Water changes....how often....how much...and is there such a thing as too much

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cancun

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
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Hi all! What is the BEST rule of thumb for how often and how much to do water changes? I have a 29 gallon biocube....nitrites are 0....ammonia is 0....but nitrates fluctuate between 10 and 40 ppm....started out doing monthly 20% wc...then 10% every other week. ...now 10% every week to lower nitrates. ..but read articles that it may not be good for yhe tank to do so much water at once?? Any advice or info would be great! 8)
 
First of all 10-40 ppm fluctuations is quite a lot. You really wana aim to keep nitrates under 20. If you can find a routine that keeps the nitrates between 10-20 ppm then that's your schedule. This topic has been debated over and over again but for intro purposes, nitrates are a good indicator of when to do a change.
 
I have a cube as well and do weekly 5g water changes.my peremeters are always flush..hope this helps
 
It can help to test the nitrates before a water change then you can figure out how much water to remove from there. For example, if you are at 40ppm and want a 20ppm reading then you need to do a 50% water change. You can dial it down or do multiple water changes based on where you want your nitrates to be.

I however do a 50% weekly water change because of my method of plant fertilization which isn't a bad plan even if you have plastic plants.

The only piece of advice regarding water changes is that you can do as many as you want but wait at least an hour between them as well as a maximum of 50% taken out of the tank at once. More than 50% and the fish start freaking out and is too big of a change to the water chemistry.
 
I have always done the 10% weekly. But that's good advice above - test the water to assess how big a change you can do. Large water changes are perfectly fine in saltwater (as long as temp and salinity matched) very little beneficial bacteria reside in the water.
 
Thank you for all the info everyone! I really appreciate it!!!
 
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