How many water changes?

[goldenpuon]

I'm wondering if I am doing more water chnages than I need to. Plus I keep my tanks super, clean.

For my 4 gallon guppy dry tank that has about 20 week old guppies in it, I do 40-50% water chnages twice a week plus I siphon. Also for my 2 1/2 gallon with abou 10 guppy fry in it.

For the guppies that are almost adults, I do about 50% a week plus siphon if it needs it. My adult guppy tank has about guppies. I will be splitting up the males and females as soon as I get a hydro sponge filter for the 5 gallon I have running now with no fish. Then I will not get so many babies.

For the 10 gallon with 2 goldfish and 40 gallon with 8 goldfish, I do 25% once a week plus vaccum/clean the filter if it is needed.

For the bettas, (I have about 6-7 female bettas each of the 4 gallons I have for them, I am currently trying to sell 5), I do 50% water changes once a week and siphon if needed.

For the males in the 1 gallons, I do 30% weekly and when their gallon conatiners start to get dirty, I change 75% to get all the waste out which is about every other week.

Please let me know your opinion of my water change routine.
It's a lot of work. I don't want to overdo it but then again, a lot of my tanks are overstocked so they probably need more.

Thanks!

Renee

[Carl]

This is subjective question as it would be honestly difficult to give your a clear answer.
On the surface it seems a bit extreme, HOWEVER only you can determine this based on your water parameters, especially those that I find are the best indicators of whether or not a water change needs to be performed and how much such as:
*Nitrates (if climbing)
*GH & KH (if they are falling)
*Redox (this is an expensive test for most aquarists to perform, since a Redox Meter runs over $200, but I would be lax in not mentioning this since it is a very good indicator of water quality in itself).

As well your bio loads, type of fish and filtration (or lack there of) are determining factors:

Aquarium Cleaning


Carl

[goldenpuon]

Well, the parameters are always good when I do the water changes. For the guppies, I change their water twice a week not to bring down levels but to speed their growth All my guppies and female bettas have Hydro sponge filters and heaters. The male bettas don't have heaters or filters.

The goldfish in the 10 have a HOB whisper filter and a bubbler.

The goldfish in the 40 have a Hydro sponge 1 filter and a 40 gallon Whisper.

The only parameter I seem to have trouble with is PH because my tap water has a low PH. I always add SeaChem Marine Buffer to get it up and keep it steady as well as KH and GH. Most of my tanks are a bit overstocked. Is there is anything you recommend with water changes, please let me know. This many water changes and cleaning take up a lot of time. I would love it if I could get away with a little less cleaning.

Thanks!

[goldenpuon]

I just watched the 2 videos about siphoning and read the article you provided a link to. It pretty helpful. However, what I use to siphon with tanks under 10 gallons is airline tubing and a so-so gravel vaccum for bigger that isn't very good compared to what you have. I also noticed that my tanks are about 200% cleaner than the one you were siphoning in the demo (no offense of course).
I just hope I'm not overcleaning my tanks.

[Carl]

You do not need to over clean an aquarium that has a healthy nitrifying and de-nitrifying bed (which is part of what is generally called the German Method").

As you noted your aquarium is 200% cleaner, however what you see is plant grower soil which is fine and as well this is typical in a planted aquarium.

Here is a quote from the article:
"This point is often lost by some aquarists (based on some comments I have read including on my YouTube cleaning video). In fact in a planted aquarium it is NORMAL to have very dirty appearing gravel when vacuumed, but one should not expect or try and achieve gravel appears relatively cleaned when vacuumed as this is not necessarily an indicator of tank healthy and in fact by trying to achieve this you end up with poor substrate nutrient levels for your plants and poor de-nitrification resulting in high nitrates."

My point is that your water parameters are a better indicator of water quality. Since you noted that you have to add buffer regularly that CAN be an indicator that you need to do the water changes you already perform,
Where as the demo aquarium, even though filled with low ph (6.6) and low KH (40 ppm) tends to maintain a pH of 7.2- 7.4 and a KH of about 60-80 with small regular/weekly or bi-weekly water changes (including some daily skimming) as well as occasional Cichlid salt and Wonder Shells (the wonder shells do little for KH anyway)

Your question is a good one though, as it allows me to make better points and fine tune the article, especially since aquarium cleaning itself has so many variables as to when, how, and how big; the only constant is why.

Carl

[kagome]

Renee,

I know you were hoping for a little less work but I think that given the number and kinds of fish that you have that what you are doing is right on the money. My grandfather raised guppies as a side business for twenty years and he had a cleaning schedule very similar to yours. He also constantly had containers of water that sat out to "age" and then took out at least one gallon a day from each tank and replaced it with aged water and used the water he took out of the tanks to water his vegetables. He also did the siphoning and vacuuming on the same schedule you do. Given his totally awesome results and the fact that you also have very healthy fish I would tend to say that unfortunately your work load should probably stay about the same. I also think that if you were truly over cleaning you would see adverse reactions in your fish.

[Carl]

Well put kagome

Carl

[goldenpuon]

Thanks. It was just at first when I started keeping fish, I overcleaned and they died but I know with healthy fish, overcleaning can take a while to affect them like anything else. But I'll continue. Afterall, what would my house be like if the dishwasher wasn' running very night 1/2 full of tuperware I use to transport fish, do water changes, etc. My mom would surely miss that. :PXD