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weisswasser
Crustaforum-Team
Age: 29
Joined: 23 Jan 2006
Posts: 59
Location: Sasbachwalden
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Waterchanges. How much and how often?
People keep asking me over and over again: "How often and how much water do I have to change?"
It’s a question which cannot be answered by a single sentence. That’s because it depends on too many factors. Then again a proper waterchange decides over success or failure in keeping invertebrates as well as freshwater fish.
Now why ist that?
All creatures living in your tank will feed and in return give excrements and urine into the water. Freshwater fish for example produce seven times their body volume of urine a day. Your filter system though will only filtrate firm particles out of the water which again will decay by times. Urine though will not be out-filtered.
The accruing excrements in your tank disintegrate pretty fast, so they’ll become too fine for the filter system to hold them back. Therefore every tank will automatically turn into a cesspit sooner or later. Again, this liquid manure though is a good culture medium for bacteria, fungus and algae.
Needful tank bacteria are actually only those who convert ammonia and nitrite into nitrate. All the others are more likely harmful to both fish and invertebrates. They damage the skin which leads to secondary diseases. In the past, enough people had already lost their entire fish or shrimp stock due to an explosive increase of bacteria or fungus infestation.
It’s basically to say that sufficient waterchanges need to be done. That’ll also go conform with the often used saying: “The best filter will always be the waterchanging-bucket of each aquarist.”
Unfortunatly, to some, frequent waterchanges seem to be infeasible or simply too expensive. Therefore we need to keep some deliberations in mind to get some suitable solution.
For example:
You have measured a nitrate level of 70mg/l although you are aware of a maximum of 20mg/l.
Then, what is the profit of doing a 10% waterchange?
Assuming the tap water is free of nitrate (which is most commonly the case), we would still have 63mg/l of nitrate after changing the water. So we don’t even need to go on imagining what will happen to your tank when only 10% of the aquarian water will be changed each week. For sure it’ll get constantly nastier.
If we had done a 75% waterchange straight from the outset we would be in a safe range due to the remaining 15,7mg/l. Those of you who do not have the metrological possibilities to examine the tank water on pollution need to revert on frequent and heavyset waterchanges. You’ll be safe on a 50% waterchange done weekly as long as your tank isn’t overpopulated.
Using a conductance instrument will easen up the determination whenever water needs to be changed.
Organic substances dissolving in water will lead to an increase of the conductance. Just do as follows:
After tank setup or after a 100% waterchange, measure the conductance. Note down that value on some memory pad and stick it onto your tank (some place where it won’t bother sight). Now measure the conductance every week and as soon as it rises upto 15%, do a 50% waterchange. A subsequent checkup will be an asset.
This procedure has emerged to be very efficient. On the one hand you won’t do to many unnecessary waterchanges and on the other, changes will be done just in time. A simple way to have an immediate review.
So, it’ll sure be worth to once spend some money on a conductance instrument.
written by Siegfried Niemeyer www.garnelenaquarium.de – german version: http://www.garnelenforum.de/ftopic2287.html
translated by Claudine ~ weisswasser |
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Kind regards,
Claudine |
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