Since this forum seems cool with discussing topics and not sugar coating them....

Do all you guys really add all kinds of water conditioners, suppliments, salts etc.., and do water changes as frequently as Britney goes to counselling?

I do water changes of 25% monthly to every 6 weeks but I dont add anything to my water.

Nice thread and topic, Les!

I personally do 25% water changes on a weekly basis!

I add Prime as my conditioner and I add a little Epsom salt
in with the water.

That's just what I like to do!

Maybe we should ask if people check their nitrate levels before they
perform a water change and see if they change their water accordingly!

I do anywhere between 25 to 50% each week - depending on how much time I have. All of my tanks are over-stocked or I would probably go every two weeks.

Only additive is dechlorinator.

The exception is my saulosi tank. I have gone up to a month between water changes. Those little suckers bite the whole time my hand is in the tank and I find myself going longer between changes in their tank.

Blush I threw away my test kits. I used to test many, many years ago, but it was always coming back ok. For my own personal experiences, I dont need them at all.

I reached the conclusion that at some point hobbyists could almost be seen as mad scientists dumping chemicals and bouncing stress around in their tanks. Some people seem to treat their tanks like a chemistry project. (Not implying that you guys do- I just know of aquarium club people who do this all the time)
I always found that my little glass boxes were more successful if I did my best to keep my hands and any chemicals out. No PH up or down, no salts (unless illness), no cranking the heater all around, no aquascaping every few weeks, no moving fish from one tank to another until I find the right combination that I like that week...I do absolutely nothing except watch them and feed them now- and they are thriving

See, I told you when I started telling you the truth, you would all think I am insane idunno

No Les we already knew you were insane Melafix fix!

I do a weekly water change to all my tanks .I use a declor for chlorine and chlorimines.I also always add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to make sure my PH is stable.As you may recall last year around spring I lost thousands of dollars worth of fish due to the winter thaw out and the PH dropping down to 5.I have always had great water here and stopped monitoring my PH.I will never make that mistake again.I thought I had some kind of disease but after testing I found out exactly what it was that killed my stock.Monitor your water people!!Even if its just during a water change


Derek

I agree 100% with Derek on this one as I have had some of the same porblems as he has had over the yrs and espeically in Sudbury but monitoring your water is the only true way to know whats going on. Monitoring does not mean dumping mad amounts of chemicals it just means keeping a handle on whats going on in the tank.

It would be like the Leafs not having practices.......(oh wait that isnt helping either) Nanananaa Nanananaa Wooo hoo!!

Aside from trying to grow fry out quickly, if you dont have tropheus or Discus- why do you feel it necessary to do weekly water changes? Africans could thrive in your toilet... Explain your reasoning. Just curious.
I used to do it, but it seems unnecessary. I dont do it anymore. What am I missing?

Les

#1 new water adds necessary electolytes to the water that is for good development and health of Cichlids

#2 The tank water looks alot cleaner and nicer for when people look at your tanks

#3 Water changes remove Nitrites from the water.A buildup of these can kill your fish even in a well cycled tank

#4 Would you want to swim in toilet water?Would you let your dog swim in toilet water.How about your pet hampster(althought tempting)

I should prove my point on the last one

Derek

My toilet water gets changed several times each day. Nanananaa But I know what you mean.

I don't feel it's necessary to change the water weekly, I just choose to do it because I think it's better for the fish to do it more often.

I have a large number of fish in the tanks, they normally eat twice a day (a small amount, but still...) and they are pooping and breathing in that water. It seems that if you only do a small water change every month, that the nitrates would build up over time to an unhealthy level.

Like you, I don't test my water any more. I'm hoping that because I do the water changes weekly, that my levels are under control. Once in a while I do an even larger change.

When I am on top on my game I do a 20% water change weekly. I rinse out my filter pads about once a month. Periodically I rotate out cleaning out a filter completely. I do not do a weekly water change if I add new fish to minize the amount of changes they experience that week. I typically don't add additives except when first starting a tank. Here in Louisville I had bad experience not adding something to the water in the winter. I think the water company must add something and using a dechlorinator doing the winter seems to help.

Derek,

No response to my shot at the leafs wow.

I agre totally water changes are necessary we took these fish out of their natural environemnt it is our responsibility to kepe there home clean imagine not vacumming your house at least a coupel times a week you dont want ot live in the garbage so why should your fish................

I dont know about letting my dog or cat,,(now thats tempting),,,swimming in the toilet. But most will probably agree,,,the dog or cat DRINK out of the toilet. Isn't it the cleanest water in the house???? ( when the bowl is clean that is).

As far as cleaning and water changes,,,,,concider the fish lucky if I dont change the water for 2-3 months. wabawhat?? I would guess it depends on how many fish and what kind you have in a tank,,,size of the tank,,,size of the fish, filter size, ect,,ect.

Thats right,,I said it,,,,2-3 months,,, yikes ,,,,the fish are beautiful.

To be honest,,,I feel I lost more fish due to the stress of doing water changes by 1/2 weekly. I mean,,at first I did,,,then when I learned by listening to other members exp., I started to ease up on the changes and cleanings,,,,,seems to work thus far,,,so I keep doing what I've been doing.

I for one am NOT a believer of doing things "the way they are SUPPOSED to be". I don't fall for that.

Every 2 or 3 months AP?? That just seems too long to me. Faint It must be okay if your fish are doing well though.

I suppose I might be going overboard with my water changes, but I don't think it's doing my fish any harm.

I have it in my head that good, clean water is the most important part; more than what brand of fish food to feed, or what type of filter to use, best temperature to keep them at, lighting, substrate, etc. fishy

AP only has 4 fish in the whole tank, so thats how he achieves the lengthy duration between changes

I am of the less is more school here. I do a 50% every two weeks or so, and I add Prime as the city adds an ungodly amount of chlorine in the water. But some of my tanks have gone as long a three weeks without seeing the business end of a gravel vaccum. I think if your like me and look at your tanks every day (relaxation after work) for a good amount of time, you will notice if there is something wrong. Your fish will let you know "HEY BUTT-HEAD...THIS WATER LOOKS LIKE PEA SOUP, AND TASTES LIKE POND SCUM!" I make it a habit of doing bigger WCs on heavily stocked tanks or tanks with big fish a little more often. But the two week rule still applies. I think one of teh reasons I am comfortable with that schedule is that I filter my tanks to a fare the well. All of my tanks have at least two if not three large GPH filters on them, both cannister and HOB types. I rinse the filter material with the WCs and change it about every five to six months, with a complete cleaning of the filter. And I never clean every filter on a tank at the same time. My fish are all doing well, growing and spawning. So I agree that at least I dont need the "chemestry set" and a wet floor every weekend, and its what works for me.

I agree with Mongo, when I kept & bred mbuna I did a 50%-75% wc every 2-3 weeks and rotated filter cleanings with each wc and my fish did great! Although now that discus have made it into my tank it's a weekly wc of 40% (sometimes 2 a week if I find the time)!

As for any chemicals being added to my tanks I only use prime! When I first started I used cichlid buffer and all kinds of expensive fancy chemicals that they advertise as being the best for your fish, then I found some great cichlid sites and some very nice experienced keepers and learned alot of great tips that were pretty cheap and easy to do!

Oy this topic again! Faint

I'm a 50% a week guy for water changes because I don't like the sight of poop on the sand substrate. I use Prime with each WC because I don't trust the water company to do the same thing week in and week out. I also add Baking soda at a rate of 5ml per 5 gallons to my water to buffer my ph. Also I add Kosher salt and epsom salt to my water at a rate of 5ml and 15ml per 5 gallons respectively.
There is a method to my madness roll eyes My water comes out of the tap at a ph of about 7.2 but has absolutely no buffering capacity whatsoever and will crash if not stabilized. Also there is very little mineral content to the water hence the addition of salts.

I'm curious Hmmmm What is everyones water parameters coming out of the tap?

Mine are:
ph 7.2
KH 1
GH 5

Dave, my tank and tap water matches exactly! My ph is 8.0. It's been so long since I tested my KH & GH I couldn't tell you what it is.

I just checked it with a pool test kit- According to my pool test strip, its 7.4 but I wouldnt consider those tests to be very accurate. When I change 25 gallons out of my 125's, I dont even worry about dechlorinating the tap water. Do you really think there is enough chlorine in 25 gallons to be able to offset the stability of the remaining 100 gallons in the aquarium? Absolutely no way. On my smaller tanks that I used to have, It was essential to dechlorinate.

Doing frequent water changes is not a crime, and its certainly beneficial, but I think some people feel its necessary with africans. It aint. thats all I wanted to say.

Derek, you lost me...I jet ski, and I have been in some pretty dirty water. Doesnt worry me much. As a kid, I had a hamster- but they keep you up at night scratching and munching on things, so I would probably flush the little PITA, why make him swim? (kidding)

I had a spawn from a pair of maleri. Fish were in a hex, a HOB fiter wouldnt fit, so I was using a Magnum 350 canister filter, I accidentally knocked the strainer off one day when I was vacuuming. I replaced it quick enough.

Two months later, I was cleaning the canister filter and I found 4 maleri fry living inside the disgusting slimy filter. They were twice as large as the fry I was growing out from that batch. So I reasoned that canister was almost like toilet water, and those guys were thriving in it.

Now I'm lost. The water in the canister is the same exact water that's in your tank, isn't it? It's constantly flowing through. If the canister is nasty enough to be thought of as "toilet water" wouldn't the water in the tank also be?

Les, i dont know about what you just said, but i think if you keep doing that then you keep adding chlorine bit by bit until it gets to a big amount. That's just my thoughts and opinion.

Good point Aura. They ARE in the same water but just living in poopadoodoo.

GL chlorine is very unstable, it wants to return to a gaseous state as fast as it can. Thats why back before dechlorinators, we had to "age" the water. We would let it sit in buckets for 24 hours so the chlorine could evaperate. And agitating the water surface makes it evarporate even faster. So as long as you give it time to escape from your tank, you can add chlorinated water in small doses directly to your tank. You have to reach about 10 to 12 parts per million before it will start to burn the gill structure of the fish. Having said that, at least in my municipality they are running about 25 parts per million in the water, with an increase to 40 during the summer months. And that ladies and gentlemen is why I use a dechlorinator with my WCs and top offs.

I have had the same thing happen Les. Go to clean a filter and find fry/juvies living the high life in the resivour of my filter. They get contsant water movement, and a ready source of food. Plus they dont have to expend any energy in hiding/running away from the other fish in the tank.

HHHHHMMMMMMMM...my water parameters...well the last time I checked my tap water it was thus: PH-8.6, KH-8 and I dont remember what the RH was. But like I have posted before, I have "liquid concrete" coming out of my tap. If you leave the stuff sitting for any length of time, you will wind up with white rings in your glass. I ma probably the only guy on here with fresh water "salt creep". I have some holey rock that has been the same shape for about 15 years now. It dosnt leech into the water, so it never gets any smaller.


4mongo

My good INTENTION is to do a 25% water change every week, but lately it's been more like every month. I get a lot more holding females when I do 25% per week, which is my fish's way of telling me that in my tanks weekly would be better. I just use de-chlor.

I learned from Professor Mongo, and I over-filter the heck out of all my tanks. Only one gets less than 10x water flow per hour, and that's going to change within days. Some have 20x.

I also clean only one filter or one part of a filter at a time to avoid stressing the bacteria. And I try to disturb tanks "all at once" only every once in a while if I'm going to add fish, move fish etc.

Well i always use dechlorinator with my new water and use an air pump connected to a powerhead and age it for 48 hours. Just thought i would share that.

I know that chlorine will eventually evaporate but that's just my para mind of doing it and as i have been into SW for many years also like to over do stuff to make SURE of other things like heavy metals etc dont get into my tanks.

My filtration turnover is just over 10x and soon gonna upgrade it to around 16.

I started out in this hobby as a teenager, and I can tell you with a great degree of certainty that water changes did NOT get done. I raised and bred angelfish and many other tropicals in the equivalent of a mud puddle. blinky

I have test kits, but at this very moment, I can't tell you where they are. If something should go wrong, I might find them and use them, but with the filtration we have on our tanks and the weekly water changes Pete does, it would have to be something really serious or strange to make me drag out the kits.

We have double filtration on all of our tanks, and we love the AC's, so that is mostly what you'll see.

They all get 25-30% water changes weekly with Prime for a dechlorinator. (I would never do a water change without it in this area...They're always tampering with the water up here!)

We might skip a week if we get lazy or busy. The fish don't seem to mind.

I think alot of it is for my satisfaction, but we rarely have problems in our tanks and our fish are healthy and breed like rabbits.

Kim

Interseting threard here with alot of good info. Now I would like to ask member to TRY a little expeirment.

I understand that this may be harder for most, if not all members to do,, but,,,if you can handle it,miss a couple of water changes, dont do your 25% weekly, dont clean the filtration for a little longer than you usually do.
It'll PROBABLY be harder on you than your fish.

I think that most members do all this "supposed" to do things for the fish because it makes them (the members) feel better about the hobby. There is nothing wrong with that at all, but IMO,,I think that all these water changes are just a waste of time.

I also think that if members can go a little longer than the usual water change,,,they'll see that it not so bad after all.

Just my .02 cents.