Water changes

[Incitic]

When I do water changes I usually bag the fish, do the water change and then float them in the water again for about 30 min. I was wondering if I could just leave the fish in there. Im only going to do a 25% change.

 

[kitties1]

You do not have to bag the fish when doing a water change. In fact it may be more harmful if you do. By bagging them I assume you are catching them. evertime you catch them it stresses them. As long as you are adding water that is similar in temperature to their currnet tank water you will be okay. add it slowly so as not to disturn the tank and its inhabitants. Also, if you are adding tap water make sure you treat it with some type of dechlorinator to remove toxins. It may be a good idea to check the H2O parameters of your tap water vs. your tank water to see if there are major differences. For example, if your tank reads a ph of 7.0 and your tap is at 8.0 then you may want to lower the ph of the NEW water before adding it to your tank. Sorry if this is confusing, but whenever you replace water you want it to be as similar to the old water as possible. Hope this helps.

 

[Guppylover]

Yep! You don't have to bag your fish...hehe..sometimes I even do 50% water changes in my tank, funnily enough my fish never get stressed. It's kinda scary that they know I'm not going to hurt them...even more scary when my fish reconise my from my family.
Oh well, don't worry your fish will be fine in the tank when you do a water change ^__^

 

[G_Sharky]

Just leave your fish in the tank. Bagging your fishy would stress them especially when it takes a long time before you catch them.. I use to take all my fish out of the tank and change all my water and I learn the hard way.... they all died... When you do your water changes the fish would normally stay out of your way and the vacuum and if your doing big WC(more than 30%) make sure that the temp is the same or close so you don't suddenly change the temp. If you have room on your house, keep a barrel with water on it with a heater and an airstone, this way the parameters would stay stable and you could do huge water changes without worrying about your fish being stress out....Good luck....

 

[TorPeteO]

I always leave my fish in, they seem to enjoy being rejuvenated by the oxygen-rich water. It's always better to do smaller changes more frequently than to do large-scale changes periodically, the change in water makeup is less dramatic.

 

[MollyPlatyLuvr]

You don't need to bag your fish. I agree with what's already been said, that catching and bagging them stresses them more than just leaving them alone would.

Here's how I do my water changes. I do about 20-30% change once a week.

Using my gravel siphon thing, I empty the water out of the tank into a 1 gallon pitcher. (My tank is 15 gallons, and I empty out 4 pitchers full) Then I dump the pitcher. I do that four times. Then, I get a small plastic cup that I use for my tank, and add salt and water conditioner for the NEW water amount. (not all fish need salt, but mine benefit from it.) I put the cup into the tank. Then I fill the pitcher with tap water. Since I put the water conditioner in the cup, it's already treating the water as the water goes into the tank. So I fill the tank back up that way.

I'm no expert, I've only been keeping an aquarium for a few months, but that's how I've been doing it, and my fish are fine. Be sure to pour slowly, and if possible pour the new water on top of like a decoration or inverted plate so it doesn't stir up your substrate. (I aim my water for the driftwood I have in my tank.)

If you don't use salt, you might need to anchor the cup you put the water treatments into, maybe scoop some of the gravel from your aquarium into the cup to keep it from floating around. Or add the water treatments to the water right before you pour it in, one at a time ... but sometimes that can be hard to calculate, depending on what size container you use for water changes, and how the instructions for the treatments are done.

 

[Incitic]

Thanks for the advice everybody. I did my water change yesterday and it was the loaches first water change in their new tank. They werent even scared! They're all happily swimming around in the tank.

Ive tested the PH of my water and my tap water since I have clown loaches and they are sensitive to PH (no scales). The PH of my water and tap is 7.2 - 7.4 and the fish are happy.

This time instead of an hour it took me 5 minutes!

 

[canarsie11]

If you really had to bag fish, there is no way I would be in this hobby!