Water Changes

[rabbut]

Background;

May parents are complaining about the regularity of water changes on my planted discus display tank. They recon that I should only be changeing arround 30% every 6 months!!! (they kept fish arround 20-40 years ago when this was the norm). They recon that this is still good advise, and applies to all tanks, regardless of the fish being kept. Please vote to show how many/few people that keep fish do water changes this regularly. Obviously all tanks are different, and most have different water change and maintanance plans, so if you have more than one tank, please state an adverage between them all.

Thanks to all that participate .
Rabbut

 

[WILDER]

Can't see the point of daily water changes unless you have to due to a tank cycling, or have a fry tank.

 

[Matty P]

For a normal community tank 10% weekly is adequate.

 

[aaronnorth]

I would do extra water changes on your tank like you are doing as discus require extremely clean water, fish do affect on the percentage and how often i change water as does the size of the tank, the smaller the tank the more water changes, larger the fish more water changes or certain fish in your case. i change 30% weekly, when raising discus fry, on farrms, they sometimes change 100% daily. As long as you don't change over 50% a day unless like i just said, then you can never really do too many

 

[Esfa]

On my 20gal i change 20% everyweek, but on my 35gal i change 30% once a month. I do tests on the water in the 35gal and the nitrates dont get upto 10-15 untill about a month. So not much point in doing a water change lol.

 

[st24rsap]

At the moment on the new tank 30% at least once, maybe twice a day, grrr to Ammonia being high on new tanks

On the old tank between 20 & 30% change weekly

 

[fry_lover]

really good poll, very simple but i like it

I just can't advocate enough about water changes, i know thats obvious.....

I treat my tap water with Seachem Prime which from the research i have done and feedback from others is as good as there is really for removal of chlorine, chloramines and heavy metals.

I tend to do slightly larger water changes for the tanks that tend to have higher Nitrates, i.e. meat eating fish in non-planted tanks for example. However, reduction of Nitrate is just one reasno for water changes.

I always aim for 25-30% per week absolute minimum, i am not saying harm will come if you do less, but thats what i aim for.

I generally achieve 25-30% every 5-days for all my tanks and about once a month each tank will get a 40-50% water change instead of the normal 25-30%

Thats just my opinion and practice based on my own personal research and feedback from experienced aquarists whom's opinions i regard. Who knows if its the water changes, but since i have increased my water changes in last 6-9 months or so, i have had less disease, deaths and more breeding.

 

[Ian H]

i do about 20% every 2 weeks. Your parents are crazy if they think thats ok with discus!!

 

[Matt_northants]

My main tanks I change 10% weekly and as I dont have any problems with water quality or sickness this is enough for them at present. However if these issues became a problem or I increased stocking density I would increase my water changes volume until everything returned to normal. In my hatching tanks and raising tanks I normally change 25% daily, but as these are smaller in volume and I use stored water from my display tanks mixed in with fresh its not so bad.

 

[CFC]

25% every week without fail and sometimes if i have a spare couple of hours i'll do an extra 10% during the week as well. When you keep delicate or expensive fish you really cant change enough water, if it was possible i'd do more.

 

[guppy fan]

I change 10-20% of my water every day or every other day because there is a measuable amount of amonia in my tap water !

 

[andywg]

25% every week without fail and sometimes if i have a spare couple of hours i'll do an extra 10% during the week as well. When you keep delicate or expensive fish you really cant change enough water, if it was possible i'd do more.

Get an RO unit, some piping, and give me a few hours in that room. I will sort something out, somehow

I do mine fortnightly on my FW as I am just not too interested in the FW side now. My marine tanks are going up to once a week, but that is due to a heavy pred load in a system I am trying to grow sensitive corals in.

 

[Tolak]

Fresh water is the best preventive medicine there is, cheap too. I have a breeding setup full of angels, which would be considered overstocked by most standards. I change 50% weekly on adult & potential breeder tanks, 80% daily to every other day on fry tanks.

 

[fry_lover]

Fresh water is the best preventive medicine there is, cheap too. I have a breeding setup full of angels, which would be considered overstocked by most standards. I change 50% weekly on adult & potential breeder tanks, 80% daily to every other day on fry tanks.

I would hazard a guess that water changes is a bit like dial-up / broadband, once you increase (i.e. broadband) you can never go back to tiny water changes (i.e. dial-up)

The results (usually) speak for themselves in my humble opinion if i may be so bold

 

[sharpshark]

I change approx 25/30% every 10 days, cos thats my shift patterns with work, it seems fine in a heavy protein cichlid tank, in the other community tank it may be every 14 days, but maybe up to 40%.