Re:More musing on water change.

[Dennis W Heltzel <dheltzel at ccil_org>]

I'll certainly add my agreement to this thread. I'm fortunate to have a
well that produces nice, moderately soft, non-chlorinated water. All I
have to adjust is temperature. When the temps match, I often do 80-90%
water changes. The fish seem to like it a lot.

That said, my plants seem to prefer fewer water changes and I try to
balance that out in tanks that have more plants than fish (volume wise). I
am partial to a tank that is just choked with plants (java moss and fern +
various floating plants) and the fish seem very happy in a tank like this
even if the water changes are less frequent. I've even started taking the
sponge filters from these tanks and just leaving in a airstone to provide
some circulation. The tanks are not overloaded with fish, but I tend to
feed heavily. This kind of tank is (somewhat) lower maintenance, but the
main reason I try to keep this equilibrium going is because it looks nice
and it "feels" right to me.

I have trouble achieving this kind of equilibrium "on demand", some tanks
just don't seem to quite get there, and over time, some of the successful
tanks degenerate. The tanks that don't get the great plant growth are the
ones I focus the water changes on, though even the planted tanks get large
water changes periodically.

None of this should deter anyone from doing and recommending massive water
changes (where safe), but I think there is a measure of subjectivety here.
I often violate "the rules" in ways that I would never condone or
recommend to others (especially beginners). Occasionally it due to
laziness, and the fish suffer :(, but more often it's because I understand
my tanks and fish enough to appreciate the mitigating circumstances that
allow me to get away with things that other people might not. Likewise,
there are rules that I always follow because otherwise disaster strikes.

I'll end this post with the statement that I believe that the #1 cause of
problems with aquariums is inadequate water changes.

Dennis


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