hi all,
as i am cooling my tank with fan, i need to top up the tank (abt 10%)every 2 days or so. so do i still need to do regular water change? (since the tank does get a fresh dose of water every now and them.)
I have a 12cm DIY fan and is also facing similar problems. Temperature 26 degrees. The top up in 2 days is around an inch for my 9 litres tank, close to 200ML. Which translate to 40% wc per week. However, i still do a wc to siphon out all the waste materials at the top soil and remove any brown algae from ferns and nanas.
Yes you will still need to carry out regular water change.Originally Posted by mackeith
hi all,
as i am cooling my tank with fan, i need to top up the tank (abt 10%)every 2 days or so. so do i still need to do regular water change? (since the tank does get a fresh dose of water every now and them.)
When water evaporates, the ammonia and nitrates still remain in the water. Even after you top up water to the tank, the amount of these ammonia and nitrates are unchanged.
Regular water change will keep ammonia and nitrates to a minimum. High ammonia and nitrate levels will lead to all sorts of algae problems, as well as harm livestock if they reach too high a level.
Evaporation can't be avoided for us fan users.... haiz. Concurrently I still do my WC to lessen the load of ammonia and nitrates.
Imagine you tank is like a toilet bowl without an outlet. No amount of water topping up is going to get rid of the waste unless you open an outlet and flush it away
Save up and invest on a chiller. Evaporation will be minimum.
Maurice Cheong
A . M o m e n t . o f . T r a n q u i l i t y...
Hi,
Agree with the advice given by biweilow, aquaculture and zenscape, you will need to do WC. I used to assume that water top up will be enough and never practised WC until BBA exploded in my tanks a few months back, got a hard time to remedy the outbreak. From then on, i practised WC and frankly it really helps.
thanks for the reply. got another silly question to ask ...
for water change, do we really to use the water suction pump thing?
will there be difference if i just scoop the water out using a container?
I personally use water suction pump to remove the water cause it is more convinent and you can filter off waste matter at the bottom. However, i think there is no hard or fast rule as to what equipment you want to use, it is up to your preference.
During WC, any leftover food or waste that are not sucked into the filter would settle at the bottom of the tank, I'll aim at removing those 1st.
Agree with Aquaculture, those are one of the primary factor that will affect your water condition so don't overfed.
how to get those water suction pumps to work automatically ? i have to keep pumping mine to get it to flow
Initial stage to get it flowing is to give it a few pumps and bear in mind to use a top down approach or else the water will not flow well. I.e your container for water collection should be place lower than the suction head.
nofancifultitlestoinclude inthisspace.
but for a shrimps tank, it would be quite dangerous to use a suction head right? any other form of effective yet harmless-to-shrimplets form of doing water change? do advise!
-clint- ~apisto keepers unite!~
if your tank is small, you can scoop the water using a bowl or cup, making sure to check that you don't scoop up any of the shrimplets before pouring the water away.
alternatively, you can use the suction method, but use a narrower tubing such that the suction strength is reduced. you can tie netting/hankerchief around the suction end to prevent shrimplets from getting sucked out, and as an added safety measure, try to place the tubing somewhere unobstructive, i.e. away from gravel, rocks etc to prevent shrimps/shrimplets from getting sucked.
Biwei
the choice of using fans vs chillers is because our tanks are pretty small > 36cm , with only about 5gallon = 20 litres only. To get hold of a chiller seems overkill for me. But for aquarist with 4 FT tanks, chillers will be the way to go.
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