Noobie water change question

[Drummer254]

Hey just just wondering. When you do a water change do you remove all the water you want to change at a time. Or do you remove some water add some water until youve done however many gallons you want to change.

 

[Musicfreak]

I always remove the amount of water I want to change and then I replace it with clean water. If you think you are taking to much out at once split the water changes to twice a week so that it don't seem like such a huge amount.

 

[piao liang yu]

Hey just just wondering. When you do a water change do you remove all the water you want to change at a time. Or do you remove some water add some water until youve done however many gallons you want to change.

If it is a new setup then 10% or even more at a time should be good. I remove all of the old water I want i.e. 10% or more and add the new water with like temperature afterwards making sure I put in enough dechlorinator and conditioner to treat the whole tank prior to adding the new water.

IF, if, this is important, if your tank has been setup for a while and you have not changed the water in months or so then you need to do smaller water changes say like 5% every other day for a few weeks. The reason is that the fish would be used to the old water conditions and changing it too quickly can cause fish death.

If you change weekly then the fish are able to adapt more quickly because it is not much of a change from week to week. Even changing regularly every two weeks is good. Just change a bit more if you do every two weeks. Never wait longer than two weeks. It is probably much easier to just do it every week. I am regurgitating information I have found during my research and stuff I gleaned from this site.

Hope that helps.

 

[BettaGal]

Hey just just wondering. When you do a water change do you remove all the water you want to change at a time. Or do you remove some water add some water until youve done however many gallons you want to change.

Siphon out all you want to at a time and replace with clean dechlorinated water. Unless you're using a Python, you dechlorinate the new water before adding it back. How old is your tank?

 

[Drummer254]

Tank is over a year old but I really fell off of my maintenance for a while. Over the last week or so I have been doing five to ten gallons every other day. My substrate was filthy so I really vacuumed a lot. I have a 55 gal tank. Right now I only have two fish ;-( I am on my way to get a new test kit now.

The way I usually so it is five gallons out five treated gallons in. I think I'm going to change that. From what I'm hearing once I stock my tank I am going to be looking at 50% weekly. I usually fill using 5 gallon buckets each treated at a time.

 

[nathanden]

With my experience when I do big water changes my ammonia spikes like crazy so I do small.water changes every week people say its wrong but it works best for my tank.

My point is what works for everyone might not work.for.your tank

 

[Drummer254]

I couldn't agree more Nathan. I ask for advice get 2p different opinions and then try to find what works best for me. Something I've found is no matter how big a water change I do I try to only actively vacuum the substrate for half and then just suck water for the other half if that makes sense. And I never vacuum substrate if I am cleaning filters. Maybe something in that will could help you out.