Can You Do Too Many Water Changes?

[rsands]

a fluval 3 is very small for a 30gallon tank! especially with an overstocked tank it will not perform

I would recommend an external fitler, much better performance and will turn the water over more times to keep it clean.

 

[andywg]

Yes you can do to many water changes, changing hourly will kill the fish after not very long. But no-one does that.

How do you figure that? Some people have their tanks on constant water change systems with new water constantly coming in and the tank water always draining. Their fish don't die.

What makes you think that changing hourly will kill the fish?

 

[severum boy]

Sorry, what I ment was a 90% water change from the tap (with declorinator). Should have said that, not been ambigious.

 

[andywg]

Sorry, what I ment was a 90% water change from the tap (with declorinator). Should have said that, not been ambigious.

But even then, many people will do up to 100% changes with no ill effects. So long as the temp and pH are the same, you can do a 100% waterchange.

I am still yet to see how one can do too many water changes.

 

[Tolak]

I do 90% daily water changes on newly swimming angel fry, it's what is needed to keep any water borne bacteria down to a safe level. Last fall when I rearranged my fishroom nearly all of my breeding tanks got 100% water changes, a few smaller ones & a 55 got 95% water changes. All with tap water & Prime, no losses.

I don't see how too much fresh water is bad for fish.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

have to agree with everyone else here, no one has ever shown me any real justifuication why large/frequent water changes in themselves are bad.

large water changes if the parameters in your tank and tap water are vastly different could create problems however this is rarely ever the case and if it is can be easily worked round, for example in Ian's tank his pH is around 5.7 our tap water is around 7.4, I can do a 50% change on that easily but i run the water back in through a hose really slowly. never had any problems doing it that way.

 

[severum boy]

Ok, I was wrong! I just assumed that doing water changes where the tap water was different to the water in the tank would cause stress to the fish and potentially damage them.

 

[MHunt]

The more water changes you can do the better, they dilute anything that the filter cannot break down. If you think in the wild, the fish are constantly living with a 100% water change. As long as you match the temp (although that isn't a major problem as long as you don't chill the fish) and where possible the pH you should be fine.

 

[Teelie]

Unless you do something to alter the pH in the tank, the tap and tank water should be close to the same. It would only radically change if you were to take a prolonged time inbetween water changes and then suddenly did a large one.