Water changes for Cichlid tank

[Pippin]

I have read that you need to distill or leave the water in a container for 48 hours before putting into tank for a water change so that co2 goes etc. I have always done a slow top up direct from my hose etc. I now the ph will be different but I will have sand and rocks keeping ph up.

I live in Auckland what is the best way to water change?

Ty.

[David R]

Your best bet is to use a product like Seachem Prime to remove the chlorine/chloramines (the latter of which won't "gas off"). You can either add it to your tap water before adding to the tank, in which case you dose for the volume of the water being added, or dose for the entire volume of the tank and add the tap water directly. 5ml treats 200L so it is pretty cost-effective.

As for the best way to change the water, it really depends on the type of cichlids you're keeping. With more sensitive types like discus you'd be better off pre-treating and warming the water, other hardier types like Central Americans or Africans you may be able to get away with adding the water straight out of the tap, provided you aren't changing too much at once.

[Pippin]

I am having lake Malawi cichlids. So if I am doing about 25% I don't really need to worry about distal long first then?

[camtang]

I do 50% water changes on my africans upto 3 times a week straight from the hose with no issues. So you have plenty more room to move if you are doing 25%.

[Pippin]

3x per week how big is your tank and what filtration. I am going to have the juwel internal and thinking of an fx5.

[David R]

I am having lake Malawi cichlids. So if I am doing about 25% I don't really need to worry about distal long first then?

You don't need to let it sit at all if you add water conditioner to the aquarium as-per the instructions first. As long as you're happy with the temperature drop with the tap water then go for it!

[camtang]

3x per week how big is your tank and what filtration. I am going to have the juwel internal and thinking of an fx5.

Bout 1000L and running a sump. I do water changes when I am doing nothing else, just a hose in and hose out so it is very little effort on my part.

[smidey]

Bout 1000L and running a sump. I do water changes when I am doing nothing else, just a hose in and hose out so it is very little effort on my part.

Why so much? I do 30% weekly and that is plenty in my experience

[Amelia]

Why so much? I do 30% weekly and that is plenty in my experience

Why not if you have the time? Cleaner water is always better. I do 75% a week on my 450l cichlid tank. If I have spare time sometimes I do another 50%. My 240l planted tank gets a 50% and sometimes a second 25%. 55l only gets a 20% as it's only got 3 little occies in it. I could probably get away with much less on all my tanks but prefer much less.

Also 30% being "plenty" is completely dependant on your stock types and level, and what and how much you're feeding. I have a bad habit of over-feeding my tanks (heh, whoops) so I do large water changes to keep it spick-and-span. Not to mention clean water increases growth rates too.

[alanmin4304]

Water has a greater affinity for O2 than CO2 so aeration is a cheep and easy way to get the CO2 out of water supplies. It is used often when iron and or manganese are a problem and being held in solution by CO2. The ionic state is altered, becomes less soluble and can be settled out. Council water supplies are usually not high in CO2 as this makes the water acid, corrosive to copper and causing dezincafication of brass fittings like taps.

[smidey]

Why not if you have the time? Cleaner water is always better. I do 75% a week on my 450l cichlid tank. If I have spare time sometimes I do another 50%. My 240l planted tank gets a 50% and sometimes a second 25%. 55l only gets a 20% as it's only got 3 little occies in it. I could probably get away with much less on all my tanks but prefer much less.

Also 30% being "plenty" is completely dependant on your stock types and level, and what and how much you're feeding. I have a bad habit of over-feeding my tanks (heh, whoops) so I do large water changes to keep it spick-and-span. Not to mention clean water increases growth rates too.

i realise all that and 30% is still plenty to achieve all that with 2200lph of filtration on a 400L tank with around 40 adult fish in it. i always over feed and always have done and my tanks are quite clean so doing any more than that is just wasting time and water i think but if you want to do that it's your choice. I can't waste water as i am on tank storage, no luxury of having town supply here unfortunately.

[camtang]

I do that many for several reasons. But first Ishould point out I do UP to 3 a week not always three.

I use to do all my changes on Friday afternoon, but life kinda got busy that day so I started doing them other days just randomly when I had a chance, and insteed of trying to remember if I had done one recently I just did it. So thats one reason why.

I also got frustrated at the dirty plecos making a mess in the water colum before I added poret into the sump, so I figured that the easiest way of removing floating particals was to take out the water and replace it with partical free water. With the poet the water is significantly cleaner visualy, but I guess old habits die hard.

I don't pay for water which is probably another massive factor into why I do so many, if Idid I am sure I wouldn't do anywhere near as many.

And lastly it takes about 2 minutes effort on my behalf to put a hose in, switch of a tank, suck the end of the hose and let it drain. Then remove said hose with a differnt hose and turn that one on, remove once full then switch tank back on.

So that is my rational behind my water changes

[smidey]

what does your temp drop to when you do a 50% change? that's what i would be concerned about particularly on a regular basis, 3 times a week is almost every second day. Must go through a lot of water additive to?

[David R]

I think the definition of "plenty" depends mainly on the level of nitrate you're willing to subject your fish to. What are your nitrates before a water change smidey, cam, Amelia?

Obviously there is more to it than just nitrate though, I'm sure there are other things that we don't/can't test for that need to be removed by water changes. However, IMHO changing more than 30-40% of the tank water at a time should never be necessary (except for emergency situations) and I'd much rather do more frequent smaller changes to create a more stable environment in terms of temp, hardness, TDS, conductivity etc etc. The question of how much is actually necessary still doesn't really have a solid answer, other than doing enough to keep your nitrate levels low. I know most people err on the side of too much than not enough, but being reliant on rain water I've recently had to change my mantra and instead ask just how little I can get away with changing without affecting the health of my fish. So far, with the light stock and pothos reducing the nitrates, I haven't done more than about a 15% change on the 2000L, and usually it is around 10-12% weekly. I've never seen the nitrates above 10ppm, and a that was after a week of heavy feeding and not siphoning the settling chamber in the filter for nearly a month. Obviously this will change as the fish grow and I add a few more, but for convenience sake I think I'll do more frequent rather than larger changes. For me, a 50% change would take me close to an hour to refill with the garden hose! Not to mention causing other issues like halving the hardness of the water and consuming a fairly large amount of power to heat.

[camtang]

Normaly drops to 20-21. I noticed no issues as long as I don't go under 19, thats when things start reacting badly. It has only happened twice when I got side tracked.

I don't use any additives, I probably should but I havn't ever and it seems to be working

[camtang]

From tap:0.066 ppm

Pre WC: 40ppm :facepalm: I might have to clean out the sump tomorrow :sick:

Prior WC:20ppm

Temp prior 25.5

Temp pre: 19.6

[Amelia]

I keep my nitrates under 20ppm when possible. Occasionally they creep up higher. Another benefit to doing more or bigger water changes than you need, like cam said, is if something comes up and you can't do waterchanges for a while it's easier to get away with. Same as cam with me -- it's just habit doing big changes. I know it would be better to do multiple smaller ones but I don't have the time for that, usually only have one spare afternoon a week I can muck around with my tanks, so I do it once and do it well.

i realise all that and 30% is still plenty to achieve all that with 2200lph of filtration on a 400L tank with around 40 adult fish in it.

No matter how much filtration you have, you still need to remove the nitrates. More filtration doesn't mean fewer/smaller water changes. Unless you have an algae scrubber.

Also I don't tend to get water fluctuations of more than a degree or two as I refill the tank with luke warm tap water. I have an adapter that screws onto the kitchen tap and lets me click a hose on and fill it that way.

[smidey]

No matter how much filtration you have, you still need to remove the nitrates. More filtration doesn't mean fewer/smaller water changes. Unless you have an algae scrubber.

Also I don't tend to get water fluctuations of more than a degree or two as I refill the tank with luke warm tap water. I have an adapter that screws onto the kitchen tap and lets me click a hose on and fill it that way.

Again I'm well aware of the cycle and the benefit of doing water changes. I simply think, based on many years of keeping africans heavily stocked and over feeding them that doing changes of more than around 30% is not necessary but again how you run your setup is up to you.

[David R]

Pre WC: 40ppm :facepalm: I might have to clean out the sump tomorrow :sick:

Prior WC:20ppm

You're going to love it when those pothos get going, 40ppm should be a thing of the past!

[camtang]

how you run your setup is up to you.

I think that sums it up, what works for one might not work for others. We are all striving for healthy fish and it doesn't matter how we achive it as long as we do.

You're going to love it when those pothos get going, 40ppm should be a thing of the past!

Cool, they have just started rooting

[Amelia]

how you run your setup is up to you.

Yep. Just so many different ways to do things in this hobby, from one extreme to another. No right or wrong -- just different.

I recently met a guy who only did a 20-30% waterchange every 3 months on his african tank. Told me I was "an idiot and wasting my time doing weekly waterchanges", because the algae that lives in his canister filter keeps his tank clean. He kept repeating, "I just don't need to do waterchanges because my tank cycles really well". His next comments were then along the lines of, "how do you keep your silica sand so white? Mine went all brown and discoloured..." Gee - I wonder why. Surprisingly though -- when he showed me a picture of his tank it was actually really impressive and clean looking, so maybe he was onto something. :dunno: Just when you think you finally know your stuff...

[David R]

You can't "see" nitrate though, not cleaning canisters regularly is a disaster waiting to happen and won't be doing the nitrate levels any favours. Frequent removal of physical waste from the water column is the best way to keep your water clean, biological filtration is really just bridging the gap between water changes.

[Amelia]

You're preaching to the choir, David -- I don't need convincing. I'm certainly not going to stop doing water changes! But I was just surprised by how nice his tank looked considering the lack of maintenance. I've seen tanks before that don't get enough water changes and they looked appaling, with yellowish water that looked like urine. Yuck. :sick:

[Pippin]

[not cleaning canisters regularly is a disaster waiting to happen and won't be doing the nitrate levels any favours. Frequent removal of physical waste from the water column is the best way to keep your water clean, biological filtration is really just bridging the gap between water changes.

/quote]

So how often do you give your filter a good clean out - I have tended to not do it at all really I thought you weren't meant to remove the bacteria?

Thanks for he good discussion.

[Godly3vil]

You should only clean a filter once the flow is affected.