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.