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Re: Why am I changing so much water?



Well, I, for one, have not done a water change on any of my three tanks (a
ten gallon gf, with a whisper 3, a 25 gal community, with a emperor(the
smaller model) and a 45 gal tank with 2 oscars, which has an aq300 and a
fluval 203).  They all stay at nil in the ammonia dept, and my fish are all
going swimingly.  I do do top offs, which replenish trace elements, whenever
evaporation has lowered the water level too much.

So, why do we change water? Well, in the beginning, getting a tank started,
I think that it is more important, to help control ammonia spikes, algea,
etc., however I really can't warrent it with my tanks.

        Simon Frank

> Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 07:58:12 -0600
> From: Rod Hanks <rhanks at benchbuilt_com>
> Subject: Why am I changing so much water?
>
> I don't want to start a religious war, but I have an honest
> question.  Why am I changing so much water every week?
>
> I'm not doing it to remove nitrates (the way I would in any
> non-plant tank).  I need to ADD more nitrates.  The nitrate
> levels (ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate) are never detectable.
>
> I'm not doing it to replace the buffer capacity.  The local
> water has 8 degrees of KH and even 30-40 ppm of CO2
> won't take it down to 7.0PH.  I wouldn't mind LOOSING
> some buffer capacity.
>
> I'm adding trace elements every day.
>
> I could guess that I am trying to remove proteins, pheromones,
> or other metabolites from the fish (or even from the plants),
> or that I am trying to replace some trace elements that are not
> in my mix (currently using Leaf Zone, and Red Sea's Flora Fe
> and Flora Vit)
>
> Does anybody actually know?  I get the impression we just
> do it from habit, because everything says to do it, or maybe
> because we have some experience where we stopped doing
> it and bad things happened.  If so, I wouldn't mind hearing
> about those.
>
> Thanks,
> Rod