Water Changes...

I do about 5% to 8% a week water change. My total gallons is about 850 and bioload is 6 -1yr old RTGs and about 30 discus ranging from 6" to 3". I am from Regina SK and water here is very hard, almost all homes here uses a water softener. I don't use softened/salted water though, I use direct hard tap water. PH is also very high somewhere in the range of 9!! I don't even bother adding any conditioner, that's going to be expensive on an 850 g.
 
5-8% don't seem that much of a wc for such a heavy bioload. But then again, 850gallons is one heck of a tank to wc. May I ask what is your filtration system. And you know I am dying to see some pictures (of the tank and the filtration system as well).
 
EKen said:
5-8% don't seem that much of a wc for such a heavy bioload. But then again, 850gallons is one heck of a tank to wc. May I ask what is your filtration system. And you know I am dying to see some pictures (of the tank and the filtration system as well).
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Maybe I got that gallons a little out it's probably about 700 only. It's a hard to calculate my gallons with all the styrofoam rock background in the main tank. But I change about 20 gallons of water a week. I posted pics of my tank in the gallery section and will be opening a thread on my filtration later.
 
EKen said:
5-8% don't seem that much of a wc for such a heavy bioload. But then again, 850gallons is one heck of a tank to wc. May I ask what is your filtration system. And you know I am dying to see some pictures (of the tank and the filtration system as well).
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If you read his posts on MFK, you will be worry free for his water. He is that much experienced.
 
I used to do 20% WC per week, then moved to 10-15% every 4 days but it depends how lazy I am or how dirty my tank is. Tap water directly with conditioner btw.

I noticed that every time I do a WC, my RTG was hungrier than before the WC. Anyone noticed that too??
 
Water Changes is very important

Basically,water is important! the biological load will prevent the arowana from growth problem free.
my tank is 100 gallon, and not the min 180 gallon required for the arowana, so I have to carry out frequent water changes. I change about 25%-30% weekly and it does make the arowana appeite grow? especially for live blood worms.

:):):)
 
I used to do water change once every 3-4 months when I kept Silvers... I don't want to gamble that way anymore with Asians.
 
for me with water changes i dump the water out then dose the whole tank with seachem prime then fill the tank back up from the tap

the temp does drop abit from 86 down to 78 in the winter and 86 down to 84 in the summer

never had any problems and the rays used to breed as the new water was added

no matter how good your filteration is you will still get high nitrates and the only efective way to remove them is water changes
 
yaeh water change is a good thing, but how come i'm still getting high nitrate when i do 25% wc every week with RO water. I also run 2 fx5 and 1 2028 for a 220g tank.
 
h.l_nathan said:
yaeh water change is a good thing, but how come i'm still getting high nitrate when i do 25% wc every week with RO water. I also run 2 fx5 and 1 2028 for a 220g tank.
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High nitrates are something that are part of keeping big fish i do 2 x 25% water changes per week and still my nitrates are 100ppm it cant be that bad for the fish as my rays bred in that nitrate

their are a few diffrent options for high nitrates plants being one of them but thats not an option for me as the rays will rip them up in a few mins

you can use a nitrate reactor i had an expencive shuran one running on my tank and the are not that great you have 2 ways of setting up the nitrate reactor 1 is with sulpha beads this doesnt work that well and it makes the PH drop
the other way to set it up is fill the reactor with siporex and feed it with alchol this method is ment to be better but i cant be bother to feed it every day/week

the way i look at it is if you have high nitrates then your filter are working fine as nitrates are the last part of the cycle :D

i have never use RO water as i find it pointless taking all the stuff out of the water just to add new stuff

if you have amonia or nitrie then you have filter problems
 
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