Water bill going up any alternative for water change?

[takaco]

Every week 20% -30% water change quite tough for my wallet.

[Gareth tan]

Use rain water?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[takaco]

Use rain water?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good idea, MONSOON SURGE ON 12 AND 13 FEBRUARY

[JSeymour]

I use rain (and snow) to suppliment my water supply. I would recommend you filter this water if you live near any major cities. I filter mine with a coffee filter and a bit of activated carbon. It's best to not collect when it first starts raining, wait for 10-15 minutes to clean off any surfaces(rooftops) and the air.

[tetrakid]

I use rain (and snow) to suppliment my water supply. I would recommend you filter this water if you live near any major cities. I filter mine with a coffee filter and a bit of activated carbon. It's best to not collect when it first starts raining, wait for 10-15 minutes to clean off any surfaces(rooftops) and the air.

These are absolutely necessary steps to follow when using rain water for fish tanks.

In our part of the world, the tropical climate usually sees short spells of rain even if they occur quite often. They are usually the result of passing thunderstorm clouds precipitating. Thus collecting the rain water as soon as it starts is often practised, which results in contaminated water which is potentially unsafe for fish.

[bosebani]

Every week 20% -30% water change quite tough for my wallet.

How big is your tank? Must be very big I guess?

[tetrakid]

Ya,

Every week 20% -30% water change quite tough for my wallet.

Water price rise is very jialat for everyone..LFS owners will be badly hit. The increased cost will then be passed on to the hobbyists, who in turn will probably contemplate ending their hobby. New hobbyists will be deterred from taking up the hobby, as it will also be very jialat for them. It is a vicious circle because bad business will cause prices of fish and accessories to rise in order to remain in business. One word: jialat!

[aquarius]

It is indeed sad especially for people like myself who have 5 tanks ~

2 empty 3 ft tanks (was initially planning on keeping tanganyika cichlids in them) but i guess may need to change my plans
1 x 2ft planted
1 x 2ft pencil fish tank which i don't change water regularly because of the very small stocking density
1 x 3ft pleco tank which needs to have large (40% - 50%) weekly water changes due to the large amount of waste they produce. At the moment i've cut down from daily feedings to 5 feedings a week to reduce the amount of waste they produce. Have also started reducing the amount of water change a week.

Collecting rain water is not an option for me due to me living in an apartment. One of the solution i thought off was using Algae Turf Scrabber (ATS) but this will increase the electricity bill dramatically. End of the day, will need to cut down the number of tanks.

I'm also keen to hear what other fellow fish keepers are doing to cut down on water usage without reducing the number of tanks they have.

[limz_777]

since water change is inevitable , maybe you might look into saving water elsewhere , never tried it personally , i seen someone tank water drain is link into the toilet holding tank , guess is each water change , you can use it to flush the toilet .

[tetrakid]

since water change is inevitable , maybe you might look into saving water elsewhere , never tried it personally , i seen someone tank water drain is link into the toilet holding tank , guess is each water change , you can use it to flush the toilet .

Hey that is a brilliant idea for those who keep many fish. That's recycling at its best! The savings over a long period could be substantial, particularly for big households. Many already use the old tank water to water their garden plants too. Pouring all that water into the drain is such a waste of precious water.

[tuajia]

I use dirty tank water (full of detritus) to water plants and the clear water to wash the floor... Some may find it gross, but once you put the soap in I can't really tell the difference anyway haha.

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

[BFG]

Do we really need to do water change ?

Advancement in filtration technology and methodology would assist in the need to do less water changes . After all , with the invention of filter pad that could trapped detritus in the micron size and also the use of pre-filter that can help to remove detritus , fish waste and other biological stuff , I believe we could improve our fish keeping ability . Heck , even the dark side of the hobby , the salty side , advocate not more than 20 percent of water change , with minimum 10 percent water change , just to correct the minerals level , to be done when necessary .

The salty side of the hobby also has created systems that do not require hobbyist to do water changes at all . With the advancement of mass spectrometer , the dark side enthusiast all need to do is to send a sample of their salt water to know what parameter they are lacking in their reef tank and then do the necessary steps to adjust it to their requirement.

We could emulate their achievement and suit it to our needs .

[tetrakid]

@BFG

Abang is thinking along the correct lines. I used to keep a fish tank for up to a year with no water change or minimal such as topping up. My tank appeared clearer and clearer as the weeks and months passed and my fish are happy and in superb health and demeanour. I did not remove any detritus as they are additional abode for bacteria to reside in as their mass build up. As long as we do not disturb the tank much, the detritus will remain at the tank bottom. With such setup, of course one should be careful not to overload the tank with too many fish, which is the commonest fault of hobbyists. The ecosystem would then be self-sustaining and thus well-balanced indefinitely, requiring only occasional attention to TDS.

[JSeymour]

Do we really need to do water change ?

Advancement in filtration technology and methodology would assist in the need to do less water changes . After all , with the invention of filter pad that could trapped detritus in the micron size and also the use of pre-filter that can help to remove detritus , fish waste and other biological stuff , I believe we could improve our fish keeping ability . Heck , even the dark side of the hobby , the salty side , advocate not more than 20 percent of water change , with minimum 10 percent water change , just to correct the minerals level , to be done when necessary .

The salty side of the hobby also has created systems that do not require hobbyist to do water changes at all . With the advancement of mass spectrometer , the dark side enthusiast all need to do is to send a sample of their salt water to know what parameter they are lacking in their reef tank and then do the necessary steps to adjust it to their requirement.

We could emulate their achievement and suit it to our needs .

Short answer, yes. You still need to do water changes. The marine hobby has advanced tremendously in the last decade, as you mentioned, reducing the need for large water changes, but in 99%(fake stat, but still accurate) of all cases still require regular scheduled water changes. There are two advancements(in general) that allowed the marine hobby to achieve reduced water changes, protein skimmers and biodiversity.

Protein skimmers don't work on fresh water, and there hasn't been any released technology or technique that would serve the same function, removing dissolved organics before they decompose or are able to build in the system. Even plants release metabolic waste that needs diluting and many algae produce allelopathic compounds. There is more to water changes than fish poop and mulm.

On the other end, biodiversity. In the freshwater hobby, we have no substitute for live sand or live rock. We do not typically introduce micro and macro organisms from the wild. If anything, there is a tendency to destroy biodiversity(think of all the anti-pond snail posts or fear posts regarding freswimming nematodes).

Until we, as freshies, can over come those hurdles, keep those water changes up.

[BFG]

To that end , we need to re-look our use of the filter media , no more using just enough of filter media for our tanks but to use more so that the bacteria population would increase and aggressively cleared what to us is unwanted but are foods to them , also giving them more time to adapt .

I agree that live stock level should not be over loaded which would only end in the need to do water change so if you yourself know that you would like to keep many fish variety , you'll gonna need a bigger tank and don't forget to add more filtration . An over stock tank will definitely require the owner to do more water change .

I would think if there are elevated levels of unwanted parameters , we could remove it using carbon , just like what the salty side is doing for their tank . But , that would employ the use of additional equipment such as a reactor plus another small pump . The reactor would only be used for a day or 2 at the most as carbon would also remove other stuff in the water , which is required by the plants . The use of quality carbon would remove the tank impurities faster and easier .

[JSeymour]

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Carbon can't absorb many of the large organic compounds that slowly build up in ALL aquariums. In a marine system, you can introduce organisms that may be able to filter these out, sponges, sea squirts, featherdusters, foraminiferans, vermetids, etc. What is unable to be filtered by these animals, is then either scrubbed out via protein skimmer or exported via water changes.

This topic is debated over and over, year after year. In the end, the concensus is always, do your water changes.

[aquarius]

Though i don't have any concrete scientific evidence but base on the posts of people who are willing to spend on good filter medias, i would think that most fish hobbyists have filter medias that are very capable of housing enough bacteria for their stocking densities and coupled with the numerous posting of people also recommending
over-filtrating their tanks, i would say we are doing fine with regards to removing ammonia and nitrite from the tank. The issue is more on the removal of buildup of nitrate and phosphate. Unfortunately despite the numerous evidence that shows that Algae Turf Scrubber (ATS) can do a great job in removing nitrate and phosphate, i hardly see people in the freshwater community using them maybe because of the cost involved in running them. In the end we are left with the option of changing water.

For people like myself who have multiple tanks, i'm reluctant to use aquatic plants even if it's nanas or ferns to reduce nitrate and phosphate because of bad experiences with algae issues and "oil"/slime at the water surface. At the moment, my bare tank with only Drift Wood don't have any such issues at all. I may keep floating plants, hopefully they don't give me the kind of issues that normally comes with keeping aquatic plants.

Anyone who has kept floating plants care to share their experiences in keeping them healthy?

[vinz]

If we can't do without water change, then at least maximise re-use of the changed water. Our tank water is almost perfect for watering plants... it has left over fertilisers. Especially nice for plants that do not root in soil, like orchids.

Other possibilities:
1. Hook up to hydroponics system and grow veggies. Spend less on veggies. Excess can be sold too.
2. "Down grade" to a slow grow, low fish-load planted tank. Less water change, less electricity too.

I have a 6 footer planted tank. About 600 litres. Weekly water change is about 150 litres, which adds up to 600 litres in a month. I keep about 55 litres each time for watering plants. Slightly related, we have a alkaline water filter (for drinking) at home. All acidic water runoff is kept for light flushing of our toilets.

For those who want to keep water, I recommend the IKEA Filur bin with lid (http://www.ikea.com/sg/en/catalog/pr...337/#/40188335). Comes in 3 sizes. I use two of the 28 litre ones which fit perfectly inside the IKEA ÄPPLARÖ outdoor storage bench (http://www.ikea.com/sg/en/catalog/products/50204924/). Just fold the flexible bottom to the side and the bins sit nicely on the floor. The lid of the bins keep mosquitoes out, but are easy to flip open to scoop water. The rectangular shape maximise space usage and makes it easy to fit anywhere.

Anyway, I looked up the numbers for our water consumption and I'll share my findings here.

To keep things simple, I'm using the numbers for 3-room HDB and apartments. These two groups form a large part of households in Singapore for this rough exercise.

3-room HDB and apartments (I assume it refers to condos and ECs) average monthly water usage in Jan 2017 (http://www.singaporepower.com.sg/irj...4-de464caacd39) is about 13 cubic meters (m3). 4-room HDB households use about 17m3. For reference, 1m3 is 1000 litres (L).

The price change is nicely summarised in this infographic (below) on this page: https://www.pub.gov.sg/watersupply/waterprice


Before the price hike, 13m3 will cost roughly $27.
After the full price hike, it will be roughly $36. So a absolute hike of about $10 per month.

My tank water change per month, 600L or 0.6m3 translate to roughly $1.70.

Nevertheless, we should conserve water for the sake of water conservation, not just because of price.

[tetrakid]

As it is, fishkeeping as a hobby is already in the doldrums, with people somehow turning to tiny shrimps instead of fish. With the drastic water price increases to worry about, even more people will think twice before owning a fish tank. Not a good situation.

[greenie]

I personally not too concern about the price hike. Do your sums and you should know if to continue or quit.
For me, the extra $$ does not outweigh the theraputic benefit it does for me.
For those with many tanks especially for breeding in mind, you guys should be the hardest hit. I've bred Discus before and the amount of water changes from 8 2ft breeding tanks are horrendous.