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[colleen0309]

I realize we all have different ways of doing things, but telling someone they never have to test the water in a freshwater tank or do water changes is just plain wrong. I hate seeing someone give advice to someone new that contradicts everything we are trying to teach people. Yes, fish keeping should be fun, not a chore. But fish are not disposeable pets with no feelings. They need to be cared for. Doing one partial water change a year isn't right.

 

[Malawi MaD]

I realize we all have different ways of doing things, but telling someone they never have to test the water in a freshwater tank or do water changes is just plain wrong. I hate seeing someone give advice to someone new that contradicts everything we are trying to teach people. Yes, fish keeping should be fun, not a chore. But fish are not disposeable pets with no feelings. They need to be cared for. Doing one partial water change a year isn't right.

No I know i agree with you colleen, didnt mean to come across that i think your doing(saying) the wrong thing because i know your not.

 

[Wilky87]

Ohh dear, Just for the record I am currently doing a 15-20% water change every other day, i will be doing this for 3 weeks then taking a sample to my lps

 

[colleen0309]

First of all, Wilky87, I'm sorry I hyjacked your thread. Please concider the advice you have recieved. Keeping an eye on your water chemistry is important to the health and well being of your fish. And Malawi Mad, thankyou and I'm sorry if I came off as defensive. It's been a very bad day and I probably over reacted. This is a great hobby and we all love our fish and want what is best for them. I try to give the best advice I can in the limited time I have. 20 years ago, I didn't do water changes. I didn't have a test kit. As long as it looked good, then everything was fine. Until I found out what agony I was causing the fish. Ammonia poisoning, Nitrite poisoning and stunting were things I never worried about until I lost my favorite fish. If I can save one person the hassle I went through, then I feel like I've accomplished something.

 

[Malawi MaD]

First of all, Wilky87, I'm sorry I hyjacked your thread. Please concider the advice you have recieved. Keeping an eye on your water chemistry is important to the health and well being of your fish. And Malawi Mad, thankyou and I'm sorry if I came off as defensive. It's been a very bad day and I probably over reacted. This is a great hobby and we all love our fish and want what is best for them. I try to give the best advice I can in the limited time I have. 20 years ago, I didn't do water changes. I didn't have a test kit. As long as it looked good, then everything was fine. Until I found out what agony I was causing the fish. Ammonia poisoning, Nitrite poisoning and stunting were things I never worried about until I lost my favorite fish. If I can save one person the hassle I went through, then I feel like I've accomplished something.

Dont worry you didnt come across like that just wanted you to know i agree with you .. Your giving out good, honest advice to help people out so you have accomplished plenty

 

[mike455555]

iv never had a test kit (but i do get my water tested every so often at my LFS) recently set up a 20l tank iv done 3 water changes of 20% i think and that worked for me... but i agree better safe than sorry with water testing =]

advice: lots of clean buckets you never know when you might need them =]

 

[luckytankkeeper]

are you sure that.being that attentive is necessary? i've been successful at sea and fresh water for over 20 years and have never changed.water.so much during a cycle. a test kit is really only a must for salt tanks. fresh is so easy that as long as he doesn't over populate during the first cycling month, he should be just fine. why are you telling him to change water.so, so much? he needs the amonia laden water for bateria growth. that canister filter in.that tank is going to limit the amount of bateria anyway since it is closed and limited on space for the amount of media he needs for that size of tank. i've never had to, been advised to, or have seen anyone change water as much as recommended here? i'm not saying it is wrong. i'd just like to know what the thought is and if it is realistic in a fresh tank of it's size. you shouldn't apply all the recommendation to ANY tank. keep in mind the volume and the reasons for steps and logically apply rules. tank volume will be a great factor in how you start a tank. everyone will have different opinions on how all this is done and especially on maintainning tanks. while most everyone is correct, there are quite a few streams of thought on how to keep a tank. i just.warn you not to be too anal with a fresh/water tank. to much hands in tank is very bad. size the filtration to your volume, then double it, and the volume of media your filtration can bear. just don't flip out and add too many fish in the first month. plants will need a good co2 source of they will not survive. don't use food as your source of decomposing biological matter to generate amonia during cycling. let the few, very few, fish in the tank do their thing. even if you did get used bio media from someone, you need to cycle the tank water before adding more life. fresh water is easy. your tank is awsome. love the substrate. your tank will be great when done. but add more filtration. i recognize the inlet hose to your canister filter. thise alone are aweful. you will be cleanning your tank all the time. add another form of filtration. add power heads to move the water towards the inlet. the slate will get a ton of debris settling in and on that. keep water aggitated with that kind of substrate. fish will love it also.

really, just read as much as you can about WHY maintenance is required. understand the chemical ballances required. understand each.fish and what they require. understand HOW plants grow underwater and what they need to grow. once you have a knowledge footing you will just know how and when to act on.your aquarium. listen to/people here, but really just research the physics and you'd be much better off. many ways to do this, but you have to stick with one method. when people give you advice, ask WHY a step is taken. it is very simple and extremely LOW maintenance. i do one water change a year roughly on my planted tank, and NEVER on my salt reef tank. all i do is add water due to evaporation, change the mechanical media every three to 6 months and feed the plants (CO2 & food) and fish. add clearfast every now and then but poly filter polishes the water on its own.

godd luck buddy. it's a very rewarding/hobby.

I'm so sorry you don't like my advice. We do large water changes while doing a fish in cycle to lessen the damage ammonia and nitrite cause the fish. If you don't have a test kit, how will you know if the levels are too high? Any reading for ammonia or nitrite above 0.25ppm is damaging to fish. People like you who do not do water changes and seem to have luck with fish eventually run out of luck. Then you come here and ask why. If the poster has a test kit to check the levels, daily water changes may not be necessary. But here we are concerned about the health and well being of our fish. We try to tell people the best way to care for their pets. When you get enough posts to pm, contact me directly and we can have a discussion on the subject. Until then I would appreciate it if you don't tell people water changes and test kits aren't necessary. This goes against what we are trying to do on this forum. We try to educate people to the proper way of caring for their pets.

i did not indicate that your advice was inadequate. i asked you why you change water so frequently. i think your reply was a bit touchy don't you? asking questions is how i have maintained several immaculate tanks of various kinds for over twenty years. i admit that i am lucky (hense my username "lucktankkeeper"), but so are you and every other hobbyist who keeps aquariums. i have provided very good and prestinely clean evironments as close to nature as any of us create. i have specimens in my current setups that i've had for 7 years now. i try to understand as much as possible the requirements of each species i place in the tanks. i don't combine species from different natural environments (except for a pink danio i come accross recently) to meke sure they are never too stressed. i come to realize that what you call "luck" is more that i actually do understand the environments i am recreating yet i am not using what you might consider to be conventional techniques. i've wasted time and money when i first started this hobby on test kits, all the unnecessary chemical s and techniques that, while notworthy as a failsafe, may be unnecessary when you truely understand the physics required. after many start up tanks, i have simply come to realize that if you are careful of contamination and are patient enough to start very slow with adding life, the redundancies are not needed. test kit for fresh water? really? not so sure about that.

while i think your reply was quite rude and reactionary, i do appreciate any advice it containned. i will be starting a smaller reef tank in my bedroom for my wife. i might try your technique and see if it helps. the reason i found this site yesterday is that i wanted to hear what the customers/hobbyists actually say about a species i found. i am not so thick as to think i know more or better than anyone else who builds tanks. in the last post i wrote that offended you, i was just sharing my experience with someone fresh to this hobby. that's how we all started. my experience is as valid as yours. it has as much science behind the actions as yours. you just added this HUGE safety buffer.

btw, i value the fish as a life as much as you. i don't eat fish out of compassion for the life. but i don't see them as pets. that might be going to far in my humble opinion. i do value the life in my tank so much that i create immaculate replicas' of their natural environments as well as technology and my understanding of the physics and the biology afford me. my "luck" is enhanced by the time i put in to understanding the life i am responsible for. one reef tank i had 6 years ago, i had to donate the contents of to the local aquarium (i'm a volunteer diver there to clean the tanks) and had the pleasure and good fortune to meet the marine biologist on staff and watch him work and ask a few lame questions that as a hobbiest i coukd think of. of course my questions did not include how many water changes would be considered unnecessary when cycling, but at least i take enough interest in my projects to get as much info as possible. this post is one source of my info now, but i look to anyone with any record of their experiences to hel. i wouldn't tell anyone that my way is the only way as you are doing in your reply. if i were the one who started this thread with a question, i would be a little weary of a person who beats down on a fellow aquarist for asking a question or explainning what they have experienced.

i hope the people monitoring the other thread i asked a question in will be more willing to let anyone tell my what they know about this hobby.

 

[luckytankkeeper]

to clear this up in short; testing the water when you change.it every day like that is an overkill and alot of aquarist will tell you that. when you start a tank to cycle, you should NOT be adding so many fish. if you restrain yourself in the beginning, as this gentleman seems to be doing, then the likelihood that he will have an abundance of.amonia buildup in his size tank that will require thirty (30) water changes in a month and testing the water each time is not "better safe than sorry", it is (i am sorry to say, but you are all attacking me here) rediculous waste of time and.will stress the heck out of the fish every day. is that kind of love good for the specimens? of course if/he leaves that inadequate filtration system in place with minimal biological medial and no current in his tank, he will be changing water every day for the rest of his life. better advice to this guy would be to bulk up his filtration (oh yes, as i tried to do in the first post) so he and his fish can/relax once/the tank is/cycled. i guess that in my replies i shoukd have mentioned that the volume of my filtration is almost equal to the volume of the display tank. you guys may want to/consider that instead of 30 water changes is one month. if you have funding issues you can build your own systems much cheaper, but if you are so concerned for the fishies lives, then you should have enough cash set aside to buy whatever you have to to protect your "pets".

 

[mike455555]

id still say its better to test your water than not know that something is building up and then your fish die?

 

[luckytankkeeper]

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[luckytankkeeper]

thats almost like saying do a background check on everyone traveling in case they might be a spy. if you have adequate filtration and minimal life in the tank during the first month or so you would never have to test every day and for the most part at all. tell me, what were your concentrations the last time you started a tank? were you ever in danger of killing your fish? btw, when toxic amonia builds up to kill or make your fish behave irregular, you will see remnants of decomposing organic matter about your tank. saltwater REQUIRES that you regularly test because even the slightest chemical change will upset coral to fish; coral are the sensitive life requiring stability. you don't get that same intolerance in fresh water. not just an overkill if you have proper filtration, but not needed at all really.

 

[luckytankkeeper]

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[luckytankkeeper]

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[luckytankkeeper]

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[luckytankkeeper]

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