How often do you do water changes?

[Cheese Specialist]

I do weekly 20% in my tanks and a mid-week 20% in my coldwater as well.

 

[ryan]

20-25% weekly in all my tanks.

 

[Nidge]

I do a 25% every two weeks

 

[sinistral]

The reasons for not changing as much water is that the levels of the minerals and vitamins need to be pretty high to keep the corals and the fish happy. It is also a little harder to get the salinity just the same (and the PH) as it was before your water change when you are taking out larger amounts of water. Then you also have to take into account for any evaporation that may have occured which would also affect the salinity.

Olive,

Thanks so much for this response! I'm interested in putting together a saltwater tank down the road when I have the space, permanence of location, and $$$ . I don't know anything about SW right now so it's helpful to hear how things are different (and counterintuitive by now!) from freshwater.

 

[sinistral]

I read that book too [by David Boruchowitz] . My LFS recommended it to me before I went all willy nilly buying fish that I couldn't care for, and it taught me everything I needed to know about fish. If there are any newbies reading this thread, I would suggest you get the book, it is very informative, and interesting too.

I'm glad to hear that you refer to it too Frank! It's a tremendous book, very entertaining. I still look at it all the time. In fact, I'm planning to get the companion book about saltwater tanks to peruse. Boruchowitz incidentally is also the editor of Tropical Fish Hobbyist (a terrific magazine) .

 

[silver]

Wow.......I'm like the worst one here, but my fish are all happy

I do a 30% water change every 2 weeks




Silver

 

[wuvmybetta]

I do 50% weekly changes on all of my tanks (sometimes more )

 

[waterwatereverywhere]

Once it's got its first fish, I'll be doing just over 10% (5 gallons) weekly on my FW 46 gallon.

 

[Tropjunky]

i have one tank and 20%-25% of the water gets changed but only if i have the time. my tank can survive without water changes as the ammonia, nitrate and nitrite levels havent changed evan without the water change but i do clean the glass and stuff.

theres enough plants to absorb and nutriants that the bacteria can't breakdown

 

[Annastasia]

20-25% water change weekly on my 10, 20 and 5 gallon tanks. And a 10% on the 30, every 3-6 days.

 

[nightlife20]

since havin sand in my 40 i have this paranoia about my tank bein dirty (because the crud lies on top) if i see loads of poop in one place i end up doin a 10% water change...

bigger waterchanges once a week of 50% on 40gal

smaller changes of 25% on my 22 one... that donst look dirty (mainly because its a gravel tank an it hides its own crud lol)

 

[ladynaoko]

I'm doing 2 changes at the moment...mainly because my fish are so darned messy for some reason.

10-15% on a Tuesday-Thursday

20-30% (max) on a Saturday/Sunday

the 10-15% one is just for cosmetic cleaning really.

 

[lucky62]

20-25% weekly in all my tanks.

ME TOO !! 70 ,55,30, 20, 15 , 10 , 5, 2.5 . MY "PYTHON"

 

[LoveMyOscar]

...

 

[Where the river goes]

40% on the 2.5 gallon tanks will probably do 30-40% on the 10 gal. once it's done cycling