My First Water Change With New Fish!

[Ch4rlie]

Whoo!, just done my first water change with my Threadfins and shrimps in the tank, only put them in last Sat.
 
So, a 25% water change was gonna have to be done today despite my dreading to do this with the new fish and shrimps. 
 
All sorts of worst case scenarios was occurring in my head. What if I suck up one of my shrimps/fish in the gravel cleaner? What if I drop the lighting hood into the water? What if a Threadfin jumps out of the water? What is I stress out the fish and shrimps too much? What if I make a total muck up of everything? etc etc 

 
I can now say with some relief that everything went pretty well, 20 litres of water taken out, I used the gravel cleaner with siphon hose but realised I could not clean as much gravel as I wanted as some area are difficult to reach with the plastic cleaner thing, as plants were in the way or bogwood but did as much as felt comfortable doing.
 
Also trimmed the plants (mostly twisted vallis as some leave turning yellow/brown), used the net to gather up floating bits of plant debris.
 
Then returned tap water with exact dosage of dechlorinater to the buckets and used the siphon hose to return clean water to tank. Found a couple of threadfins liked this and swam under the cooler fresh water for a brief few seconds. 

 
The temperature of tank water dropped a couple of degrees to 24C/75F but the heater is now slowly raising the temp back up to 25 to 26C / 77 to 79F so not too worried about that.
 
The Threadfins and shrimps look pretty much normal, spread out in tank doing their own things and seem a bit more zippy or that could just be my imagination! 

 
Now just about to do the water tests since tank has been done over an hour ago. Not expecting any dramatic changes as the levels have been steady as a rock over the last week (probably due to the massive filter I have for this tank size! see signature)
 
Wanted to ask how some of you guy do your water changes as I may pick up a few tips as to what might be better for me to do during water changes.
 
Thanks! 

 

[fm1978]

All sounds good, charlie with a 4!

Only thing is, you can very safely temp match the water before you put it back into the tank with some warm water from the tap. That should avoid any major temp drops!

 

[Ch4rlie]

All sounds good, charlie with a 4!

Only thing is, you can very safely temp match the water before you put it back into the tank with some warm water from the tap. That should avoid any major temp drops!

 
Thanks, but there seems to be some conflicting advice about that, some people say its like natural drop in temperature during rains in wild for example so you are replicating that, if the drop is just a degree or two then I don't see the harm in that but if someone actually says it is a must then I will change that by leaving water in bucket for an hour or two so to raise temp a bit before putting water into tank.
 
If a major temp drop anything over 2 or 3 degrees, then yes, would have to agree with your advice but if below 2 degreess max then should be fine.
 
Any opinions or advice about that would be more than welcome.
 
Anyhow, have just done water tests since leaving water alone for over an hour all reads as:
Ph - 8.0
Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - a weak 40ppm (more like 30ppm but card colour chart does not show for odd numbers and tank is very steady with nitrates anyway but will keep eye on these tests anyway!)
 
So think that is pretty much perfect IMO! 

 
Now am off to LFS to get some more red Cherry Shrimps as there is only 4 in the tank, want to get up to 12 or 14 RCS to make for a more normal number in tank but hopefully won't get any shrimp population explosions! 

 

[fm1978]

That's fair enough, I really couldn't argue with the folks who say temp drops are normal in the wild, that's very likely the case. And perhaps 2 deg isn't much at all. In fact, some species might even like it...cories for example tend to start breeding behaviour with seasonal changes.

My preference is temp match since I presume that most, if not all, of my wee guys are tank bred and are just that little bit more sensitive. If it works for you, then there's no need to change your methods at all. There's no reason we both can't be right! Hehe!

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

The benefit of pre warming the water is that you can do larger water changes. 25% is on the small side. I take the view that bigger is better when it comes to w/c so I prefer something closer to 50% for my own tanks. I actually empty/fill my tank with a hose attached to my kitchen tap and straight into the tank. You'll figure out, once you get more confident with changes, that you don't need to be so delicate with changing the water. The fish are tougher than you think

Regarding temperature changes, while a cold water change can encourage spawning in many species, it's not really necessary - but doesn't do any harm either.
Also, tank bred fish are more hardy than wild caught, not the other way around

 

[fm1978]

Ah, that's interesting! Every day is a school day, AA!

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Most of what you are doing looks great. I would suggest you increase the wc from 25 to 35%.
 
You do not want to vacuum as much in a planted tank, especially right around plants. The stuff folks who don't do live plants want to vacuum out, if allowed to remain in a planted tank, will work its way down into the substrate and be food which the plants will love.
 
As for fish and different temp., consider this. If your tank is 26C and you replace 50% of the water and the water you put in is 30C or 22C, the change in the temp will be a maximum of 2C. For the Americans out there, that is about 3.6 F. This should not be a huge deal for most fish. If the wc is only 35%, the temperature change on the tank is less. Seasonal spawning fish who live places which typically have rainy and dry seasons can handle much larger temperature changes. Some breeder lower tank temps by  from 30 to 23 or 24 C to stimulate spawning. Usually, they are changing the TDS as well.
 
Many fish and critters love playing in the return water stream. Moreover, with time, some get used to the whole maintenance and wc thing and they wont hide from it. Because the siphon is clear, they dont see it and the gunk going up looks like potential scraps of food on the water.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Ah, that all sounds very straightforward and reassuring.
 
Now I don't have to worry so much about gravel cleaning too thoroughly knowing will turn to nutrients for the live plants.
 
35% water changes, no problemo, will start doing that next week.
 
Some decent tips and new knowledge for me there and I will carry on doing the same water changes as have done today but at 35% without worrying too much about temperature changes/drops.
 
Got some more shrimps at my local LFS today, i asked for 10 and they gave me 14 and a pregnant female! erk! 

 
Appreciated! 

 

[fm1978]

Ooo, cool on the shrimp!

Get some pics of the babies if you can!

 

[Ch4rlie]

I've just recently seen the pregnant shrimp but no eggs! There were eggs last night but none today.....
 
Hmm, no idea whats happened, either eggs have hatched and the little 'uns are hiding extremely well (loads of hiding places, caves, moss balls, plants etc) or fishies have eaten the lot or is it possible mama shrimp lost the eggs due to stress / change of water shock or something like that perhaps?
 
Will update if see any tiny shrimps flying around or not, doubtful really but there's hope yet!

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Sometimes she'll drop the eggs prematurely because of stress so you'll just have to wait and see

 

[snazy]

Don't worry, they'll breed once they settle. The female may have dropped the eggs this time but as long as they adapt well and the water is fine, you'll soon be overrun.  I started with 5 shrimp. I've got hundreds now. When newly born, they are super tiny and hide a lot so you may not be able to see them until they fatten up and decide to explore their little world.
 
It makes water changes really hard when one has shrimp because they love to explore anything that goes in the tank like hands, siphon etc. I need to keep my fingers around the end of the hose end in the tank to prevent shrimp from getting sucked. They love munching on my hands while I change the water, it's real PITA

 

[Ch4rlie]

Whoooo! Just seen the pregnant female that I thought had lost her eggs due to stress probably but....
 
Just seen a female, whether the same one or a different one, I can't tell, with green eggs under her abdomen............
 
(sorry for the blurry pic, best I could do with that crap camera I have thats no good at close ups!)
 

 

[Lizzard111]

 
Wanted to ask how some of you guy do your water changes as I may pick up a few tips as to what might be better for me to do during water changes.

I have big tank so it's pain for me to do water changes but first I scrap algeas from glass with plastic card (used to do it with sponge for 30 minuts but now it's 5 minuts). Once algeas are swimming in the tank I turn off heater and take out water 20%-30%. Put in clean sponges to the filter and use hose for water.
I used to use warm water but I read on internet that hot tap water has more copper due to rust and also landlords often put chemicals to boilers which release more copper. This is very harmful for shrimps (they could die) so I'm using only cold water and fish don't mind it (shrimps are well too)

 

[mitch70]

 

 
Wanted to ask how some of you guy do your water changes as I may pick up a few tips as to what might be better for me to do during water changes.

I have big tank so it's pain for me to do water changes but first I scrap algeas from glass with plastic card (used to do it with sponge for 30 minuts but now it's 5 minuts). Once algeas are swimming in the tank I turn off heater and take out water 20%-30%. Put in clean sponges to the filter and use hose for water.
I used to use warm water but I read on internet that hot tap water has more copper due to rust and also landlords often put chemicals to boilers which release more copper. This is very harmful for shrimps (they could die) so I'm using only cold water and fish don't mind it (shrimps are well too)
 

 
Are you putting clean sponges into filter at every water change?
 
also regarding boilers and copper some older boilers yes may have residue of copper but newer ones such as combination boilers draw hot and cold from same source so no worries about copper.