Water Changes?

[gh74]

I bought new fish yesterday,and was wondering is there a certain time period when you can do a water changer after inroducing new fish to your tank,and is there a certain percentage of a change that you can do with new fish,just thought i would ask this as i wouldnt like to stress them out incase thats what might happen.
 
Thanks Graham

 

[DreamertK]

If you have fish in there right now, you should change 75% of the water one to two times a day for the first month, and then 25% every week depending on how many fish are in there. Hope you got a small tank.

 

[gh74]

Its a rio 240,why would it require %75 change 1-2 times per day,just id thought of doing a %50 change but didnt know if it would stress the new fish.

 

[cambojnr]

Just do your normal weekly water change and they will be fine, the fish will be settled in after around 24-48 hours, I think the guy above is trying to be a troll for some reason.

 

[DreamertK]

I thought the tank was bought yesterday, my mistake.

 

[TallTree01]

Just do your normal weekly water change and they will be fine, the fish will be settled in after around 24-48 hours, I think the guy above is trying to be a troll for some reason.

Was an honest mistake... No need to jump to conclusions....

Anyway, assuming the tank is properly cycled, no need to do extra water changes unless there's a spike for some reason. In fact, I like to wait a few days for fish to settle in before loading even more stress on them.

 

[gh74]

I'll do a %50,as all my tank is wood and there is a good bit of tanin in the water,i would love to have my water crystal clear,i though maybe my lighting was also making the water not as clear,its a blue& white tubing,is there any other lighting that will make it look clearer etc

 

[Mamashack]

What fish did you get Graham?
For the lighting turn the blue off if you can - that will help. If you're not keen on tannins it's a waiting game until the wood stops leeching it out and the water changes dilute it enough for it not to be visible.
I do 25-35% water change every 10 days or so depending on which tank it is. I don't do gravel vacs every time as that's where a fair bit of the bacteria reside. Only 25% of it gets vacced every 3rd or 4th water change unless there's visible mulm settling there. 

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I'll do a %50,as all my tank is wood and there is a good bit of tanin in the water,i would love to have my water crystal clear,i though maybe my lighting was also making the water not as clear,its a blue& white tubing,is there any other lighting that will make it look clearer etc

For clearer water, you can use carbon in the filter, and his will remove the tannins. Or you can use Purigen, not my personal preference but it does clear the water nicely.

What fish did you get Graham?
For the lighting turn the blue off if you can - that will help. If you're not keen on tannins it's a waiting game until the wood stops leeching it out and the water changes dilute it enough for it not to be visible.
I do 25-35% water change every 10 days or so depending on which tank it is. I don't do gravel vacs every time as that's where a fair bit of the bacteria reside. Only 25% of it gets vacced every 3rd or 4th water change unless there's visible mulm settling there.

Mama, the bacteria cling to the surfaces, so vaccing the gravel won't remove the bacteria unless you are also removing the gravel itself. I understand your caution, but it's not nearly as big a deal as you seem to be assuming. The bacteria live on all surfaces of the tank, and in a mature tank, even if about 50% of the bacteria are removed, they will reproduce within a day or two to replace those removed.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Eagle got it pretty accurately. There is one more consideration when it comes to vacuuming the substrate relative to the bacteria. Where and what bacteria may be in ones substrate turns on whether there are live rooted plants in it or not. In such planted tanks one needs deeper substrate and will have way more bacteria because the plants will move needed oxygen down into the substrate to help the bacteria.
 
In a non planted tank at about a depth of .5 inch (about 1.25 cm) the oxygen is gone and the substrate becomes anaerobic. So there are none of the nitrifying or other oxygen needing bacteria there. And this is the reason one reads vacuuming can have bad results relative to the bacteria as well as letting settled gunk getting into the water column. There are a couple of ways to deal with this. The first is only to use about 1/2 inch of substrate. The second, if there is much more than a half inch, is to vacuum in a way that doesn't invert the top and under layers/ Only allow the vacuum tune to penetrate a small amount down. A third alternative is only to vacuum a part of the tank each week. If you only clean 1/4 to 1/3 of the substrate, even if some bacteria is lost, it will quickly reproduce to replace that loss. Finally, just as with a planted tank, one can choose to hold the siphon just above the substrate so as to suck up only gunk sitting on the surface.
 
Lets not forget that while one's substrate is a great host for bacteria, in most tanks there will be lots of bacteria other places. especially in ones filter media. So even if one disrupts a lot of the gravel based bacteria, it does not put one back to square one relative to cycling etc.
 
One last thing that many folks do not know about the nitrifiers is that they have some capacity leeway. That is there is some range of ammonia or nitrite on which they can survive and meet their needs before the have to reproduce to handle the excess.

 

[Mamashack]

I think what I said was the same as TTA's third alternative, but I'll leave further comments to the experts now as it appears I am not communicating clearly.

 

[gh74]

water change done and new lighting added and bog wood out and a bit of redmoor in,hopefully be very little tanin in the tank,just want my water to be crystal clear now,if i was to add 2-3 moss balls will that help in the tank and a few live plants?i will post a photo of the tank in a minute or two then you can give your opinion on it

 

[fluttermoth]

Live plants are beneficial to tanks (mostly as they use up some nitrate, but there are other advantages), but they won't reduce tannins.

 

[gh74]

ok Here is the way the tank is looking maybe still a little cloudy after water change and moving the wood etc have to keep the rocks in just to keep the wood down until it soaks up enough water to stay there itself as it just new in today the lighter coloured piece,just thought i would share it with you's
 

 

 

 

[TallTree01]

Yeah, that'll get you some nice tannins for sure.
In my 5 gal shrimp tank at least 1/3 of the total volume is taken by driftwood, it always looks a little yellow but my 25-50% weekly Waterchanges keep it tolerable.