Changing water - so fun!

[macman7010]

I wondered if anyone read the water change article in the August issue of Tropical Fish Hobbyist. It was actually pretty good, and while I have an established water change routine on both my freshwater tank and reef tank, this article that seemed to pertain mainly to freshwater fish keeping had some good insight.

One unique point it brought up is that many fish use hormonal and chemical secretions that enter the water as a means to communicate. According to TFH's editor, (and what I assume is his personal opinion and since I am unsure if he has any educated background in the field, its hard to say the level of validity it has) if we dont do large and frequent partial water changes we could be short cicuting chemical communication for our fish.

This is a point of interest that I never considered before, but think of it - imagine if we as human beings lived in such a noise polluted enviroment that we could not hear each other's voices. Could this be what happens in an unclen aquarium setting. I emailed my college's professor of biology about it, he is a fish guy and we are always talking aquariums. Ill let you know what I find out - anyone else have any ideas or opinions on this?

 

[Blizzard]

This is very interesting indeed, I'm interested to see what you can find out about it!

 

[Jchillin]

I'm glad you brought this up. Last June, I had the privilege of having David Baruchowitz speak at our Aquarium Club meeting. He discussed the legitimacy of performing very large water changes (90%) to keep your aquarium water at it's best possible.

He also mentioned the phermones in the water. Removing a lot of water will remove a lot of the phermones as well and in closing he did state that the excessive water changes are not geared to aquarists who are breeding or have planted tanks.

 

[BrianNY]

I've heard of this macman but it isn't communicating as we know it. It's especially true among schooling fish such as tetras. Fish of the same school produce secretions which keep them attracted to each other. It also warns another school of the same species that they're infringing on unfriendly territory. There is even some thought that the same species from different schools can poison each other.

 

[Meredith]

That is interesting. It sounds reasonable to me. People secret pheromones and supposedly we are receiving "signals" from other people all the time with out being aware of it. I don't see why it couldn't be true of fish as well.

 

[macman7010]

I talked with my old bio teacher from college. He said basically the same thing brian did, that fish secrete pheromones into the water for various communication and other purposes. He agreed with TFH's editor that if left without water changes out aquarium could become a habitat where these secretions have become so full in the water that the fish have problems communicating using them.

Though he also added that most chemical filtration methods - Carbon, and others should remove these secretions so if you have adequate filtration they should be coming out. Personally I dont use Carbon in my filters since I feel that it takes too many beneficial minereals out of the water, although I do a daily 30% water change on my freshwater tank.

My bio teacher is a fan of the smaller more frequent water changes though, and not nuts about large changes of 50% or more. He claims any change of over 50% can upset the balance of the aquarium water. Again though that is just one opinion. When I had discus years ago and was breeding them reguarly I did a 90% daily water change and the fish did great - Imagine that. Wow maybe that is why he gave me a B- last semester!

 

[talloulou]

Yep back in the day people frowned on changing the water too much or messing with the tank too much. Now most accept it as standard practice to do frequent "partial" water changes. But I think we are definitely headed towards the bigger water changes more often era. Which I do anyway because I find it is really helpful to my fish and it helps a little with my bad "overstocking habit."