SHould i do a water change?

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GIES2525

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Nov 3, 2008
Messages
42
Location
Hamilton, Ohio
I have had my tank up and running(counting the fishless cycle period) for about five weeks, do i need to do a water change? My water looks great, my fish look happy, and i dont want to mess that up. If so, would you think a 20% water change would be enough? And what else do i need to do to the water (conditioner and stuff) to get it back to safe for the fish if i did do a water change? Im new to Aquariums, and any info. would be helpful...
 
Do you have a test kit that you can use to put some numbers up ? The tests will tell you everything you need once you learn how to read them. if your unsure how to read them put the numbers up here and the guys and gals will help you along.

Most poeple will recommend the API master test kit if you don't already have one. Should be able to find in a local fish store as it is popular. put up your numbers on Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate.

If you lack a test kit right now do a water change anyways..... It never really hurts.
 
PWCs are never a bad thing. You'll need a dechlorinator such as Prime or NovAqua+ to remove chlorine/chloramine from the water before you add it, and it needs to be close to the same temperature as what's in the tank.

20% sounds fine. Most of us do weekly PWCs of about that.
 
What are PWC's, im new so lingo is foreign to me. SO i add the water dechlorinater in the bucket before i dump the water into the tank? Or can i dump the tap water in the tank and then add the dechlorinator? And is dechlorinator the only thing i need to add?
 
What are PWC's, im new so lingo is foreign to me. SO i add the water dechlorinater in the bucket before i dump the water into the tank? Or can i dump the tap water in the tank and then add the dechlorinator? And is dechlorinator the only thing i need to add?

PWC= Partial water change

I add dechlor to the bucket. If I'm changing a large %, then I add enough dechlor to the bucket for the whole tank volume. Then then next buckets I add I just dump straight in or people that use pythons would add the dechlor to the tank for the total volume then just add tap water

Other than that, just try to get the temp of the water similar
 
100%. If you have to ask (yourself or anyone else) then go for it. Nothing but good things come from it. Remember the old saying 'dilution is the solution for pollution'
 
In another thread I asked about water changes. I do 25%-50% per tank, per week. Most agreed that was normal. Many do more than that, some less.

If the temp is correct and the water is de-chlored, you cannot do too many or too much, provided your tank is cycled.
 
To go a little beyond what Sombunya said. Even in an uncycled tank, partial water changes will hurt nothing. In an uncycled tank, if your parameters are off and pH is going low or your nitrite reading is too high to measure, the PWC can let you monitor what is going on and get your cycle back on track. You will need to add back enough ammonia to maintain the fishless cycle but the PWC will only help unless you are doing a 50% every day. If you are doing a fish-in cycle, the PWC will keep your fish healthy while the bacterial colonies develop so again it is a good thing.
 
OldMan is correct. When my 20 gallon tank was cycling with fish in it I was doing about 50% water changes every day. Tank cycled and the fish made it through okay.
 
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