Water Change - Less and far between change

[FC]

Hi readers,

I read of water change causing problem for plants and fishes. For me, some of my water change turn the water cloudy and plants frailing, my fishes are fine though.

Less is More?
I had been practising minimum water change for about a year now. I change water only during un-rooting plants or heavy pruning, to help clear the water. Otherwise, I am only topping up water - daily routine.

The tank can substain this practice, I think, is because:
1) my low fish load is relatively low.
2) I have medium light intensity setup and short light period.
3) I adjusted the fertilization to suit this environment
4) the tank is mature

The results are:
1) The water stay clear (I am very particular on this)
2) The plants are very stable and healthy, so are the fishes
3) Less work

Do you think less is more?

[turaco]

I use my main planted water for my other smaller tanks. Water is just too precious to be poured away. I believe the high oxygen level planted tank water will do good to those smaller unplanted tanks. So my water changing routine for the main tank is basically topping up too, after filling those small tanks. In lesser volume but more frequent. Good for the plants, the fish & my pocket :wink:.

[PeterGwee]

I read of water change causing problem for plants and fishes. For me, some of my water change turn the water cloudy and plants frailing, my fishes are fine though.

The following article by Tom Barr in APD should answer your questions on the cloudy water after a water change and the view I stand with water changes.

> 50 % weekly water changes are far too much, especially with a planted tank
> You are asking for a nice bacterial bloom which will take weeks to clear.

I'm going to do some guessing.

Well, there is one way I do know that will work, maybe two. But it's related
to something else not so much the water change and should clear up in a few
days. What type of filter do you have on what sized tank etc?
Non filtered plant tanks will sometime get this(I have one running now).
I don't think it's bacteria though. I checked by running it through a UV a
few times. It's some non living colloidal precipitate. The UV would have
roasted it fast had it been any kind of bacteria or fungus. It lasted about
3-4 days with the UV going all the time. If it's alive, it's scary stuff:-)
Even if it has doubling times of 20 minutes, it could not have survived what
I did to it.

Your set up might be fine with this routine, great. Try and reproduce it
now. I think if you try a few more plant tanks w/CO2 enrichment and
different filter set ups, you will not find this to be true. A non CO2 tank
does not use water changes except perhaps once every 3-6months etc.
I do large biannual water changes on those tanks, roughly 50%. It doesn't
happen to them either.

If you use CO2, certainly larger water change will help a tank.
If you increased the bio filter section, got a larger filter, increased
current etc, I bet you'd no longer have the cloudiness.

I've tried to test everything and lower the plant growth way down, not do
water changes etc and I can get away with things like this also, but my
plants do much better if they get regular maintenance. It works if
things(nutrients) are put into the gravel, the gravel is deep, the light is
lower and the CO2 is high etc. But doing large water changes still helps
these same tanks also.

Let's hear about your filtration first.
I'm going to guess weak filter(or one that clogs fast) and has little no bio
section, lots of organics/fish and high light. Maybe DIY.

> 10 %
> weekly/or 25 % monthly is more realistic.
> This apart from the bother of having to readjust your traces at such frequent
> intervals.
> Tony.

Trace levels drop off fast in the water column. Dosing every few days is a
good idea if you add traces to the water column. The traces are gone anyway
by the time the water change occurs(weekly or monthly). Some folks might
toss some out if they do it daily but I do it every 3 day myself. You are
welcome to test this to prove it to yourself. I already know what happens.

Folks that have algae problems and need to reset the tank also need large
water changes to get things back on track. 25% monthly is not going to solve
their issues.

Now take that another step:
If that has a large effect on algae reduction when there IS algae, it only
makes sense that if you do this BEFORE algae appears and cater to the
plant's nutrient needs, you will have even better success than waiting and
getting lucky on your balance. I can tell based on plant health and get away
with this but I know I will have better results if I just do the work than
trying to guess/test. It's just easier. I feel better knowing rather than
guessing. It's cool when you guess right but you also know it's a risk also.

The less the risk, the better. Algae insurance.

50% weekly water changes also works great for folks with reef tanks(no
supplements, CA++ additions etc, but cost a lot in salt but is perfect for
small little tanks in the 30 gallon or less sizes), fish only tanks and
Discus(they tend to be 2x a weekers).

60-75% reef tank water changes a week really does a great job but folks
would rather spend the $ for the high tech stuff, than good old water
changes. It really solves most of the problems that aquarist encounter if
they do this one simple thing. Folks will almost never have fish illness if
they do this also.

I'd look into "why" your tank clouds up. You can likely just keep things the
same since you are happy etc or you can fiddle with it and see why it does
what it's doing and at least you can go back to the original starting point.
But most folks are doing much larger changes, having healthy intense plant
growth and doing 50% weekly year after year after year. I've been doing that
routine for over 25 years, Salt, FW, plant etc.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Regards
Peter Gwee :wink:

[FC]

Hi Peter,

Thank you for that Tom Barr's comments.

I do agree that mass water change and top-up nutrients works (in most cases). However, I find having less water change and then figure out how I could balance the water column with appropriate nutrients offer better satisfaction, not mentioning less works and less wastages. I have no hi-tech equipment. I find that the key is having the right selection and settings of the essential equipment. I am going into reef and I will try the same tactics. I hope it works too (finger crossed).

[elmike]

Less is More?
I had been practising minimum water change for about a year now. I change water only during un-rooting plants or heavy pruning, to help clear the water. Otherwise, I am only topping up water - daily routine.

Hi fc

I’m very keen to follow in your footsteps. Lately, I’ve been thinking of trying a biweekly water change, but had to rethink when my one of my beloved angelfish succumbed to a tumour growth.
Let me tell you that no tank will interest me more than yours, but for a big idea such as this, the info you provided about your tank is rather scant. To allow interested and serious hobbyist like myself to better assess whether the maintenance regime you outlined above will work for us, it would be helpful if you could tell us more about the kind/ number of fish (hardy, small fishes?) your tank is housing, whether you consider it heavily planted (undemanding, slow-growing?), and what roughly is the frequency of your water change (bimonthly, quarterly, half-yearly?). Also, I do not know the exact volume of your tank and whether you inject any CO2?

You said you top up water as a daily routine? Which means your evaropation rate must be very high. Perhaps you’re topping up a lot of water, which in itself already constituted a daily water change?

For the time being, I cannot but disagree with you that less is more.

[FC]

Hi Mike,

The tank:
- My tank is 4x2x2ft, minus the gravel volume, the water is about 360 litres.
- It is CO2 injected with solenoid/timer
- 4x4 feet tri-phosphors FL florescent, electronic ballasts
- one 4" fan

Fishes:
- a dozen of killies
- 3 discuses
- 2 cory
- 1 molly
- 2 ottos
- 1 SAE
- a dozen of snails

Plants:
At the moment I have easy plants like
- E. tennelus
- Crypt wentii Brown
- Cyperus helferi
- Rotala macrandra Green
- Nymphaea lotus Red
- bolbitis heudelotii
- Pelia endivifolia
With the same regime, I used to have medium-ease plants like
- Ludwigia brevipes, L. Cuba
- R. macrandra
- Elatine triandra
- Blyxa japonica
- A. ulvaceus, madagascarensis Narrow leaf

Most of the time, my tank is medium dense because I wish to avoid plants shading each other.

Other info:
- I change water (25 to 50%) only during major pruning and up-rooting of plants. On average, I do that every 8 weeks.
- I top up the tank every day beacuse I prefer to hide the water line in the tank's crown. Evaporated water is about 2~3 litres per day.

Water top up is not equate to water change because this process does not remove nutrients (excess ones) from the tank. At most, it can be considered as mineral (mainly calcium, magnesium) replenishment.

[theodore]

Freddy,

Less frequent water change should also work for high light intensity tanks - Mine happens to be a 4x1.5x2ft tank with 2x 150W MH. I too have been trying to change water less frequently - 50% every 3-4 weeks. Only problem is that the staining of the water (by my driftwood) becomes quite unbearable after a month or two - try to visualize a cup of Earl Grey.

Water column fertilization is done twice a week using a cocktail of ProFito (for traces), K2SO4, KH2PO4, Ca(NO3)2 and MgSO4. Substrate fertilization using Jobe sticks and Iron tablets from Bloodbank.

-Theodore

[elmike]

- I change water (25 to 50%) only during major pruning and up-rooting of plants. On average, I do that every 8 weeks.

Hi fc

Thanks for sharing the details. Your fish load is not light... so it’s quite amazing you could get away with a bimonthly water change. But with the provision of strong lighting and CO2, my guess is that you’re getting very good plant growth, which probably explains the stability of your system.

- I top up the tank every day beacuse I prefer to hide the water line in the tank's crown. Evaporated water is about 2~3 litres per day.

I’m also very fussy when the water level becomes visible. I always top up 3/4 inch in excess of the water level. That way, I need only top up to hide the water level once a week during the hot weeks, but with the coolish weather this past week, I didn’t even have to top up.