33 replies to this topic

[Rob-S]

For my 6" tank, i purchased a 220ltr black storage box from bunnings ($40), and a powerhead with 2.3m of head off the internet ($15). While the tank is draining (40%) i fill the storage container with the hose, declorinate it, and add 2 buckets of hot water from the tap. Once tank is ready, i simply pump the new water out of the container into the trank while i watch tv. Dead easy, and my overall tank temp never varies more than 1-2 deg max. My critters are predominantly barbs n loaches.

A question for u guys.... in winter (like now), for those of u who use the hose directly, by how many degrees does it drop ur overall tank temperature?

[Scat]

Sounds great

My problem is im doing 11 tanks every sunday!

My temp drops around 2c ,temperatures fluctuate in the wild so i dont think that 2c once per week hurts.The results speak for themselves my fish are thriving
Everyone had different methods this is just what works for me.

Craig

[Neakit]

wacker, chlorine burn does take time to heal and can kill fish if not picked up on, bacteria multiply rather fast so unless u seriously stuff up on the water changes it won't have to re-cycle. Yes i do have large tanks and yes they are stocked heavily and no, i have had no ammonia spikes or so on and so forth.
I do however run 4 seperate filters. the products i put in the water are prime dechlorinator, Seachem cichlid salts and seachem malawi buffer. none are dead yet and i have seen them eat some of the salts and buffer.

i loose about 3 degrees on a 30 - 50% change rob
Simon

[Wacker]

I only drop to 24 (from 26).. I'm a firm believer this triggers spawning in my malawis


Wacker

[booze]

I only drop to 24 (from 26).. I'm a firm believer this triggers spawning in my malawis


Wacker

i agree, i did a water change on thursday in my 5 footer. as soon as i pulled the hose out of the tank from filling it up, the red empress were going for it.
an hour later another female red empress and johanni were holding. the fresh water/drop in temp seems to trigger them.
cheers

[madasa]

I only drop to 24 (from 26).. I'm a firm believer this triggers spawning in my malawis


Wacker

i agree, i did a water change on thursday in my 5 footer. as soon as i pulled the hose out of the tank from filling it up, the red empress were going for it.
an hour later another female red empress and johanni were holding. the fresh water/drop in temp seems to trigger them.
cheers

Thats because it simulates rainfall - try also giving them some high protein food after...works a treat.

[benckie]

common knowledge people

[madasa]

common knowledge people

Should be

[piscevore]

i use the bucket method for my tanks because they are mostly small
with the hose method what if you want to add salts? straight into the aquarium?

on the hose method as wacker brought up, would there be any point of using the conditioner as the chlorine would have already flowed thgrough the bacteria colony
could this be better avoided if you turned off your fuilteration while you where filling uop the tank?

Its always best to turn everything off when doing water changes (pumps don't run dry, heaters dont crack, lights don't get sprayed with hoses and then electricute the poor hobbyist etc)

Even if you dont kill the pumps, the effect the chlorine has on the bacteria is not even noticeable. The reaction of the dechlorinator is almost instant (few minutes).

You ALWAYS use dechlorinator. Besides chlorine burns, keep in mind that the fish can suffocate (as chlorine inhibits the fish from removing oxygen from the water). Chlorine is poisonous stuff. Once the fish has been damaged by the chlorine (a lot of it is internal damage) then it could be over before it even began. Even if the fish doesn't die from the chlorine induced trauma then the damage it has (surface wounds are a great way for diseases to enter the body, like when we get cuts and they get infected) the only thing is that people often dont treat the fish to stop these wounds, chlorine burn is a wound, from getting infected.

Remember fish get sick when they get stressed, a chlorine rich environment is a great way to stress a fish.

If you don't use conditioner then you don't deserve to keep fish. End of story.

The best way to do water changes is to have a place where you can sit the water, heat it and vigorously aerate it, so the water that goes in is the same temp with lots of O2. Of course if you are putting 500 L in then this is a bit difficult. I winter when it is cold, you could get away with doing 50% how often is up to you, if you do any more the temp fluctuations could have consequences. In summer 75/80% is not a problem just don't do it to too sensitive fish, mainly marine species. (I actually found my tanks got too hot in summer so I did frequent changes to keep the temp down).

When you do a H2O change always do as much as is safe for the fish. There is no point in doing a ten percent water change, as you are only removing 10% of the nitrate, why f@#%ing bother in the first place? It takes more effort to drag hoses around than the benifit you will get. Generally the concentration of nitrate goes up by more than 10% in a week, in a tank that is averagely stocked. As a minimum you should pull out 25% a fortnight. this works out to less than 2% a day, which you could also do, but whats the point in only taking out 2% of the water, if you got that hose out you may as well go for 50%.

If you want to get serious about it all buy a Nitrate test kit, then you will know exactly when to do your H2O changes. (pH is also a pretty good indicator of water quality).

About adding salts; you could always mix the salts in a tea cup and then throw that solution in, but just as long as there is no salts settling on the bottom you will have no worries. Even if they do settle on the bottom if you come back in five they will more than likely be gone.

[Neakit]

nitrate isn't such a problem it can reach higher levels than ammonia and nitrite and fish can live happily, saying that with the higher nitrate you will encounter algae blooms. each to their own on how much they change and how they do it, i personally find it more convinent to use the hose and when the water is about 2/3 of the way up i dose for all my chemicals, right or wrong its the way i have been doing it and my fish have breed quite regularly and have given me no medical problems. So all im saying if it works for you why change.

Simon

[redcrayfish]

interesting i live near the coast and use bore water and have no known problems, 80% water changes weekly on 4ft and 5ft tanks. turn every thing off except air stones to oxygenate water ph around 8.6

[piscevore]

Bore water might have some pretty nasty heavy metals in there (thats why people shouldn't drink it). Depends on where you got the bore sunk though, I've seen two bores in one paddock that had completely different water parameters before

[FishGal]

Its always best to turn everything off when doing water changes (pumps don't run dry, heaters dont crack, lights don't get sprayed with hoses and then electricute the poor hobbyist etc)

We turn our heaters and internals off but always leave our cannister running and have never encountered a problem doing this, the water from the spray bar also provides slight surface agitation during the water change as well.

The best way to do water changes is to have a place where you can sit the water, heat it and vigorously aerate it, so the water that goes in is the same temp with lots of O2. Of course if you are putting 500 L in then this is a bit difficult. I winter when it is cold, you could get away with doing 50% how often is up to you, if you do any more the temp fluctuations could have consequences. I

We are changing between 350 to 400 litres a week in one of our tanks, the water goes in cold from the hose and we have been doing this for a year now and have seen no consequences - well unless you call rapidly growing and very healthy fish a consequence :wink: This may be the BEST way for YOU to do water changes but different things work for different people. We have never heated water up before putting it back into one of our tanks during water changes and have never lost a fish yet, even in the middle of winter.

on the hose method as wacker brought up, would there be any point of using the conditioner as the chlorine would have already flowed thgrough the bacteria colony
could this be better avoided if you turned off your filteration while you where filling up the tank?

Even with the filters turned off, as you fill your tank and the water level rises, it's going to go through your filter be it turned on or off. When we refill our tanks from the hose, we put the conditioner in as we turn on the hose, so as the water is hitting the tank, it's also encountering the conditioner.

[piscevore]

Its always best to turn everything off when doing water changes (pumps don't run dry, heaters dont crack, lights don't get sprayed with hoses and then electricute the poor hobbyist etc)

We turn our heaters and internals off but always leave our cannister running and have never encountered a problem doing this, the water from the spray bar also provides slight surface agitation during the water change as well.

The best way to do water changes is to have a place where you can sit the water, heat it and vigorously aerate it, so the water that goes in is the same temp with lots of O2. Of course if you are putting 500 L in then this is a bit difficult. I winter when it is cold, you could get away with doing 50% how often is up to you, if you do any more the temp fluctuations could have consequences. I

We are changing between 350 to 400 litres a week in one of our tanks, the water goes in cold from the hose and we have been doing this for a year now and have seen no consequences - well unless you call rapidly growing and very healthy fish a consequence :wink: This may be the BEST way for YOU to do water changes but different things work for different people. We have never heated water up before putting it back into one of our tanks during water changes and have never lost a fish yet, even in the middle of winter.

You leave your cannisters running, well some cannisters dont have deep reaching inlets so as the water drops the inlet will be exposed to air, this could burn out a cannister. So again for the benifit of everybody that doesn't have a deep reaching inlet on their cannisters I advise that if you are worried about something going wrong when water changing, turn everything off!

I have killed about ten heaters so far from not turning them off when water changing (about 400 - 500 dollars wasted)

I've been electricuted four times by lights (never during water changes though, only when I had salt water on my hands and accidently touched the units) I promise you it hurts! My arm was numb for a hour or so after this happened.

I didn't say you had to heat up the water and aerate it (I only ever did this with discus fry, nothing else) I am just saying that the best case scenario is to do it that way. I also was not saying you definitely will have problems, but I have seen a lot of fish die from "thermal shock". where I live the water is less than ten degrees celcius in winter, so with a fifty percent water change a tank at 26 will go down to 18 degrees, 75% you will drop to 16.5 degrees. A tough as nails cichlid might have no problems with a 10 degree drop in temp but do it to your prize semilavartus butterflies and watch them drop dead on the spot. I was not saying what you were doing was wrong, but for everybody else that reads this and wants to keep "delicate" fish then I wanted to mention this point. When I post I post for everybody, not just one person. People should read what I say and see how it applies to their specific situation. I tried my best to cover every apsect of a water change in my post, for every scenario, without having to write a whole novel.

PS: Neakit is right, Nitrate isn't a problem, I run marine setups at over 400 mg/L even up to 800 mg/L on occasion. A lot of people think that a nitrate reading of 40 mg/L is deadly. But i mention that a nitrate test kit is a good indication of when to do a water change because it shows the aquariest how rapidly these chemicals are building up (including other things as well). People sometimes use pH as an indicator of when to H2O change, but I have tank setups that do not fluctuate drastically ever (pH stays between 6 and 8 no matter how long its been since I did a change).