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Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V4 #1707



On Wednesday 20 March 2002 13:48, Dom wrote:

> A question about water changes.  Why are they necessary (if they are
> necessary).

Water changes are a way of keeping things from building up in the aquarium.  
"Things that might build up" covers a wide range of chemicals, including any 
chemical that we add to the water on a regular basis and any organic 
chemicals that might be generated in the tank.  The first group would include 
fertilizers, many of which can be toxic if they build up to sufficient 
concentrations.  The latter group includes allelochemicals or othe chemicals 
released by the plants and possibly any sort of toxin, enzyme or hormone 
released by the fish and or invertebrates in the tank.

I've read in ecological literature that healthy terrestrial plant communities 
may lose 10% of their primary production as exhudates produced for a variety 
of reasons.  If aquatic plants do the same thing then that behavior could 
lead pretty quickly to a lot of "stuff" in aquarium water.

People have demonstrated over and over that you don't have to do water 
changes on a regular basis to have fairly healthy-looking plants and fish.  I 
can't recommend to anyone that they should do that.

Roger Miller