Water changes?

[nixer]

They can but more due to the sudden temperature change than anything. Plus you have to consider the PH. Some decorations will buffer the PH over time. Like driftwood or coral. If you then do a huge water change, the PH will be different and that can throw them into shock as well. Tap water can be tricky. Mine is well water and is VERY hard. I cant get the water stats correct no matter what I do so I just use bottled water for every change now. If you have city water it will be more stable and better for water changes.

Another thing is some people think they should clean all the gravel and filters with every water change.. Thats a no no. If you do that, you remove all the good bacteria. In essence you will begin to "cycle" the water every time you do a water change. The cycle is the initial amount of time it takes for the nitrites to turn into nitrates from building a healthy amount of good bacteria. If there is any amount of nitrItes in the water, it will kill the fish or shock them so bad they may not recover.

So alternate water changes, gravel cleaning and filter cleaning, leaving at least a couple weeks in between each one. Gotta keep the good bacteria in there to keep the tank healthy.

quick ph changes will kill many fish and plants! which is why you do not want to change 100 of the water at one time. many of us with city water has buffers in the water which after they are spent then the ph will crash. driftwood sometimes lowers the ph a little. coral or any high calcium/lime rocks will raise the ph. if your having to use bottled water i would spend the $ for a reverse osmosis unit they are typically around 250-300 (look at preminumaquatics.com )

when you clean gravel you should be cleaning no more than half of it per week. do not change more than one pad at a time on your filters.

[kellysballs]

I own a pet store and we do 20% water changes on all the tanks weekly. This keeps our losses to a minimum and our fish healthy it is what I suggest to all fish tank owners. However you can go longer if you have only a few fish in your aquarium. In a 10 gallon I would do small tropical fish like neon size.

My roomate has a 10 gallon that I set up for him almost a year ago when I bought the store. He has 3 of the glow in the black light fish (altered danios), 2 random tetras, a pleco and a cory cat. He has a hang on back filter rated for a 30gallon tank and we do a gravel cleaning and 20% water change almost every week. One thing you can do to help your tank maintain it's levels is to always use distilled or R/O (reverse osmosis) water.

You local LFS should be sell this fairly cheaply. You can also only feed your fish every other day(most people grossly overfeed fish) and they will stay healthy and keep your ammonia and nitrite levels down. Check out your local fish/pet store and watch their tanks. If there are dead fish or algae galore in their tanks leave. Knowledgeable fish people are nice to have and a little easier to find than knowledgeable reptile people. They can also test you water for you so you know when your tank has gone through it's cycle and is stable enough for fish to be added.

Sorry for the long post. Good luck PM me if you need any more help.

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

quick ph changes will kill many fish and plants! which is why you do not want to change 100 of the water at one time. many of us with city water has buffers in the water which after they are spent then the ph will crash. driftwood sometimes lowers the ph a little. coral or any high calcium/lime rocks will raise the ph. if your having to use bottled water i would spend the $ for a reverse osmosis unit they are typically around 250-300 (look at preminumaquatics.com )

when you clean gravel you should be cleaning no more than half of it per week. do not change more than one pad at a time on your filters.

It doesnt cost me much because I take three 5 gal jugs to the grocery store and fill them at their water filling station. Its only a few dollars per jug that way. The water where I go is reverse osmosis filtered and I check my water stats weekly. Have never had any fluctuations since I started using that water. Plus I have such an immence filtration set-up with 2 Eheim canisters (each with different filtration compounds inside), I simply dont need to change water very often. This also allows me to only clean one canister at a time to leave the bio load high in the other while the clean one recycles.

But many people who only have a 5 to 30 gal tank dont use canisters so they just cant get that type of filtration without having a huge OTS filter or 2 smaller ones. My personal rule of thumb is filtration rated for at least 2x my tank size. That way the natural bio load takes care of the rest.

[nixer]

They can but more due to the sudden temperature change than anything. Plus you have to consider the PH. Some decorations will buffer the PH over time. Like driftwood or coral. If you then do a huge water change, the PH will be different and that can throw them into shock as well. Tap water can be tricky. Mine is well water and is VERY hard. I cant get the water stats correct no matter what I do so I just use bottled water for every change now. If you have city water it will be more stable and better for water changes.

Another thing is some people think they should clean all the gravel and filters with every water change.. Thats a no no. If you do that, you remove all the good bacteria. In essence you will begin to "cycle" the water every time you do a water change. The cycle is the initial amount of time it takes for the nitrites to turn into nitrates from building a healthy amount of good bacteria. If there is any amount of nitrItes in the water, it will kill the fish or shock them so bad they may not recover.

So alternate water changes, gravel cleaning and filter cleaning, leaving at least a couple weeks in between each one. Gotta keep the good bacteria in there to keep the tank healthy.

It doesnt cost me much because I take three 5 gal jugs to the grocery store and fill them at their water filling station. Its only a few dollars per jug that way. The water where I go is reverse osmosis filtered and I check my water stats weekly. Have never had any fluctuations since I started using that water. Plus I have such an immence filtration set-up with 2 Eheim canisters (each with different filtration compounds inside), I simply dont need to change water very often. This also allows me to only clean one canister at a time to leave the bio load high in the other while the clean one recycles.

But many people who only have a 5 to 30 gal tank dont use canisters so they just cant get that type of filtration without having a huge OTS filter or 2 smaller ones. My personal rule of thumb is filtration rated for at least 2x my tank size. That way the natural bio load takes care of the rest.

what works is what works.

anymore you really cannot go by a filters rated tank size or the gph rating of it. there is way too many that are rated way higher than they should be. heck the xp4 is nothing more than an xp 3 with an extra basket! there is no increase in flow. unfortunately they are not the only ones to do this. if you look at ehiems site they have the ratings with media, but this is also brand new media, so you have to leave a big margin of error.

for those with smaller tanks its more important to have perhaps a undergrave filter and a hob filter. try to say away from those bag types they do not allow for anything when you change the bag! i stick with aquaclears.

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

what works is what works.

anymore you really cannot go by a filters rated tank size or the gph rating of it. there is way too many that are rated way higher than they should be. heck the xp4 is nothing more than an xp 3 with an extra basket! there is no increase in flow. unfortunately they are not the only ones to do this. if you look at ehiems site they have the ratings with media, but this is also brand new media, so you have to leave a big margin of error.

for those with smaller tanks its more important to have perhaps a undergrave filter and a hob filter. try to say away from those bag types they do not allow for anything when you change the bag! i stick with aquaclears.

I completely agree. Which is why I have different types of media in both of my ehiems. I also did notics the flow is not as great as I would like it. I have a sizable pump that I believe was designed for ponds. Im thinking about rigging it to one or both of the canisters to relieve the stress on the canister motors while increasing my flow. My power heads seem pretty worthless for anything other than moving the water and taking up space. The reverse flow option is not powerful enough for true undergravel filtration either IMO.

But I bet it would work wonders on a smaller aquarium to have a reverse flow power head/undergravel filtration and an aquaclear. I have used aquaclear before and I like them.

[Skiploder]

They can but more due to the sudden temperature change than anything. Plus you have to consider the PH. Some decorations will buffer the PH over time. Like driftwood or coral. If you then do a huge water change, the PH will be different and that can throw them into shock as well. Tap water can be tricky. Mine is well water and is VERY hard. I cant get the water stats correct no matter what I do so I just use bottled water for every change now. If you have city water it will be more stable and better for water changes.

Another thing is some people think they should clean all the gravel and filters with every water change.. Thats a no no. If you do that, you remove all the good bacteria. In essence you will begin to "cycle" the water every time you do a water change. The cycle is the initial amount of time it takes for the nitrites to turn into nitrates from building a healthy amount of good bacteria. If there is any amount of nitrItes in the water, it will kill the fish or shock them so bad they may not recover.

So alternate water changes, gravel cleaning and filter cleaning, leaving at least a couple weeks in between each one. Gotta keep the good bacteria in there to keep the tank healthy.

pH shock?

I thought it had been proven that fish can survive a rapid ph shift and that the causative agent was rapid differences if TDS.

http://www.mtfb.com/MTFBJUNE/MTFB2%2...bsarticle2.htm

A sudden change either way causes osmotic shock.

I used to swap apistogramma panduro with a breeder from Shasta County. His ph was slightly hard (7.8) but his TDS levels were actually low. My ph was barely above 6.0 and my TDS levels were low in my planted tank due to peat being run in the filter. Never lost a fish.

I shipped some apistos to a guy in Nevada who dip tested the pH in the bags and found that his planted CO2 tank's ph was equal to the water in the bags. He dropped the fish in and lost 3 out of 5 almost immediately to "shock". The remaining two went into shock and eventually recovered.

He phoned me and explained the problem. I shipped my fish with instructions on acclimated - stressing the need for a TDS test. He ordered one from Dr. Foster's Smith.

6 days later he calls and tells me he got the meter and tested his water which came in over ppm. I tested mine and it came in around a buck fifty. That change is what killed his fish.

A number of years ago I worked on the new construction of a local aquarium and got to talk at length one afternoon with the person in charge of the fresh water exhibits. She told me point blank that there is no such thing as pH shock and that when acclimating new arrivals they shot for a 15 to 25 ppm window for TDS and no more than a 2 degree temperature change.