How Often.....

[Rillo Boy]

How often can you do water changes......please note I asked can and not should.........this is for a 500 ltr tank that have recently been set up....thx

 

[mike455555]

never. no water changes in nature... you would have to stock light and have a high live plant mass. (in theory)

but you should do them. i reckon about once a month if not dosing anything

 

[Rillo Boy]

Oh ok.....I been doing a 150 ltr change daily as my tank is new......

 

[mike455555]

yer you SHOULD be doing water changes... but no one changes the water in the sea. although the sea is ALOT bigger than a small tank. so youd have to do some changes to stop stuff building up. (not nessially nitrates, if the plants can cope with the bioload of the fish)
but to stop hormones the fish give off and other chemicals. your best doing water changes (most people on here will say weekly at least. i agree with them)

 

[Rillo Boy]

yer you SHOULD be doing water changes... but no one changes the water in the sea. although the sea is ALOT bigger than a small tank. so youd have to do some changes to stop stuff building up. (not nessially nitrates, if the plants can cope with the bioload of the fish)
but to stop hormones the fish give off and other chemicals. your best doing water changes (most people on here will say weekly at least. i agree with them)

This is a freshwater tank mate.....

 

[mike455555]

im aware of that it was an example. in rivers/ lakes then

 

[Rillo Boy]

im aware of that it was an example. in rivers/ lakes then

Lol.....fair enuff

 

[This Old Spouse]

Please don't compare aquariums to the sea. You should be doing water changes at least weekly. The first year I had my tanks set up I was doing 50% weekly at least, sometimes more. It's difficult to kill fish with nice, clean water. It's pretty easy to kill them with water that has ammonia built up in it from not doing water changes often enough.

 

[fluttermoth]

never. no water changes in nature...

That's not quite true.

All bodies of water have a flow through of water; in lakes and rivers the water is constantly being renwed as new water flows in; in the sea, new water moves from areas where there are no fish to the reefs where they are many all the time; although it looks like there are lots of fish in a small area, the actual volume of water that they're living in is massive.

That's what we atempt to replicate with our filters and water changes.

I'd always recommend weekly water changes, the percentage varies according to how high the stocking level is. You should be changing enough water that your nitrate never rises to more than 20ppm above what your tap water is.

 

[BigbruiserAl]

When you can and you should are very different, you can do them one a day or once a year, doing the later will prob result in dead fish if you get my point. like flutter said alot will be based on stocking and nitrates. I stocked my tank once cycled and tested nitarates after 7 days which were 30ppm left for 2 weeks were at 50ppm for me that was about right, fishes health can be drop at approx 40ppm nitrates so there or there abouts is my limit for a water change which in my tank takes 10-14 days which fits in to the daily life