Water change during cycling?

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Komodo

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Sep 19, 2014
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Montréal, Canada
I am now in the cycling stage, (new tank) do I make any partial water changes in this stage, if so, how much do I change?








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I'd assume you're doing fishless since you'd definitely need to do water changes for fish in.

I'm in the process of cycling my 150 gallon (fishless) and for the initial week where I was waiting for ammonia to go down I didn't do any water changes. Now that I'm monitoring nitrites I do a water change when they are at the highest readable level on the testing kit. I don't have it in front of me but I believe it's 5+ ppm.

Also since the nitrifying bacteria lower pH and all that is in my tank are plants and driftwood, both which lower pH as well, I'll do a 30-40% water change when I see that my pH is around 7.0-6.6 just to keep the pH high enough to not stall the bacteria reproducing.


So....yes. If nitrites get too high because that can impede the cycle and it makes it easier to measure, and if your pH drops too low. Be sure to use water conditioner and re-dose with ammonia after the water change.


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