[AquaticLife] tank cleaning?
Depends on what kind of fish you have and how many. With my Africans from Malawi (no plants, large fish load), I do a 50% weekly change which is sufficient to keep the nitrates at or under 20ppm. Since I have well water that matches my tank water exactly, I can change 90% if necessary to keep the nitrates down.
My Tanganyika tank is planted so I have virtually no nitrates. The fishload is also small in this tank. But I still do a 50% weekly change.
Try to determine where the contaminants are coming from. Are you feeding too much? Is your fishload too large? In addition to the fish mentioned (goldfish, Oscars) Pleco’s are notorious for generating a large volume of waste per fish.
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From: AquaticLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:AquaticLife@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Rob DeSanno Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2008 7:48 AM To: AquaticLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [AquaticLife] tank cleaning?
This is a GREAT thread because i’m new to this as well and had the same exact question as Shari. I’ve been doing a 40% water change on my 55g tank every week, via vacuuming the gravel, but it seems like i’m sucking out more water than contaminates. Either that, or my tank is noticeably nasty. Right now i’m trying to deal with a semi-high nitrate level that i’m having a hard time controlling and was hoping this thread would show me where I am going wrong with cleaning my tank.
I guess what i’m curious to read is how everyone does small water changes and still have their levels as normal? Steve, how do you keep your gravel clean with a 5% water change? Is there some tricks you can suggest to help me out trying to keep mine clean? Are plants the key?
On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 12:28 AM, Steve Szabo com> wrote:
> There are a lot of variables in there to consider when determining how > much water should be changed. When I was keeping and raising > _Julidochromis transcriptus_ they would get no more than a 5% water > change because any change in water parameters was tough on that fish. If > you have a tank at or over its limits for fish, a 50% change would not > be out of line. Same if you have “dirty” fish like goldfish or Oscars in > a tank or several smaller changes during the course of a week. Fry tanks > need many water changes during a week to allow for maximum growth and > cleanliness. > > A 10% change is a good number to aim at since it does not radically > change water parameters, and in a proper tank without too many fish (my > tanks may seem to be sparsely populated compared to others I have seen) > it is sufficient to remove enough nitrates, hormones and other DOCs to > maintain good water quality. > > > \Steve// >
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Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
