50-100% Water Change

[Rorie]

I have read that people do up to 100% water changes! While i do 50% water changes and realise that giving the fish fresh water is good..... i wonder how doing up to 100% water change effects your fish. What i mean is that my water settles at PH 6.5, 26 degrees in temp and the KH and GH are fine for the fish etc. This is kept constant by my good (and expensive) substrate and bogwood etc. I dare say that the water that comes out my tap is not this good!

So, if i were to do a 90% (As someone mentioned who keeps discus 'as much water as they need to save turning sideways') water change, thats 90% tap water conditions, and only 10% of the original, settled conditions. With my 50% changes i currently do, i realise there will be a bit of a change, but do you not shock the fish when doing HUGE water changes? And if not, is it not like a roller coster letting your water settle to good parameters, then chucking it all out to replace it with new rubbish tap water?

 

[Geoff-]

well if you're a discus freak and do 50% daily changes then you are not allowing your tank conditions to move away from tap water, so there wouldn't be a pH or hardness shock and you can control temperature anyway so that's not a problem.

If you left a tank for 4 weeks and then did an 80%+ change then yes the water conditions could be massively different.

 

[Rorie]

well if you're a discus freak and do 50% daily changes then you are not allowing your tank conditions to move away from tap water, so there wouldn't be a pH or hardness shock and you can control temperature anyway so that's not a problem.

If you left a tank for 4 weeks and then did an 80%+ change then yes the water conditions could be massively different.

What about weekly 50% changes (as i do and is also suggested for discus). That gives the water time to settle down and lower in PH... Do people treat the water before adding it to the tank (i.e. lower the PH or what ever)

 

[snowflake311]

I do 30% wc every other day and once a week a do a 80-90% water change. You just bring the water down as low as you can with out the fish being on there sides. Or you could bring the water down so the fish are on their side but still covered in water. My tap water ph is 7.5 ish and once in my tank is drops to 7.0 . It never seems to bother my fish when there is a little change.

I cleaned my filter and did a 90% wc my fish were fine and very happy but my tank was cloudy for 12 hours then it was fine. If you keep up your water changes the change in ph is not much and they do fine. I make sure the water from the tap is the same temp as my tank. A bit of a temp change is not bad infect it can make them want to spawn.

Lots of discus freaks keep aged water around to do their water changes and that way the water is the same.

I have been keeping discus for a year now and they are pretty tough fish. I have had 2 flop on the floor one fell in a sink and once I caught them they were fine in the water. I have taken in some sad looking discus that were kept in poor condition and they turned out to be ok. If you know how to keep fish healthy and have had fish live many years in your tank you know what you are doing and will be fine.