water changes

[woodie]

no i have kept fish for a about 4 years now, there always been healthy except for the odd outburst of white spot when i have a bought a fish in that had it ( break out due to stress f moving)

i have alwasy done wate changes weekley taken about a 1/3rd out but when i went to a so called "specialist" there told me i should only do a water change once a month!

i am now very confused and wondered how often you guys/gals do your water changes my tanks are as follows

4ft- red tail cat, pair of rams, pair of yellow labs, pair of fire mouths, pair of salvanias

4ft- red tail cat x tiger shovel nose, 6 mouthbrooders, pair of zebra mouthbrooders, 3 convicts, 1 texas chiclid, 1 red tail shark

2ft- pair of breeding convicts

2ft- live bearer tank, 15 guppies, 4 mollies, pair of bristle nose, trio of platies, trio of white cloud minows, pair of peral danios, and loads of fry


Clare

 

[debiasir]

I do water changes every sunday on my tank and take about 30% of the water add and replace with treated tap water. I also do a gravel vac on that day too.

Sometime i will also do a water change of 10% and no gravel vac mid week but that is prefernce and not needed really

 

[FrankSlapperinni]

I should advise you that if you really have two red tail catfish, when adults they are supposed to reach 4' in length and should have a minimum of a 1000 gallon tank.
Is this the fish you have?

I don't think tiger shovelnoses are suitable for a tank that small either...

As for the water changes, once a week is standard on regularly stocked tanks, and for higher stocked it may be twice a week or even every day. I ussualy 50% on my large tanks and 70-80% on the smaller, but that's just because I don't have to treat the incoming water. You're tanks all sounds moderatly stocked (except for the above) so once a week should be fine.

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

The small tank (of mine) I find needs doing twice a week to control the algea at present. Otherwise once a week. The large tanks once a week w/c and vac sand at the same time. Filters get checked most w/c's and cleaned if necessary. Smaller tanks always seem to end up being harder work then larger ones.
Hugs,
P.

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

I should advise you that if you really have two red tail catfish, when adults they are supposed to reach 4' in length and should have a minimum of a 1000 gallon tank.
Is this the fish you have?

I don't think tiger shovelnoses are suitable for a tank that small either...

Once they reach a larger size I suspect a local aquarium centre would be happy to take them in. Beautiful creatures. Wouldn't want them in a 4ft tho. They wouldn't be able to turn round!
Hugs,
P.

 

[annka5]

I do about once a week, sometimes with a smaller mid-week change. Around 25% or so. I reckon anything more than 50% is too much of a showck to the fish if the water params are even slightly off, most people seem to advise about 20 to 30% at a time.
It's probablly safer to change the water too often than not enough though.

 

[Undawada]

I change 15% to 20% of the water in my 75 gallon twice a week.

At least one water change of at least 20% per week is standard. It depends on the size of the tank, stocking levels, amout of filtration, whether there are plants or not, etc, but once a week is required for a healthy tank IME.

As a side note, I'd check into rehoming the red tailed catfish and the tiger shovelnose. These fish grow too big for any home aquarium. That's a whole other topic though.


edit : grammar

 

[CFC]

Those smaller fish are in for a really bad time from the RTC and RTCxTSN hybrid, i give it a couple of months tops before they have eaten every tankmate in their two tanks. You really shouldnt be keeping either of those fish with any tankmates with a adult size under 18 inches and as said they are going to require a 1000 gallon tank, each!

As for water changes the majority of my tanks get 20% once a week along with a good vacume but my largest tank which contains large predatory fish of which some are quite sensative to water quality (stingrays & large pims) gets two water changes a week, one at 20% and one at 30%.

 

[woodie]

I should advise you that if you really have two red tail catfish, when adults they are supposed to reach 4' in length and should have a minimum of a 1000 gallon tank.
Is this the fish you have?

I don't think tiger shovelnoses are suitable for a tank that small either...

As for the water changes, once a week is standard on regularly stocked tanks, and for higher stocked it may be twice a week or even every day. I ussualy 50% on my large tanks and 70-80% on the smaller, but that's just because I don't have to treat the incoming water. You're tanks all sounds moderatly stocked (except for the above) so once a week should be fine.

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Those smaller fish are in for a really bad time from the RTC and RTCxTSN hybrid, i give it a couple of months tops before they have eaten every tankmate in their two tanks.  You really shouldnt be keeping either of those fish with any tankmates with a adult size under 18 inches and as said they are going to require a 1000 gallon tank, each!

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dont worry guys i know how big these fish grow, once we have moved safley we will be building fish room ( Well it's a porta cabin), with a tropical pond in to house these beautifull fish, so i know what i have let my self in for the pond will be about 8ft x 6ft and about 4ft deep with glass viewing bit....

i thought i wasnt doing my water changes to often so i willc carry on as normal thansk guys

Clare

EDIT: to add that the RTC is in a seperate part to my other fish i we have split the tank in half and once he has grown to big i have a 4ft tank up and running waiting for him, with a few mollies in what will be removed before he is popped in

and also forgot to put my asian cat tank on the list he's by himself in a 4ft tank

 

[debiasir]

on the subject of water changes can you do too many changes

 

[Undawada]

I don't think so. As long as you change smaller volumes.

 

[CFC]

on the subject of water changes can you do too many changes

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The only time water changes can cause problems is if the water you replace the removed water with has a considerably different set of parameters to the water left in your tank, i.e the water from your tap has a pH of 7 but the water in your tank has a pH of 6 due to nitrification or peat filtration/bogwood etc. As long as the water matches then there is no reason to not do water changes of up to 100% every day if you so wished.

 

[debiasir]

cheers CFC and Undawada

 

[steelhealr]

25-30%, once a week for me and, similarly as above, a midweek quickie 10% if params demand. Good luck. SH

 

[Undawada]

The only time water changes can cause problems is if the water you replace the removed water with has a considerably different set of parameters to the water left in your tank

Well said CFC. If the water conditions are slightly different, however, you can lessen the impact by doing smaller, frequent water changes.
If your water conditions are drastically different, such as for a blackwater tank, you might need to pretreat the water to make sure the conditions match.

Lots of information, we could go into great depth about it I'm sure