Those with large tanks

[Etunes]

I have been seeing lots of builds of 200+ gallon tanks lately. Some people only do 20% to 25% water changes and some do 50%. My question is how do you do the water changes? Because i very much doubt you just dump the water in the tank and add dechlotinator as that would be stupid. Do you guys have a 50 gallon to a 100 gallon bin you fill with tap water? Do you have a auto water changing system you came up with (if do explain design)? I am setting up my 75g and curious how you do such massive water changes.

 

[Hovoc]

Im curious who you people do it at all. I want a 125 eventually but cant see moving 36-75 gallons every week. I do remember hearing that larger tanks need less upkeep, so do you do water changes less often than use with smaller? My friend never does water changes, and only tops off his 75g, and his fish have been living for years and has no issues adding new fish.

 

[Mako_]

Im curious who you people do it at all. I want a 125 eventually but cant see moving 36-75 gallons every week. I do remember hearing that larger tanks need less upkeep, so do you do water changes less often than use with smaller? My friend never does water changes, and only tops off his 75g, and his fish have been living for years and has no issues adding new fish.

When you say 'move' tha tank, are you talking about emptying the tank and replacing all the water? Because water changes are removing 20-25% of the water and replacing it with new water. It would be too much emptying out the whole tank for a water change.

 

[Hovoc]

moving the water ie doing pwcs. We are on well water currently, but doing a weekly change on a 125 with city/county water would seem....expensive.

 

[BigJim]

I don't have my big tank set up yet, but I've been reading up on them. The salt guys break their backs mixing and lugging water around. Some have special barrels or garbage cans on wheels to mix water in and pumps to refill the tank. Fortunately, they don't have to do water changes very often. FW guys use pythons for the most part and add the dechlorinator before starting to refill.

The benefit of a larger tank is that there is a lot more volume to dillute the fish waste, especially if you use a sump for filtration. This allows you to do less frequent or smaller volume water changes. Never changing your water will lead to a concentration of waste which will do the fish in eventually, unless you're really lightly stocked with a heavily planted tank. Even then, things build up.

I use a python and I do 50-75% PWCs on my 29g and 20L and an 80-90% PWC on my wife's 5g for a rough total volume of 30-40g every week and it only takes a half hour or so. Your 75g would be comparable.

 

[CA_BroncoFan]

Ok, well I would never suggest just topping off your tank and never doing water changes, and I would also never suggest emptying the entire tank out (unless you have water problems). I do 20-25% water changes weekly. Sometimes I will do more if I have the time but my minimum weekly change is 20%. As far as the details of the changes are concerned, with my existing tanks I just syphon the water out and fill it back up. You CAN put the dechlor right into the tank and then replace the water. It is ok to do as long as you don't put too much and as long as its done away from the fish.

As for my 250 gal, I will utilize the fluval fx5's ability to use the intake to drain the specified amount out of the tank, out the window its near and water my garden. Then there are 2 ways for replacing the wate, hook up the python to the sink and fill it that way or get a large rubbermaid trashcan (clean and new of course) fill it with tap water, add dechlor and the pump it back into the tank. Once you get the hang of it it really isn't bad.

 

[Etunes]

Since mine is only a 75g maybe i will fins a 25g to fill with water so that it is as simple as flipping a switch to fill it up. I could also finally get a python and hook it up to the sink so i can just fill the tank below up.

 

[i3k]

I have an 100gal tank and I just have 12 gallon plastic bucket to do about 50% water changes every 2 weeks. It takes me about an hour. Since I don't have one of those long syphon thingies to drain the water straight into the sink, I have to drain it with my small syphon thing into the plastic bucket and dump the water into the sink. Then I use the sink's hose to fill the bucket, add some water conditioner, some salt(brackish tank) and dump the water into the tank.

 

[CA_BroncoFan]

I have an 100gal tank and I just have 12 gallon plastic bucket to do about 50% water changes every 2 weeks. It takes me about an hour. Since I don't have one of those long syphon thingies to drain the water straight into the sink, I have to drain it with my small syphon thing into the plastic bucket and dump the water into the sink. Then I use the sink's hose to fill the bucket, add some water conditioner, some salt(brackish tank) and dump the water into the tank.

I do the same thing with my smaller tanks, I just use 3 different hoses to speed up the syphoning.