Why W/C?

[Mulisha]

Hey everyone .. just thought i would ask a few questions why w/c a tank under stocked daily if there is no nitrates?

Why do we w/c is it becuase of nitrates or is there other things like exces nutrients or something?

I'm just not sure why to w/c daily on a tank if there is only small visable signs of nitrates in the water.

Lets see everyones oppinions.

:wink:

[DR.V]

Well w/c to get rid of nitrates and ammonia in the water as well as other harmfull stuff to the fish.

Daily w/c normally is for breeding pair, as drop in temperature can stimulate spawning. Also people uses sponge filter for breeding so its necessary to do daily w/c.

Also for grow out tank. Many breeder has proven that a tank with daily w/c have much better growth rate than a tank with less w/c.

[fishgeek]

if the tank has a filter then not really essential

water changes are as you rightly pointed out to remove things(nitrates being the one we most commonly measure, in soft water fish there are also other excreted by products of food, or just non eaten solids etc)

when a tank is lightly stocked and lightly fed a filter will cope with most of these by-products - mechanically filtering solids and biologically degrading nitrogenous by-products
add plants and you have even more nitrogen fixing ability and less need for water change(to some degree)

i just had a 6 week hliday and left my tanks, none are discus , lots are soft water sth american cichlids
flat mate doesnt have an interest in fish and i knew water changes wuld be minimal
low feeding meant few water changes were ok for this period

i think daily small changes is a safe habit , add's in a big safety net though is not neccesary

my 2 pence worth
andrew

[Dee]

Heya Rick,

As V and Andrew have stated, regular WC's keep NitrAtes down and keep things in check. Also if you have soft water, like I do, daily WCs help keep the PH stable and KH levels in line. It has been said that daily WCs are favoured for growing out bigger discus. Also if you feed lots of frozen foods (like you do with juvies) ie: BS,BW and BH ... daily WCs IMO are essential to keep your water specs balanced.

I also believe that daily WCs are like airing out a stuffy house, my fish always seem to perk up after WCs ! JMO

Cheers,

Dee :)

[dreamer]

why wc? cos we discus keeper need to exercise *lol*

[Mulisha]

ok thanks for ya replys i have a 5ft tank about 350L and was wounering how often would you do w/c on it if it had 8 small 2.5" red turk discus in there and what size w/c becuase i'll have a couple of plants in there ..

Becuase atm i do 1x 45% w/c everyday on a 3ft tank with the same fish in there that are going in my 5ft tank and thought maybe every second day or maybe longer what do u think? :lol:

Thanks for your oppinions it always helps :wink:

[G-1000]

I have often thought the same, but not wanted to say what I thought since I thought it may come across as stupid. lol.

For me, water changes are essential to fish keeping (obviously), however, I think with discus some people can go overboard. When you think about it - the fish lives in the water, so the quality of the water will determine the health of the fish right? So, as such, we aim to keep the water clean to provide optimum health for the fish.

As far as what is removed, nitrates are the obvious compound, since there is no way to remove these (unless you have A LOT of plants) other than via w/c. More importantly, I notice that people are talking about the grow rate of discus etc being affected by w/c. I would have to say that it would seem that discus produce some sort of hormone to stop them reaching large sizes (as by virtue of their shape, they are inherently vulnerable - especially in the wild). Thus water changes also reduce the levels of this hormone.

Aside from that, common sense would point out that if you urinated and dropped stools all over where you were living, you probably would be feeling too flash afterwards right ? So w/c also assist with the physical removal of waste (e.g poo and food etc.).

I would point out though, that as far as w/c go - the more the better may be true, but when you think about it - as long as nitrate are kept low and there is little waste in the tank - do you really need to perform daily water changes or is it a bit too much ?

G

[Mulisha]

Wow thanks for the reply i get what you mean and i agree with you 100%.

I have also thought this when w/c... When i go and do my 50% w/c on my tank the fish seem to go and hide and cramp there fins becuase a bit freaked out with a hose in there sucking poo etc from the water and maybe causing them some stress and other things.
What i think is that if the water parm are stable and nitrate is below 10ppm you shouldn't do a w/c becuase causing them stress on a daily basis is not good for them IMO becuase we could be causing more bad then good sticking our hands and a hose etc in the water and scaring them and so on.

I think if we keep disturbing these fish in there habitit (fish tank) we are going to cause more harm then good becuase stressing them out so often wouldn't increase there growth rate.

Example: When i go fishing in my boat and go across a sand flat with my electric motor which makes no noise at all then fish seem not to be bothered at all then tend to maybe speed up there swim a little bit or something like that but if i started up the engine GOD you wouldn't see a fish swim so fast.

So a engine in a river would be almost the same as the splashing and acidently banging the glass on the tank when doing these w/c would cause more stress then good IMO

Hope that all came across well but i also agree daily w/c should been done on tanks overstocked or only have a small amount of filtration going.

That's just my two bobs worth so don't get me wrong you may all disagree just IMO that's what i would be doing is less w/c :roll:

[G-1000]

Just one more side point...

When it comes to juvi discus, they are more sensitive to their conditions and do not have good immunity or healing abilities as that develops later. So lots of water changes for juvis is important.

As for overstocking well yep - more fish equals more waste equals more nitrates. so yes need more wc there.

But to grow really big fish - wouldnt it seem that this is largely genetic ? no matter how much you feed or water change a guppy or bristlenose or whatever, you would get it up to like a foot-long will you? With respect to water changes - i would also be careful with large daily changes since this can play havoc with filtration in the tank.


JMO

G

[Ben]

very true to all the above.

But another point.

what about un-testable water?
Like various things in the water we dont test for and cant test for?

maybe things like bacteria count?

by keeping up regular water changes this would mean that the water would be more clean.
(common sense really....)


Just some thing else to think about......

[G-1000]

Yeh good point Ben

Knowing what sydney water is like atm, I am alreayd cautious about w/c.

I would be interested to see if a U.V increases growth rates of discus actually now that I am thinking about what is potentially in the water we cant see.

But what comes out of the tap that I cant see in Sydney? Geez it boggles the mind.

G

lol

[Mulisha]

LOl guys i don't have the problem with town water i have rain water.

I see what you mean been and i think a UV and very good filtration like 6x the tank amount an hour would decrese the amount of w/c wouldn't it?

I think just getting into a sechledule that suits you ..

Example:

Say i feed my 10 juvinile fish feed 2 times a day in a 500L tank and i do a 25% w/c every 3rd day to keep nitrates at 5ppm.

Say a friend has 20 juvinile fish feed 4 times a in a 500L tank and does a 75% w/c every 3rd day to keep nitrates at 5ppm.

I think everyone has different circumstances (spelling) and needs to do what suits them but i think doing daily w/c is not good for fish IMO becuase of the stress factor and maybe understocking your tank and adding more filtration i think would be a better option.
With the amount of water available to us people this century is very limited and only going to get worse with population increase we should be looking at reducing w/c IMO so finding other ways to help minmise w/c and fish stress would be the best thing we can do.

This is just my oppion so don't take any of this to heart if you know what i mean :wink:

Keep those oppions comming :lol: :lol:

[G-1000]

Whilst I dont intend to split hairs here - I must say that aiming for filtration of 6 times the total tank volume per hour would be too much. I say this because the bacteria in your filter will have a better chance of removing nitrogen products if the flow rate is slower. The bacteria must be in contact with the water for long enough to "grab hold" of the waste products in it. I would say that 4 times tank volume would be maximum, but if you have planted tanks or substrates you could manage 2 or 3 times. Quality of filtration - not quantity is important here.

G

[Mulisha]

Yes very very true G you are very RIGHT and i'm very Wrong LOL yeah slower filtration like you said would be better maybe a filter that will filter your tank say 5 times an hour would be good becuase when you do get it fill it up with lots bio balls cermic rings and very nice think layer of filter wool which will slower the rate of the filter dramitically for example a filter rated at 1500LPH will run that fast only when no filter baskets and no head hight it against it so it would only be going at 1000LPH once full of media and has a head hight hope all that makes sense... :lol:

[G-1000]

Nah Nah,

Im not right - you just agree with what im saying. Im sure somebody will disagree.

For example on my new 4 foot - I will have 2 hydor canisters doing 900lph. But, once you add in THEIR media it drops to 500-600lph. I have got my media coming which will be more densely packed. So that will drop to about 400lph for each canister.

So I will have 800lph filtration on a tank of 250L capacity which will be bare bottomed, but also have a UV hooked up to each one.

But yeh - I get what you mean rick.

G

[Mulisha]

ok good has anyone else got some oppions on this and your tank G should be awersome :wink: with that filtration your talking about.

[duck]

I Aim for between 2-4x tank turnover an hour.

[Mulisha]

Ok Duck sounds like 4x an hour is the go :lol: