essential substances for fish that come in the tap water which are vital to fish health and don't naturally occur in a non-mainained fish tank where this is not administered artificially.
Also, ammonia to nitrIte process is an acidifying process so in a tank with naturally soft water, and not regular water changes to add buffers via the tap water, it can cause a Ph crash that can nuke your filter bacteria and also kill your fish either from ammonia or from a Ph crash.
I do a 50% water change a week, unless I get lazy and skip a week here and there depending on schedule.

 

[Cookielici0us]

Once a week, ~30% but sometimes nearly 50% because of the water that evaporates I quite like doing water changes actually. The dirty water is used to water the lawn

Hah... There's this area in my lawn that is COMPLETELY green because i always water it with nutritious fish poop water..but the rest is all yellowish

LOL really? I haven't really been paying attention to my lawn, I think my mom also waters her plants with it. It's natural fertilizer!

Yes really. and my mom makes me water her plants with it o_o;; but i have to remind her not to water it ;3 I sometimes wonder if its alright to eat fish poop watered plants

The water change is not only done because of debris and poop. In a non-planted tank you need to keep the nitrAtes low as well which is done via water changes. A tank with good filtration will have no problem breaking debris, excess food and poop into nothing without this ever settling at the bottom of the tank but most tanks are sold with poor filtration to start off, so it depends on your tank in regards to additional gravel vac and how often and how to clean it. If your tank is stocked as per the size of the tank, and is filtered well, with good water flow inside reaching all parts, you'll never experience too much debris inside the tank, or in the gravel even, or ammonia and nitrIte spikes unless you nuked your filter with medication or non-dechlorinated tap water. Regardless of all that, the other important point of changing the water regularly is to add essential substances for fish that come in the tap water which are vital to fish health and don't naturally occur in a non-mainained fish tank where this is not administered artificially.
Also, ammonia to nitrIte process is an acidifying process so in a tank with naturally soft water, and not regular water changes to add buffers via the tap water, it can cause a Ph crash that can nuke your filter bacteria and also kill your fish either from ammonia or from a Ph crash.
I do a 50% water change a week, unless I get lazy and skip a week here and there depending on schedule.

I get lazy often too... usually when i do a water change i leave like two inches off the top incase i get lazy and dont want to change the water i jsut add more

 

[phantomlink]

30% water change every Monday or Tuesday, I have sand in my tanks and alot of plants/decorations so without removing the lights/glass lid its hard for me to get all the stuff off the sand but I dont see much anyways

I put my plants into pots and every time i vac my tank i always pick up sand... D: How do you manage to keep the sand in ur tank and not in the vac?!

I haven't mastered the technique yet, but the normal suck n drain gravel cleaner seems to get more suction then my Python so I'm gonna try using that next time and let the python drain the water out

 

[Alasse]

Depends on the tank, some i waterchange weekly, some fortnightly, some monthly, some every 2 months

works for me

 

[dbanner]

Ok, my tank is 5foot, 450 litres (120US gal)... To be precise its a Jewel Rio 400 with sand substrate, bogwood and 6-7 live plants... It's cycled and has been for as long as I can remember. Ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 20 PH 8.2

It's home to 1 fish and always will be until I either rehome him (if I ever do but not planning to anytime soon) or if he dies... Lets hope that doesn't happen.. Anyway, the fish is a Blue Thai Silk Flowerhorn that's currently a little of 5 inches total length...

The filtration in the tank is 2 x tetratec ex1200 external filters and 1 x fluval 4 plus internal giving me a combined turnover of 3400LPH (2600LPH with filter media). So around 6x my water volume.

Even with the filtration and only the 1 fish I still do 2 weekly 50% water changes and gravel/sand vacs. Each time I add water I use seachem prime dechlorinater. Even if your water stats are fine you might as well change some water whilst your doing tank maintenance like a sand/gravel vac.. Your fish will always appreciate fresh water even if its only a 20-30% change

o_o;; I hear flower horns are very expensive and I am very... shocked or amazed I'm not sure because I'm very afraid of flowerhorns because of that odd bulge they have on their head but at the same time i get very excited because there's just something weird about it that attracts me to it i guess its amusingly weird and thats an odd way to think of it they enjoy fresh water im sure and on another note... what do u do with all that water?

Yes your right in thinking flowerhorns can be expensive.. I paid £20 for mine but he was only 1 inch in length. Mine is a Blue Thai Silk and Iv had him 3 months and he is now 5 inches in length (well a little over 5) so growing quickly. Earlier this week I was offered £75 for him by my LFS and £85 privately but he's not going anywhere. iv seen 6-8 inch thai silks selling between £120-150. He is under half of his potential length, they can get to 10-12 inches no problem.

The hump on the head is known as the nuchal hump (or KOK) and gents much larger on males. Flowerhorns get very aggressive when they get to around 6inches or more so its not advised to keep them with any other fish... As I found out the hard way. Mine killed a 6 inch jack Dempsey and a 7-8 inch buttikoferi. Both with 6 hours of being in his tank. Even in a 5ft tank, the size he is at the moment and I had lots of hiding places at the time and I rearranged his tank before trying, and placed him back in the tank AFTER the JD and butti.

Iv seriously never come across anything more aggressive and iv kept dovii's, jaguars, red devil, red terror, red belly piranhas amongst others. Even so, I wouldn't dream about parting with him. He has so much personality

What do you mean "what would you do with all that water"??

 

[Aquascaper]

A tank with good filtration will have no problem breaking debris, excess food and poop into nothing without this ever settling at the bottom of the tank.

Really? So no tank, regardless of how good the filtration is, has any 'dead spots' where debris collects instead it all goes into the filter inlet for processing and nothing is left on the substrate?

It doesn't matter how good your filtration is, if you have any decor/plants at all there will be naturally formed eddys where water will swirl and deposit any suspended matter or drag heavier solids. Having said that, even with a bare tank and excellent filtration you will find at least one area where debris collects due to water eddys.