The Importance of Water Changes

[Slaphppy7]

Nice article on the subject:

Water Changes and Water Quality in Aquariums – Advanced Aquarium Concepts

advancedaquariumconcepts.com

 

[AbbeysDad]

Partial Water Changes
Regular Partial Water Changes
And for a real trip... Filtration and Water Quality
Enjoy!

 

[Barry Tetra]

What are your opinions on “no water change aquarium”?

I just started the no water change tank weeks ago and it went well, the water qualities are good.

This is what I watched to get the idea

 

[mbsqw1d]

What are your opinions on “no water change aquarium”?

I just started the no water change tank weeks ago and it went well, the water qualities are good.

This is what I watched to get the idea

Do you also need to factor in maintaining the KH to avoid PH dropping? And what of other minerals depleting over time that the plants require? One thing in particular that these tanks don't address is removing a build ups of pheromones and allelochemicals

 

[Barry Tetra]

Do you also need to factor in maintaining the KH to avoid PH dropping? And what of other minerals depleting over time that the plants require? One thing in particular that these tanks don't address is removing a build ups of pheromones and allelochemicals

I have absolutely no idea on that but I topped off the tank and add firtilizer once a week.

There’s also a book that covers most of the topic but I’m not going to buy it yet.
https://www.amazon.com/Ecology-Planted-Aquarium-Diana-Walstad/dp/0967377366&tag=ff0d01-20

 

[AbbeysDad]

What are your opinions on “no water change aquarium”?

It's almost always just a bad idea that just won't go away!
-
Without any doubt a deep substrate bio-filter, many plants, and just a few fish helps to maintain a higher water quality. See The Very Best Aquarium Filter.
However, nature keeps freshwater fresh by constantly replacing it...where would the freshwater creeks, streams, rivers, and lakes be without rain and snow melt?!?!
For the aquarium, the routine partial water change is the rain.
-
So measures can be taken to extend the volume and/or frequency of required partial water changes, but to omit them altogether is frankly a fools errand.

 

[mbsqw1d]

I have absolutely no idea on that but I topped off the tank and add firtilizer once a week.

There’s also a book that covers most of the topic but I’m not going to buy it yet.
https://www.amazon.com/Ecology-Planted-Aquarium-Diana-Walstad/dp/0967377366&tag=ff0d01-20

Yeh I'm familiar with that book, its superb ??
But note that, as evidenced in interviews shes had since her book, she's changed her mind on water changes, and advises they should be done.
Also.. the Walstad method relies on a heavily planted tank with minimal stocking of fish

 

[eatyourpeas]

I do find the Walstad Method a great starting point, but not sustainable if you want to have healthy critters.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Even Walstad's book recommends water changes. She just doesn't do it as frequently as most. But she still does them.

 

[Colin_T]

You do water changes for 2 main reasons.
1) to reduce nutrients like ammonia, nitrite & nitrate.
2) to dilute disease organisms in the water.

Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms including bacteria, fungus, viruses, protozoans, worms, flukes and various other things that make your skin crawl. Doing a big water change and gravel cleaning the substrate on a regular basis will dilute these organisms and reduce their numbers in the water, thus making it a safer and healthier environment for the fish.

If you do a 25% water change each week you leave behind 75% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 50% water change each week you leave behind 50% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 75% water change each week you leave behind 25% of the bad stuff in the water.

Imagine living in your house with no windows, doors, toilet, bathroom or anything. You eat and poop in the environment and have no clean air. Eventually you end up living in your own filth, which would probably be made worse by you throwing up due to the smell. You would get sick very quickly and probably die unless someone came to clean up regularly and open the place up to let in fresh air.

Fish live in their own waste. Their tank and filter is full of fish poop. The water they breath is filtered through fish poop. Cleaning filters, gravel and doing big regular water changes, removes a lot of this poop and makes the environment cleaner and healthier for the fish.

 

[itiwhetu]

It is not possible to maintain a healthy aquarium with a fish population without doing water changes. My preferred amount is 25% but that is because of the total system that I use for my aquariums. I realize after studying this forum site that there is a need for different levels of water changing for different systems. I still don't agree with 90% water changing in the home aquarium situation, on the other hand I don't see that a no water change tank is sustainable.

 

[Slaphppy7]

You do water changes for 2 main reasons.
1) to reduce nutrients like ammonia, nitrite & nitrate.
2) to dilute disease organisms in the water.

Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms including bacteria, fungus, viruses, protozoans, worms, flukes and various other things that make your skin crawl. Doing a big water change and gravel cleaning the substrate on a regular basis will dilute these organisms and reduce their numbers in the water, thus making it a safer and healthier environment for the fish.

If you do a 25% water change each week you leave behind 75% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 50% water change each week you leave behind 50% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 75% water change each week you leave behind 25% of the bad stuff in the water.

Imagine living in your house with no windows, doors, toilet, bathroom or anything. You eat and poop in the environment and have no clean air. Eventually you end up living in your own filth, which would probably be made worse by you throwing up due to the smell. You would get sick very quickly and probably die unless someone came to clean up regularly and open the place up to let in fresh air.

Fish live in their own waste. Their tank and filter is full of fish poop. The water they breath is filtered through fish poop. Cleaning filters, gravel and doing big regular water changes, removes a lot of this poop and makes the environment cleaner and healthier for the fish.

If there's not already a "Sticky" here on this subject, there should be, and the above should be the first post, in my humble opinion.

And, the easiest way to know if you have a livable environment for your fish is simple: using an accurate water test kit, and testing with that kit correctly.

Paper strips are useless, IMO, especially if they are aged. You need a liquid test kit, and many of us would agree that the API Master Freshwater Test Kit is the one to own....there may be comparable ones out there, but I've never needed another after using the API, so haven't researched other kits.

Testing your tank water is key with keeping healthy, happy fish, and it is not hard to do, with a little practice.

 

[AbbeysDad]

Testing your tank water is key with keeping healthy, happy fish, and it is not hard to do, with a little practice.

But we only test for some very basic things, like ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, and hardness. But it's not nearly that simple as there are other pollutants in the water that we simply can't test for - although we might use nitrates as a guide, nitrates keep bad company.
The minute fish are placed in that glass box, the water begins to degrade in quality and every minute of every day, the water quality decreases. Oh it's true that plants and bio-filtration lessen the decline, but the only safe practice is the solution to the pollution, which is dilution.
We simply don't have the tools to fully measure all of the negative elements of the polluted water, but we know that fresh water is healthy water and polluted water is not. So it's that simple. Besides, with the right tools, a partial water change can be efficient, even painless. So give your fish a treat, and do a partial water change.

 

[Slaphppy7]

I agree 100%.

In Nature, fish can adapt to changing water parameters/temperatures/pollutants by simply swimming away, to a more suitable environment.

In our tanks, they cannot.

 

[StevenF]

If your only concern is nitrate, Ammonia, and nitrite then yes you can get those down with a properly setup tank.

But if you don't do a water change minerals will build up in the water and eventually eventually making the water toxic. If you fetilize the tank mineral buildup even faster. Since most fertilizer have too much potassium iron these will build up rapidly to toxic levels.

In my opinion Most fertilizers on the market don't have enough calcium, magnesium, copper, and zinc. So if you don't do a water change GH, KH, will drop and PH may become unstable. And when these nutrient run out plant will either grow very slowly, stop growing, die and algae can take over the tank.

Some elements in the water help promote fish health. Other element encourage fish disease. So these elements will effect the inmune system of the fish. immune compromised fish are more susceptible to bacteria, fungus, viruses, and parasites. Water change helps keep mineral levels constant and that helps fish health. Water changes also reduce pathogens present in the water.

So not doing water changes encourages algae, poor plant health, poor fish health Doing water changes promotes the opposite affect Reduced less algae better plant growth, healthier fish, lower nitrogen levels, stable GH, KH,PH, and stable mineral levels for all the element we cannot measure in the tank.