Water Changes?

ZebMan · Post by **ZebMan** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 4:26 am

How often do you folk's perform a water change? I'm doing 25% every 3 days. That sound alright?

reticulata · Post by **reticulata** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 6:14 am

In all my tanks I do at least a change twice a week. Depending upon the species is how much and the temp. For my cory breeders I use straight tap cold water and 40-50% change. For my plecos including my zebras I do 30-40% and the temp is close to the tank temp. I've been told cold water changes trigger spawning for plecos but mine (except my zebras, a little young yet) are already breeding.

Post by **TwoTankAmin** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:19 pm

I am probably at the other end of the spectrum. I have 3 tanks with zebs- a 30B for breeding and then a 10 and 15 for for growout. The 30B and 15 get a once a week wc of about 40%. The 10 I try to do twice a week but I would say I only manage 2x/week every other week. I have 15 tanks and they all need their maint.

I have not seen any problems with the fish that could be attributed to water quality and my losses from non-accidental cause have been minimal.

I had a filter mishap which resulted in about 15 fry ending up inside a Hot Magnum and I lost 8. I have killed 3 accidentally when netting and just this week had a contaminant get into one tank when the maid was cleaning which killed 9 of 18 fish in the 10 gal.

I have also lost 2 of the 13 breeders over the past 15 months- one I found floating belly up and the other just vanished. I think it swam out of the tank when I accidentally overlowed it on refilling. I was never sure as it is an inwall tank and I cant see/get behind it.

alga · Post by **alga** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 9:19 pm

I change 10-20 % every 2 weeks, may not be what others do, but mine have not really stopped spawning for a couple years.

Once they start its hard to stop them.

DanD · Post by **DanD** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 9:51 pm

I have 5 tanks currently and each varies a little. I do all my weekly changes Saturday mornings

30 gallon pleco tank: 2-3 gallon change daily from siphoning out poop + 33% (10 gallon) change weekly

20 gallon zeb tank: .5-1 gallon change daily siphoning out poop/uneaten food + 25% (5 gallon) change weekly

15 gallon heavily planted tank: 33% (5 gallon) weekly

20 gallon community: 50% (10 gallon) weekly

50 gallon cichlid tank: 30% (15 gallon) weekly

Every tank has two filters (hob + sponge), I clean hob one week and sponge the next alternating every week

eklikewhoa · Post by **eklikewhoa** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:09 pm

Once a week about 50%