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Water changes; 30% daily vs 75% weekly, what's better overall?
- Thread starter Barry Tetra
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- water change
If water changes haven't been done regularly, and the tank is suffering from old tank syndrome, then yes, that's potentially true. Or if the water isn't temperature matched or declorinated, or if the replacement water is different from the usual source water. Big swings in water parameters or temperature will shock and can kill fish.
That's why we suggest large weekly changes. It keeps your tank water chemically close to your source water in all parameters, and why we use declorinator and warn people to match temperature of replacement water to the tank water.
People who rarely or never water change might find their fish have adapted to high nitrates, to the drifted pH and other minerals that have built up over a long period of only topping up a tank and rarely doing large water changes, but then any new fish they add in, die immediately. Or when something happens where a large water change has to be done - like a toddler tipping in a whole pot of fish food, or disease breaks out, the tank has drifted so far from the source water conditions that the fish are very likely to be badly shocked by the huge sudden change in conditions. Had they kept on top of regular water changes, that wouldn't have happened. That is old tank syndrome. Another part of old tank syndrome that is that the old tank that has been running with high nitrates and drastically different water parameters for years, with fish that gradually got used to the horrible conditions as it changed gradually over 2-3 years, will reach a tipping a point where the filter can no longer keep up, or nitrate have just been way too high for way too long, or a fish dies and causes an ammonia spike - and the whole system reaches a crisis point and crashes, leading a tank die off.
Pretty sure that's what happened to my dad's tank five or six years ago, where he'd just been topping it up for years, then fish just started dying off, and he lost most of them. Old tank syndrome.
So when I took over maintaining the tank, and knew that was how he'd been keeping the tank, I couldn't go straight to 75% water changes, that likely would have killed the fish. I had to do 15-20%, wait a few days, do another 15-20%, etc etc. It took a lot of those small changes, done over a couple of weeks, just to bring nitrates down to a readable level. When nitrates alone were that high, just imagine all the other levels like mineral content that we don't usually measure, or hormones, that we don't test for, and how different they would be. Now, the tank is caught up and maintained with large weekly changes without problems.
ClownLurch
Fish Gatherer
Hows the cape suiting you?
Thanks @AdoraBelle Dearheart , that is very helpful.
Im doing daily water changes now as my tank is going through cycling again. Ammonia is 0ppm but Nitrite is 0.25ppm. I think I can do 20-30% daily instead of 80% as that’s enough to dilute the Nitrite to 0ppm.
Is what I’m doing ok?
Yep, you're doing fine!
Having nitrites in the tank is way more stressful for fish than water changes are, so I'd disregard what people in FB groups are saying.
I did 80% water changes daily for 17 days in a row on my tank when cheap ferts were sending nitites sky high, and the fish were okay with that. When I lost one, it was from nitrite poisoning, not the water changes, since I didn't have and wasn't using Prime, only my usual declorinator.
I'd suggest you do 40-50% daily until the mini cycle is done, as long as that brings nitrites back to zero
Yep, you're doing fine!
Having nitrites in the tank is way more stressful for fish than water changes are, so I'd disregard what people in FB groups are saying.
I did 80% water changes daily for 17 days in a row on my tank when cheap ferts were sending nitites sky high, and the fish were okay with that. When I lost one, it was from nitrite poisoning, not the water changes, since I didn't have and wasn't using Prime, only my usual declorinator.
I'd suggest you do 40-50% daily until the mini cycle is done, as long as that brings nitrites back to zero
Thanks again. I was just a bit concerned as the poster in the FB group is also running fish rescue.
I did post again trying to give more context.
One things for sure though, fish losses stopped after I started daily water changes. I really think this is the correct thing to do going forward. When I do water changes I try to match the temperature as well as using Prime and Stability.
It’s interesting to read that fertilisers can cause Nitrite spike. I used to dose with API Leaf Zone but have stopped for a month or so now as the plants are doing well. There are some root tabs in there though but it’s hard to remove them now.
There were loads of brown algae on the tank but it’s now greatly reduced. It’s now only in some leaves of plants I have in tank. I think the water changes helped plus I also cut down on how bright and how long the LED light is turned on.
kwi
Fish Herder
I think I know that FB group, I left it after 6 hours...........
I left a FB one after about 45 minutes. Lol!
kwi
Fish Herder
Once you mentioned the charity I knew.
Don't panic, most decent fertilisers won't cause a nitrite spike, I bought some cheap Chinese brand root tabs, which were releasing too much nitrogen into the water column. Get a decent brand name fert, and it'll be fine
I got some TNC root tabs now, still dosing tetra plantamin, and will use the TNC lite liquid fert once the tetra one runs out. @mbsqw1d uses that without problems! Just don't buy random cheap fertilisers from Amazon like I did!Ah ok, I got some from Pets at home and some from Fluval.Don't panic, most decent fertilisers won't cause a nitrite spike, I bought some cheap Chinese brand root tabs, which were releasing too much nitrogen into the water column. Get a decent brand name fert, and it'll be fine
That seems unlikely to me.
Now it's my turn to weigh in on the water change issue. First of all, this topic has been debated vigorously since at least the 1930's. Everyone has a thought on this subject. The late Jack Wattley advocated daily 100% water changes and there are others who advocate everything else below that. The most important thing in my mind is to do your water changes regularly. Don't skip them and then go hog wild to make up for your negligence. I do weekly changes of about half. My tanks are small so I figure less volume concentrates pollutants. A guy with a bigger tank with lots of plants and with few fish might do something else. Frequency and volume of changes depends on your unique requirements. One other thought with regard to that shocking the fish question. Chlorine is a deadly chemical and absolutely must be neutralized for your fishes very life. I learned this the hard way by following an erroneous belief that that was not so. Manufacturers claim that their dechlorinators work instantly. I am skeptical of that claim because I can smell a weird smell from the water for a couple hours after adding the dechlorinator. I age my water for one week. Many people don't have the space or inclination to bother with that. Bottom line is this: do your changes regularly with properly dechlorinated water at the level that seems right to you. Take into account your feeding habits, stocking level and plants.
And a minimum of 10G for a single betta. Not too sure why but this group seems to be obsessed with large tanks. Any tank under 200L/55G is considered too small for home aquarium... not too sure why I joined
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