Water Changes

[Will49]

Hi all im new to tropical fish and am looking for some clarification on water changes one fish centre i go to recommends 25% once a week and another i go to advises 25% every three weeks, the shop that tells me every three weeks tells me if i do it more often my ph will rise. had a tank running for 5 months. the tank is 100cm x 50x40 i have 3 Clown Loaches 1 red tailed black shark 2 golden rams four five barred barbs 4 glowlight tetras 4 cherry barbs 3 swordtails 4 guppies and a pleco. also does anyone know how to convert my tank size into litres. the tank has an external filter Nitrites are near 0 Nitrates are 5 ph is 7 ammonia 0.any help will be much appreciated.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

My personal opinion, and it does vary quite a lot among fishkeepers, is 40% once a week. I do more than that myself because I figure I may as well do a big change while I'm at it. One thing that's a sure definite is that water changes are NEVER a bad thing. The more you do them the fresher your water will be and that's good for your fish!

 

[Will49]

My personal opinion, and it does vary quite a lot among fishkeepers, is 40% once a week. I do more than that myself because I figure I may as well do a big change while I'm at it. One thing that's a sure definite is that water changes are NEVER a bad thing. The more you do them the fresher your water will be and that's good for your fish!

ok thanks very much.

 

[Will49]

do you use a ph buffer or do you just leave the water for 24 hours before putting it into the tank.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Neither actually. It's generally thought that trying to alter your pH is a bad idea as it's a very tricky thing and difficult to hold steady. Your fish can adapt to live in a wide range of pH but a frequently fluctuating pH will make them sick. At a pH of 7 your fish will be perfectly happy.

I also don't leave my water to sit. This is something that I used to do when I had goldfish because I wanted the water to adjust to room temp, turns out I didn't even need to do that! With tropical fish you just need to add a little warm water from the tap or kettle to your new water along with some dechlorinator and add it directly to the tank. No buckets or containers cluttering up the house! As long as you roughly temperature match the water and dechlorinate it, then you're A-OK. A few degrees cooler is fine and a lot of fish actually like the splash of cooler water but try to avoid adding warmer than your tank temperature. You can usually just use your finger as a guide.

 

[Will49]

again thanks very much.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

No probs

 

[KittyKat]

Hi all im new to tropical fish and am looking for some clarification on water changes one fish centre i go to recommends 25% once a week and another i go to advises 25% every three weeks, the shop that tells me every three weeks tells me if i do it more often my ph will rise.

The shop which advised you to do water changes once every three weeks is incorrect on both the advising count and the explanation. Over time, the tank water parameters will drift from the tap water parameters. A slow change in these is not harmful to the fish, but a large and fast change is harmful. Regular water changes will prevent the tank water from drifting too much from the tap water. In other words, it is always better to do regular water changes at shorter periods of time. In an ideal world, you would have your tank hooked up so that some water is changed all the time, but in practice (and without a lot more plumbing), it is easier to just do weekly water changes.

So, if your tap water is hard and you have tannin-leaching bogwood in your tank then the tank pH will rise at water changes, but it will still be safer than doing a water change another two weeks later. On the other hand, without knowing the details, the pH is just as likely to drop after water changes.

had a tank running for 5 months. the tank is 100cm x 50x40 i have 3 Clown Loaches 1 red tailed black shark 2 golden rams four five barred barbs 4 glowlight tetras 4 cherry barbs 3 swordtails 4 guppies and a pleco. also does anyone know how to convert my tank size into litres. the tank has an external filter Nitrites are near 0 Nitrates are 5 ph is 7 ammonia 0.any help will be much appreciated.

You have soft water, neutral water and hardwater fish, so talking about pH is moot anyway.

The red tailed shark, loaches and potentially pleco need a bigger tank. The red tailed shark is not compatible with loached, rams and guppies in the long term because they become nasty big things with age. The schooling fish should be kept in schools.

Dimensions are much more useful than volume (thank you for providing them), to calculate volume in litres multiply dimensions in cm and then divide by 1000, so: 100*50*40/1000 = 200 litres theoretical volume. For real volume, assuming you don't have any really big decor, measure the water height from substrate to top of water, which I would expect to be around 30 cm for a 40 cm tank.

 

[Ruskull]

Neither actually. It's generally thought that trying to alter your pH is a bad idea as it's a very tricky thing and difficult to hold steady. Your fish can adapt to live in a wide range of pH but a frequently fluctuating pH will make them sick. At a pH of 7 your fish will be perfectly happy.

I also don't leave my water to sit. This is something that I used to do when I had goldfish because I wanted the water to adjust to room temp, turns out I didn't even need to do that! With tropical fish you just need to add a little warm water from the tap or kettle to your new water along with some dechlorinator and add it directly to the tank. No buckets or containers cluttering up the house! As long as you roughly temperature match the water and dechlorinate it, then you're A-OK. A few degrees cooler is fine and a lot of fish actually like the splash of cooler water but try to avoid adding warmer than your tank temperature. You can usually just use your finger as a guide.

Hey there AA, why don't you rec. adding slightly warmer water? That's how I do mine. Just curious as to why you'd think cooler is okay but not warmer. Thanks!

 

[KittyKat]

Neither actually. It's generally thought that trying to alter your pH is a bad idea as it's a very tricky thing and difficult to hold steady. Your fish can adapt to live in a wide range of pH but a frequently fluctuating pH will make them sick.

Spot on!

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

There are a couple of reasons really, none of them being anything major but - first I think it's a little risky when using the "finger test" to use warmer water because well my finger isn't that sensitive and a few degrees to us may seem a lot more to the fish. It's taken ages for it to sink in to me that what feels kinda cold is actually still 25/26 degrees which is where most of us keep our community tanks and so may feel tempted to use even warmer water. The other reason is that warmer water holds less oxygen and lastly is because cool water changes can trigger spawning and that's fun for everyone!


Like I said nothing there that's really significant and it maybe just a personal preference

 

[Ruskull]

Sounds like it makes sense.

I just feel the running water until it barely feels warm, then back it toward cold until it's not hot or cold but like stagnant. The thermometer usually goes up 2 or 3 degrees when I'm done but I'd think that a fluctuation like that happens in the wild all the time.

 

[KittyKat]

I just feel the running water until it barely feels warm, then back it toward cold until it's not hot or cold but like stagnant. The thermometer usually goes up 2 or 3 degrees when I'm done but I'd think that a fluctuation like that happens in the wild all the time.

In the wild, rapid fluctuations like that only happen in the downwards direction as there are no sources of hot water, but rain is often cold.

 

[Ruskull]

Makes good sense, I'll try to add cooler water from now on. Thanks guys.