I'm sick of changing water weekly

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When would you change your water

  • 10ppm

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 20ppm

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  • 40ppm

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    2
I wondered where this post went to! HMM maybe we should post in the other forum letting people know about this on.
Fxstb88 you must have a canister filter. Other wise I would probably suggest cleaning your filter pad every other week. Meaning the week you don't change the water. At least.
 
Well I have to add nitrates to my tanks for my plants and I still do weekly water changes.
 
I change mine once a week to once every two weeks depending on my levels. Because I have a couple large goldfish- I dump the water in my filter at least once a week. Otherwise my tanks seem to stay looking pretty good. About once a month or so I take out the dirty plants and scrub them down and wipe out the inside with a rag. Just enough to clean everything but no to disturb my levels. I do this in the evenings when the kids are in bed and strangly enough I find it relaxing.

Stacie
 
Well, I guess they are a couple things.... I check to make sure my nitrite and ammonia levels are 0. Then I check my ph level which sometimes seems to really spike in one of my tanks and drop really low in my other ( i dont know why). Doing a 25 % water change seems to bring it to a 7.4 level which works for me. I also have really hard water so I check for that as well. I then scrub down the front and sides of the glass but leave a section in the back because that is where my snails like to eat algea off the glass. I also like to scrub down my plants because I dont like them dingy brown. I also change the cloth that covers my filter in my 10 gal tank to protect my fry.

Stacie
 
I have 10 tanks totalling over 300g. I do 50% weekly water changes on all of them except the frog/turtle river tanks.
 
My tanks can go for 3 weeks easy with only water top offs. I found that out after traveling and getting some one to come in to feed my guys. Of course that was feeding every 3 days and I have lots of plants in my tanks. But I almost always change water every weekend. Thta way if things got really hectic and I missed a weekend I wouldn't have to worry so much.
 
I change all my tanks every week. Sometimes 30 to 50% on my heavily planted 26 gallon tank. But I am trying to tweak my PH to battle some BBA which is another long thread to be discussed. I was told by Rex that 30ppm CO2 could control it. The fun part is trying to get 30ppm of CO2 with a mini vortex reactor in my 26 gallon tank. :roll:
 
Wel, I can't believe I didn't ever notice the poll.
But as far as what I watch for? as soon as it goes over 10 I am there with the buckets. I always err to the side of caution.
I change 50% automatically anyway each Sunday..some tanks need closer monitoring because the residents (chocolate and liquorice gourami) or the numbers (my overstock 40).

After all, in nature they get nice clean water all the time and have a huge working biofilter always working..why should I have my friends "survive" less than ideal conditions that were in my power to prevent. It will make them more able to handle those odd problems out of my control better.
 
25% every week on all my tanks, dunno what nitrate reading it gets to though, I only test once a month.
 
I haven't tested for Nitrates since my tank cycled almost a year ago 8O ...I think I'll test it just to see what the ratings are...was doing 50% water changes once a week. Used to have tank heavily stocked (10 tiger barbs, 6 rosy barbs, 1 rainbow shark, 2 skunk loaches and 2 rubberlipped plecos) then changed to (1 rainbow shark, 2 skunk loaches, 2 rubberlipped plecos and 3 angel fish) Currently housing 2 Oscars and 1 plain ol pleco.
 
dont change water as offten and try feeding a little more, once in the mornin and once at night!
 
I'm with TankGirl on this one. My 20g is pretty heavily stocked. So, I run a Penguin 175 filter and I do at least 20% water change a week. I don't test the way I did when I first got started in the hobby. I can pretty much look at my tank now and tell when something's off. And believe me, I look alot everyday. Now, if I set up a new tank it will be back to testing everyday until I am familiar with the tank and the environment and how it runs. But of course, it took me a long time to become comfortable to know alot about my tank.
 
i cannot seem to get it below 40 ppm :cry: i do 25% water changes weekly and have cut down on feeding and i'm still 20-40 ppm.
 
I still talk to people at the lfs who believe that their water is sooooo perfect that they don't have to change the water at all. I do weekly water changes from 10 to 20 percent on both of my tanks.
 
Nystina, If you do a 50% water chage when your nitrates are 40 ppm it will result in nitrates at 20ppm and then nitrates start to rise over the week.

It depends on how fast the nitrates are being added to the tank. But if you to 3 25% water changes in a week then return to the weekly water changes it might bring down the nitrates. That is assuming nitrates are 0 from the tap.

HTH
 
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