Explain your water changes!

[emi93m]

Hi Guys and Girls

Long time reader first time poster :hi:

I would love to just clear something up in regards to water changes and would like to hear peoples thoughts?

Most of us that have plecos know that they are messy ....right.

I read that people do water changes every other day between 15% to 30%!

My question is are you doing gravel cleans every time? OR just syphoning water from the top of the tank to reduce distruption to your breeders?

If syphoning from the top of the tank does this not defeat the purpose of water changes to remove waste to control nitrates etc?

I was told by a breeder whos tanks must of had a inch of sediment ( decomposed waste from BNS THAT HE NEVER GRAVEL CLEANS as BNS love dirty water and it disturbs them too much.

I don't like to disturb my plecos as it feels like I am every time I do gravel cleans. My tank is a 300 litre standard 4 foot and ONLY contains 1 male albino BN 1 female albino BN and 2 common females.

Can anyone shed some light? to GRAVEL CLEAN or Just syphon????

Thanks in Advance Mick

 

[Brengun]

Depends on the depth of your gravel. If its only a cm or two its not absolutely necessary. Getting deeper and you can get pockets of some nasty gasses which if they build up too much will kill the fish.
I don't have gravel at all, just sponge and canister filters.
I only do wc once a week and they could go two weeks at a pinch. I only do a few daily ones if I want something to spawn.
Really, I like my fish a little non dependant on me. If I want to go away for a week or two, I can and can just leave containers of premeasured food for someone to drop in daily or even every second or third day.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I change about 10% a day. More on smaller tanks (less than 60 litres), less on bigger tanks. I'm a light stocker.

If syphoning from the top of the tank does this not defeat the purpose of water changes to remove waste to control nitrates etc?

This is where the confusion starts for a lot of people. The ammonia/ammonium (NH3/NH4+) that diffuses from the fishes gills, and the nitrite (NO2-) and nitrate (NO3-) that it is converted to (by the filter bacteria), are all in solution in the water as a dissolved gas (NH3) or ions (NH4+, NO2-, NO3-). It doesn't matter where you take the water from.

Assuming that your nitrifying filter bacteria are getting enough oxygen, and it isn't a newly set up tank, the ammonia and nitrite will be rapidly converted to nitrate, but this can only be removed from the aquarium by:

• water changes
• being taken up by plants
• or being out-gassed as nitrogen gas (in anaerobic conditions)

This is why I like plants and a substrate, plants take up all forms of fixed nitrogen and also supply oxygen during photosynthesis and a mature substrate will have areas where denitrification can occur.

If you don't have plants you are reliant on water changes to reduce nitrate levels.

I was told by a breeder whos tanks must of had a inch of sediment (decomposed waste from BNS THAT HE NEVER GRAVEL CLEANS as BNS love dirty water and it disturbs them too much.

I think most fish prefer clean water, but the mulm doesn't have much effect on water quality. It accumulates because it is structural carbohydrates (lignins etc) that are low in nitrogen, and slow to decompose.

If I didn't have plants and a gravel substrate I would carry on siphoning once a week.

I only keep planted tanks, and I don't have any with gravel (I have some with a mix of sand and gravel, but the gravel is only in areas of high flow where the mulm won't accumulate anyway), so I ignore the mulm that occurs in areas of low flow, where it sits on top of the sand.

cheers Darrel

 

[emi93m]

Thankyou Brengun and Darrel Your professionalism is appreciated. Taking all your comments on board and in conjunction with my set up ( 3 cm fine gravel and only a small clump of Java moss and a lot of DW ) I think I will start syphoning from the top of the tank once a week followed by a Gravel clean only once a month.
Kindest Regards Mick

 

[fishface]

All of my tanks are planted and I normally siphon and clean the substrate every other day. Average water change on 2 - 8.7g tanks = 1-1/2g; 10g tank = 3-4g; 45g tank = 7-10g. I have nothing but BNs, 2 Medusas, and 1 Endler so there is a lot of waste - particularly in the 45g where I have babies from 3 spawns (that need to go to the LFS!).

 

[Brengun]

Depending on whether you don't mind seeing a filter inside your tank or not, the Eheim pickup internal filters are good for picking up debris in the tank. In my more grotty L397 tanks I have two of them.
During wc, you don't turn them off, just pop open the top and slide the barrel with the sponge out and rinse the sponge in your wc water. Some of mine come out like mud!
Then you just assemble the barrel, sponge and lid together and slide back on.