Question about water changes

[Ereny White]

Hello everyone!

I've had my 20 gallon tank for about a year now and water changes have rarely ever been a serious problem. I did lose one of my 6 original tetras within the first couple of water changes (due to stress I think), but that's really the only problem I've had.

My fish (5 glo light tetras) and bristlenose pleco have never responded badly...until today. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do consistent water changes on my tank for about 3 months now due to college and life in general. I think my ignorance was the cause of one of my tetras passing.

Today, I did a 2/3 water change by pouring the water directly into the tank at a slow pace. I then of course added the appropriate amount of conditioner once I had refilled it. Initially, my tetras seemed to react like they typically do (a little stunned from the sudden environment/temperature change and swimming near the surface for oxygen) but they seemed fine. It wasn't until I turned my back for a few minutes when one of them was suddenly zipping around the tank, upside down. The second I go to rescue to relocate the fish into a hospital tank, it's lying on its back, unresponsive on the bottom of the tank.

I am assuming the poor things death was caused by swim bladder disorder however I'm not sure if this was from stress or too much air...

If anyone has any advice how to do water changes more safe for my little babies and less stressful/more efficient for me I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[Aiken Drum]

A few things.

Add dechlorinator to the tank before you start refilling. The way you are doing it has fish swimming around in chlorine/ chloramine for a period of time before you add your dechlorinator to remove. Dechlorinator will stay active for at least a few hours, its not like it will remove the chlorine from the water from the tank and then not do anything to the water you subsequently add. Remove your water, add enough dechlorinator to treat the whole tank, then refill.

2/3 water change is quite a big water change and will cause a significant change on the water parameters. Bigger changes can be stressful. Normally this isnt a problem, but if you arent consistent with water changes then bigger changes cause bigger shifts than smaller changes. Lets say you change 50% of the water every week and before your weekly water change your nitrate is 40ppm. A 50% water change will reduce nitrate down to 20ppm, a change of 20ppm isnt that much of a change. Lets say life happens and for whatever reason you cant do a water change for a month, and your nitrate gets up to 100pm. You think to yourself you need a bigger water change and change 2/3 of the water. This would bring nitrate down to about 35ppm, a change of 65ppm. This is a much bigger swing than 20ppm and could cause a lot of stress. Similar swings in pH, disolved solids etc will happen at the same time. This is whats called old tank syndrome, where you might get lax on your tank maintenance, the fish acclimate to poor water quality. You then do something to improve the water quality, but its too much of a change in a short period of time and fish die. If for whatever reason you havent changed water for a while then smaller water changes are needed, but do several an hour or two apart to get where you want to be. This improves water quality more gradually, so the fish can acclimate more slowly to changing water parameters.

You could also have been unlucky. Water companies can often add more chlorine/ chloramine to the system when they do maintenance on the system for instance. This is often done when the weather starts to warm up. A dose of dechlorinator will treat an amount of chlorine/ chloramine. If there is more treatment than normal your dose wont be enough to remove it all, and additional dechlorinator is needed. How can you plan for that though when the water companies dont tell you what they are doing? You could test for ammonia in your tap water before every water change which would give an indication of increased chloramine. Or you could test for chlorine which would give you an indication of increased chlorine. Or you could double dose the dechlorinator just in case. Are you going to do this? I highly doubt it for what is such an uncommon set of circumstances. I would call your water company though to see if they did anything recently to see if they may have caused your issues.

 

[Ereny White]

Thank you so much for your quick response and advice. I will start adding dechlorinator before I add water back into my tank. I do have a question thought I want to clarify if you don't mind..

My tank is still quite dirty and you suggested that I do smaller water changes to get it where I want it to be cleanliness wise. You said several very hour or two apart.

If I were to do several every hour, would I need to know initially how much water I was going to take out I order to add the proper amount of dechlorinator? I don't want to poison my fish... also is a water change thay frequent going to stress out my fish?

And for two apart, could that mean a few days apart? So for example, I let them rest today since I did a drastic water change last night and then I wait a few days to do a smaller water change and then keep doing that until my tank is clean?

I hope you understand my questions. Thank you so much!!

 

[Aiken Drum]

What do you mean by dirty? Are you saying the water has stuff floating about in it? Or the water is coloured? Or are you saying the water parameters are poor?

Im not saying to do several water changes per hour. Im saying do several water changes an hour or 2 apart. Change 25% of the water, then 2 hours later change another 25%. If that's too much work, do 25% water change every day for a week, after that return to a weekly water change. Treat each water change separately. Add dechlorinator with every water change.

 

[Colin_T]

Tap water should be free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.
Fill a bucket with tap water and add enough dechlorinator to neutralise any chlorine/ chloramine in that bucket of water. Add an airstone and let the water and dechlorinator mix while you gravel clean and drain some water out of the tank. Then top the aquarium up with the bucket of dechlorinated water.

You should contact your water supply company (by phone or website) and see if they add chlorine or chloramine. They get treated slightly differently, usually a single dose for chlorine and a double dose for chloramine.

If you under-dose with dechlorinator, you can kill the fish. If you add straight tap water to an aquarium containing livestock, and that water has chlorine or chloramine in, you can kill the fish. It only takes a few seconds of exposure to chlorine or chloramine to burn the gills on fish and then they suffocate to death. The chlorine also gets into their bloodstream and destroys them internally.

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If the tank hasn't had a water change for a month or more, then do a 10% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. Then do a 20% water change and gravel clean every day for a week. Then do a 30% water change and gravel clean every day for a week. Then do a 50-75% water change and gravel clean once a week.

If you did a big water change and the tank is still dirty, wait at least a couple of days (preferably a week) and do a smaller water change and gravel clean. But wait a few days because you harmed the fish with the chlorine/ chloramine in the tap water and doing another water change now can push them over the edge and kill the remaining fish.

 

[AlbanyFishGuy]

Thank you so much for your quick response and advice. I will start adding dechlorinator before I add water back into my tank. I do have a question thought I want to clarify if you don't mind..

My tank is still quite dirty and you suggested that I do smaller water changes to get it where I want it to be cleanliness wise. You said several very hour or two apart.

If I were to do several every hour, would I need to know initially how much water I was going to take out I order to add the proper amount of dechlorinator? I don't want to poison my fish... also is a water change thay frequent going to stress out my fish?

And for two apart, could that mean a few days apart? So for example, I let them rest today since I did a drastic water change last night and then I wait a few days to do a smaller water change and then keep doing that until my tank is clean?

I hope you understand my questions. Thank you so much!!

You could put the water in a bucket and then treat it. Then you can add a little at a time as you please

 

[AlbanyFishGuy]

You could put the water in a bucket and then treat it. Then you can add a little at a time as you please

Not the same water multiple days tho. I mean you can fill a bucket, treat it and then over a cpl hours add a little in. If youre worried about adding too much at once that is. I usually do a 25% weekly. I fill two buckets, treat the water. Then i remove water and waste. Clean algae if needed and then add the new water in. Easy peasy