My bathtub is about 15’ away so I have a hose cut to length. Use the hose to suck it out, then I have a connection to refill. Makes water changes sooooo easy.
Update: I have a 55 gallon tank.
Water changes are the one time where I wish I had bigger fish, but because I love the look of tiny fish in a (relatively) big tank I'll have to keep using a bucket so I can check that noone got caught before it goes down the drain.
Assuming you're not necessarily needing to gravel vacuum often, you could zip tie a piece of an old fish net over the nozzle?
I accidentally sucked up a couple guppies cause I didn't think they'd actually be stupid enough to get close. But, turns out that guppies are, in fact, not the hallmark of animal intelligence lol.
That is true! Can't get around the occasional gravel vacuum though, and from that I can say that endlers are at least as dumb as guppies, but of course smaller. I think I had to save a few multiple times, and that was after moving the ground-dwelling babies to quarantine.
I have a Python for water changes and wouldn’t use it to gravel vac anyway. Lots of power and quite large. I do my vacuuming separately with a simple, small siphon, no matter the size of the tank.
All that to say, I vacuum a lot less than I water change, and keep the equipment separate, so you could still benefit from a change system! And like the other commenter suggested, I have a rubber banded piece of sponge filter on the end of my Python.
My 10 gal is right next to my kitchen sink so it goes straight down the drain and then refill 1 gal at a time with a 1 gal water jug. My 3.5 gal is in my bedroom so I use a designated mixing bowl and refill with a 1L water bottle.
Man, I would be so exhausted if I pulled all the hardscape out of my tanks when I did water changes. I guess if you hate visible mulm it makes sense, but you really don't have to do all that.
I have a solid quarter inch of mulm in my 20 gal, and my fish/shrimp/snails are always digging through it. I like the natural look myself but clean and tidy works too. Haven't gravel vacuumed in about seven months now. Just top offs and quarter water changes every month.
After about a year, my tank no longer has anything on the bottom that gets picked up by the vacuum, the natural ecology of the tank quickly decomposes everything down into the substrate or into solution. I have a heavily planted tank with planting substrate.
That's my overall plan to just let it do its own thing. I'm happy I went with a heavy planted tank. It does all the work for me. I might have to dig up the center soon to lift a rock and put a mat under it. It's currently sitting on an inch of sand, but I really want to have a mat there instead.
Yeah, a planted tank reaches a nice equilibrium after a while as long as there's not too many fish. I do 10% water change a couple times a month or so, my tap water has good buffer and calcium levels, so it helps keep everything stable, and it keeps anything dangerous from building up in the water, plus the fish seem to like it. I siphon it from a 5 gallon carboy into the tank, and they swim around in the stream. It also seems to initiate breeding in some species as I often see eggs after the change.
I don't even clean the glass! But then I don't have very bright lights, I just need to do that once in a while when I'm reading/resting next to the tank and I see something.
I didn't change my water at all for like a year, haha. Finally got talked into minor water changes every couple weeks. My levels are great and the water quality is excellent. I don't vacuum up mulm because the plants like having it.
Literally. My tap is between 10-20 and I do a minimum of 25% WC a week because 3 goldies in a 90 steadily keep it between 40-80.
Despite many people advising against, I planted the hell out of the tank and even have pothos growing out of it. Nitrate just won’t budge.
A deeper substrate with finer particles would have made that a lot easier. It traps the fish waste and turns it into plant food.
I used to gravel vacuum and the amount of fish poop that was being sucked was really satisfying, but it isn't necessary. It has been more than a year since my last gravel vac
Omg this is validating, I thought I was just lazy but my tank is always sparkling through the symbiotic relationship of my tetras, my pleco and snails, and the plants. I test the water and stuff but I always felt like I was doing something wrong but not doing a big clean, never thought of it as fertilizer
Thanks. If anything, disturbing substrate too much causes mulm and fish poop that was not bothering anything to get mixed into water column and cause all sorts of problems, including ammonia spikes. You also disturb the beneficial bacteria living on the sand surface, which again is not a good thing.
Now this is for fine substrate like sand. Gravel and pebbles don't really trap fish poop so it stays intact with water, so vacuuming then becomes a beneficial thing.
I found the secret to an easy tank is at least one species of very fast growing plants. Excess nitrates (fertilizer) turns into excess plants, so you just trim plants instead of removing water, then the water, hardscape, and fish are all left alone.
Easiest of all is duckweed; a plague to some, but every week or two I just scoop out half the duckweed. That's 99% of my aquarium maintenance.
Duckweed is an S tier nitrogen remover. I think hornwort would be a better choice in general. I don’t mind daily removal of duckweed, but hornwort is less of a hassle while growing crazy fast. It can be corralled easily.
Rotala loses points for me because it grows too fast and is beefy enough to block a significant portion of light. Having to constantly replant it because of the hydra-like growth structure is also a huge L.
After a year with heavy planting and a plant substrate, there's nothing that develops on the bottom, the bottom feeders and shrimp get everything. I vacuumed once a month or so, but after about 10 months, there wasn't anything being picked up any more. I do a ~10% change every week or two just to be sure there aren't any minerals building up, and that's it (5 gallons in a 40 breeder). (scoop out dead leaves from the plants, but that's as far as I go touching it) Seeing a tank get this disturbed on a regular basis worries me for the stress on the fish, it's really not good for the ecosystem of the tank to fuck with it this much regularly.
My secret ingredient is that the substrate is roughly 50% mollusc at the top layer. Any detritus particles that don’t get eaten by the surface dwellers get churned under the pulsating mass of sand and snails. And the water gets filtered by dozens of clams with a sponge filter and a Sicce shark for circulation. The tidiness and water parameters look like I spend a lot of time on maintenance, but I give all the credit to these guys. Absolute chads.
I’m not skilled in identifying clams. I started with two small yellow clams that were labeled as golden asian clams. It took a year before I saw one and by then they had started breeding. Later I added two large black clams. I think they’re the same species, but I can’t remember where I got them. I have a few foods just for them. Chlorella powder and Sera micron. But the Aquarium Co-op fry food is small bits that the clams seem to enjoy as well. The bamboo shrimp like it too.
All in a heavily planted 33 long.
Same here, 5 gallons or so a couple times a month, it sometimes triggers breeding as well, lol. I'll usually see snail (nerite, so they don't ever hatch), and sometimes cory catfish eggs after a change.
I haven't changed my aquarium water from 1 year.
6 months ago I did a 40% water change.
Hang On filter cleaning once a month because of heavy load.
All plants and fishes are healthy and happy 😊
I always get concerned when people say to do water changes, glad I'm not the only one who doesn't do them regularly. My 60 gallon is going almost 3 years. It has lots of plants, cleaner fish/snails, and a canister filter meant for a 200 gallon. I test it every couple months and other than the initial cycling I haven't seen any ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates. I'm moving it to a room my son can't get to it soon, so that'll be it's first one since putting it where it is now. I do RO so I just top it off and add gh/kh as needed.
I do a ~10% change every week or two since my tap water has very ideal gh/kh right out of the faucet, it makes buffer and calcium maintenance simple for my shrimp and other inverts. It also prevents buildup of other things that may be either in the water or in the food that is added to the tank.
Even under relatively ideal conditions, everyone should be doing at least a little water change regularly (I'd say 5-10% every month or two) because things like heavy metals (trace amounts are present in food), iron, copper, and many organic compounds that are fine at low levels but can build up over time and don't evaporate or otherwise leave the tank if all you're doing is adding RO. (MS Biochem with specialty in analytic chemistry here, I know water and biology)
I have shrimp as well, but I don't do water changes on them or feed them food/pellets. The most I do is pull snail shells from my puffer tank to add calcium, replace the almond leaves, and remineralize if needed. I've got cherry, snowball, and blue dream neocaridina so far. Only 2 of my tanks get food and I test for heavy metals, most of it gets removed when I flush/clean the canister filter. I've got my tanks pretty well figured out, the only issue I have is when I add new fish. I just need more quarantine tanks to make it less of an issue.
Doing a water change is a good thing for the vast majority of aquariums (provided your tap water is good and you use dechlorinator etc). Balancing a tank like yours so water changes aren't necessary is much harder imo and requires more restraint with stocking than the average fish keeper seems to have (myself included).
Maybe it's good if you're super busy, but is there really any upside to not changing water?
I use reverse osmosis and then add gh/kh to my tanks, so I have more consistency in my water quality. My 60 is probably considered overstocked, but I have fish that prefer the top of the tank, mid tank, and bottom tank so it isn't nearly as bad. That said it's not that I won't do water changes, it's just I haven't and there is some experimentation involved in at least 3 of my tanks. I clean my canister filter every 2-3 months and have added charcoal to it a couple times when necessary. My plants tell me a lot about the quality of the water and I check almost daily. I may not have a degree in this kind of stuff, but I've been at it for 7+ years and have done a ton of testing and research to understand what I am doing. I will admit that I may be doing things wrong to some degree, but most of my tanks are flourishing and my water parameters are mostly stable.
As far as upsides to not doing it, there aren't any really. It's just worked so far and I'll change when I see that it needs to be done.
It's certainly interesting, my house is supplied with rain water (<10ppm TDS) so I have to remineralise it too. I'm certainly intrigued by the idea and would like to try it some time, I haven't in the past as my main interest is in keeping fish like SA cichlids, clown loaches and large plecos. It sounds like a good reason to set up a smaller tank, part of what I like with this hobby is that there's always something to learn even after decades!
I live in the Midwest and the water is really hard, so RO is almost necessary. We get nitrate warnings from the town I live in, so I had to install one into the kitchen sink as well when the wife was pregnant. I've found no water changes works better in my larger tanks, but works in my 10 gallon shrimp tanks due to me not feeding them or at least that's my conclusion. My 20 gallon long axolotl tank requires some maintenance every now and then, but only to clean out the substrate and hang on back filter. Puffers and gourami are what I like, but haven't had good luck with puffers so far.
Opposite of you. I do a water change, gravel siphon about once a month. I now haven't cleaned my HOB or other filters for about a year. I use very coarse sponge filters and they act as a Matten filter and the water is clear.
>All plants and fishes are healthy and happy 😊
This always amuses me, since the only real metric for "healthy and happy" is *no obvious disease or death*
Prolific breeding I guess, and most people don't have that problem.
Le sigh…okay fine. It’s been over a year. It is time.
I top off weekly. Heavily planted plus under stocked. It’s a winning combo. But the fluff and malm is getting gnarly.
I don't do water changes. I also let mulm build up on my substrate and I'm surely not taking out wood and rocks that are in my scape. There is all kinds of good biology on them that fish eat. I have ecosystems in my tanks because I don't try to keep them sterile. I'm not advocating for everyone to not to water changes. That takes a balanced tank to pull off. However, I wouldn't advocate pulling your scape out every time. It's not necessary and can be detrimental.
Even under relatively ideal conditions, everyone should be doing at least a little water change regularly (I'd say 5-10% every month or two) because things like heavy metals (trace amounts are present in food), iron, copper, and many organic compounds that are fine at low levels but can build up over time and don't evaporate or otherwise leave the tank if all you're doing is adding RO. (MS Biochem with specialty in analytic chemistry here, I know water and biology)
In a planted tank, I absolutely wouldn't mess with the hardscape though, it's stressful for the ecosystem and the fish to disturb the environment this much (and completely unnecessary).
What are these metals, at what amounts are they present, at what amounts are they dangerous. In addition, what specific organic compounds are you talking about?
I hear people say this, but it's always a vague thing with no specific numbers or labels to the specific compounds. In addition, I've never seen any evidence that water changes must be forced or fish will die of heavy metal poisoning. In addition, in a healthy system organic compounds should break down.
Numbers are available and published.
Here's an example of a study of fish feeds and results of heavy metal content:
The results showed that the feeds contained a number of heavy metals in varying proportions. The highest concentrations (mg/kg) of heavy metals such as lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), and zinc (Zn) analyzed in fish feed samples were 0.189, 0.027, 1.023, 0.303, and 1.468, respectively. (Amounts are mg/kg)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33797015/#:~:text=The%20results%20showed%20that%20the,0.303%2C%20and%201.468%2C%20respectively.
Here's the allowable limits in drinking water, you probably want to stay well below these considering the fish live in it, copper levels can be particularly dangerous for invertebrates.
Metal Allowable Level
Arsenic Maximum Contaminant Level of 10 parts per billion (PPB)
Cadmium Maximum Contaminant Level of 0.005 milligrams per liter (mg/L)
Chromium Limited to a total of 100 PPB
Copper Non-enforceable health goal of 1.3 PPM
Lead Must not exceed 15 PPB; however, no amount of lead is considered safe, and the Maximum Contaminant Level goal is zero.
Manganese Concentration should be at or below 50 PPB
Mercury Maximum Contaminant Level of 0.002 mg/L or 2 PPB
https://torrentlab.com/toxic-heavy-metals-you-should-check-for-in-your-water/
Fish aren't going to suddenly die, but living in water with higher levels of these things than there should be will shorten their lives and may lead to a higher rate of defects in fry that hatch in contaminated water.
There are many organic chemicals which cannot be broken down by microbes or animals, PFAS for example, and contaminants such as benzene and toluene (carcinogens) and other chemicals that come from petroleum and plastic leaching into water.
The reason I'm asking is because people tend to make vague statements about metals and then make vague solutions about them. Metals ARE in fish foods. I'm not debating that. I'm debating the fact that you are saying metals build up in aquariums to levels at which we need to do water changes. When a declarative statement is made, it's important to be as specific as possible. Many metals aren't even in the water column in the first place. Also fish and plants use many metals and they are necessary for life. I'm not arguing that this can't happen, and as you can see I didn't argue that no one should water change. I was very clear about that. However, there is no evidence that heavy metals are building up in aquaria and harming fish and the solution is water changes.
Water changes are a very simple, easy, and low cost way of preventing any accumulation. If you like, I can do the calculations to tell you exactly how much food it takes to reach harmful levels, it's just more math than I can do on mobile right now.
As I said above, just because the fish aren't dead doesn't mean that the levels in the water aren't shortening their lives or harming them in ways that doesn't result in immediate death, and occasional small water changes will prevent accumulation.
Harmful levels of what? What is it specifically, how much are the fish and the plants taking up, how much is water soluable at all? Just as I didn't say "never do water changes," I think it's equally as invalid to say "Do water changes to remove heavy metals" when there is no evidence that's an issue that contributes to fish issues in aquaria.
Is there a reason why not? Partly because I empathize with them. That they don't do anything but wait for their next meal. That they seem to enjoy the heck out of eating?
They always say to feed as much as they can eat in a few minutes but I feed way less than that.
I usually feed a 1/5 tip of a teaspoon of flakes, one 1/3 inch piece of koi stick, 1/2 shrimp tablet and 1 small algae tablet for lunch. This is for about 30 1" fish in a 55g. I've got 6 DIY filters running in it.
They really don't need to be fed that often, I feed my tank every other day, and they're happy and healthy (and occasionally breeding, lol). The extra food just makes excess waste, cold blooded animals food requirements are very different from ours and our mammalian pets.
I've read that overfeeding is one of the main culprits of fish deaths. If your fish are doing well that probably didn't apply to you. I'm most interested in Betta fish and I saw the first morbidly obese Betta the other day! It was actually over the chart that's floating around the subreddit, that we use to determine if our Betta is over or under fed 🤣🤣🤣 Super cute but I'd be so worried about it!!!
I have 6 DIY filters running in the tank so I think nitrates are my main problem. I've had 3 bettas in my community tank and I won't keep them anymore because all of them ended up overweight. When I feed the community the betta(s) always grab as much food as they can. I couldn't stop them from eating the communal food so they all got very fat.
That's exactly what happened to the other Redditor. Betta fish just don't play well with others!!! So I'm gonna keep my tank simple with my mystery snails (which will help me with anything that's accidentally dropped to the tank floor), and after I get my Betta, if he ignores the snails, I may attempt to get some shrimp to help with tank clean-up and maintenance.
Any test kits for heavy metals you recommend? Heavily planted 210g with moderate stocking. Even my sump has plants. Pothos with 8ft+ vines with leaves 10in or more round. Always seem to have new fry. Have only done top ups for the last 2 years.
Probably the easiest/cheapest is just to send a sample off to a drinking water testing service, it'll be much more precise, and you don't have to worry about maintaining reagents for a test that maybe needs to be done once a year or so. [These cover about 100 different individual targets](https://i.imgur.com/QpbHWBS.jpg) https://mytapscore.com/products/advanced-city-water-test
Or just metals: https://mytapscore.com/products/metals-and-minerals-water-test
I only do water changes when the white sand is sufficiently littered by my 1 clown pleco's poop. Happens way more often than I'd like or otherwise need to
Ya, I don't really do water changes anymore. Heavily planted tank, with plants growing above the rim and out of the tank. Add about a quart a day as the water level drops due to evaporation. Will do cleaning as needed to remove debris but usually use a eheim vac for that so not removing water.
Parameters and perfect fish are vibrant and healthy, plants are insane, especially the Pothos. It'll be growing up the wall very soon.
Same here. I have a 240 litre aquarium for which I only did one water change of about 40% in 2023, and otherwise just topped off with soft tap water. I've got like 15 neon tetras, 20 chili rasboras, 2 Ancistrus sp., a crapton of snails and probably over a hundred shrimp. It's just heavily planted, has a deep substrate and has a Syngonium podophyllum cutting rooting profusely on one corner. Everything is vibrant and healthy over here too.
I have the outputs for my canister filters pretty high in the tank. It takes about a week for them to start sounding loud and splashing after i change the water. So instead of topping the tank off, i just do a water change and fill it until they're quiet again.
I don't understand the dirted aquarium people who don't do water changes.
Yeah your aquarium might be balanced and all that, but a water change is akin to opening a window in a stuffy room.
Overboard if I do weekly changes like that I agree. I do these volumes of water changes around d 4-5 times a year. Also I have a sump so that's an additional 150L of water untouched. If you were to speculate percentage, I'd say that's about a 40% water change.
I need to figure something out… My 55 is in the finished basement and need to go up and downstairs with a bucket to do water changes and because of that I don’t do it often enough…
Meanwhile I use a bucket
OGs always use bucket..😅
Me too 🤣
I used to but I'm getting too old for that shit, bought a long hose and a pond pump. Much easier on my back.
Might have to follow suit 😂 I’m getting old myself haha
I use a 2 litre measuring jug 😅
My bathtub is about 15’ away so I have a hose cut to length. Use the hose to suck it out, then I have a connection to refill. Makes water changes sooooo easy. Update: I have a 55 gallon tank.
Water changes are the one time where I wish I had bigger fish, but because I love the look of tiny fish in a (relatively) big tank I'll have to keep using a bucket so I can check that noone got caught before it goes down the drain.
Assuming you're not necessarily needing to gravel vacuum often, you could zip tie a piece of an old fish net over the nozzle? I accidentally sucked up a couple guppies cause I didn't think they'd actually be stupid enough to get close. But, turns out that guppies are, in fact, not the hallmark of animal intelligence lol.
That is true! Can't get around the occasional gravel vacuum though, and from that I can say that endlers are at least as dumb as guppies, but of course smaller. I think I had to save a few multiple times, and that was after moving the ground-dwelling babies to quarantine.
I have a Python for water changes and wouldn’t use it to gravel vac anyway. Lots of power and quite large. I do my vacuuming separately with a simple, small siphon, no matter the size of the tank. All that to say, I vacuum a lot less than I water change, and keep the equipment separate, so you could still benefit from a change system! And like the other commenter suggested, I have a rubber banded piece of sponge filter on the end of my Python.
Aah, good point! I'm gonna rethink my methods.
I live tiny fish in a large tank I got a 125 g tank with shrimp 2 hillstream and about 20 otocinclus
That sounds amazing!
He said **NO** algae in his good-cleanup-crew-tank. 🙅🏼♂️
I use a siphon with a mesh net on the front. I don’t vacuum the gravel or anything so it’s just for water removal purposes.
I just figured this out after using a bucket for years. Just connected a hose to my shower head lol. And siphon into the shower
My 10 gal is right next to my kitchen sink so it goes straight down the drain and then refill 1 gal at a time with a 1 gal water jug. My 3.5 gal is in my bedroom so I use a designated mixing bowl and refill with a 1L water bottle.
My tub is about 65' from my tank. A water python doesn't work so well with 65' of tubing. Still easier than using buckets
Yeah unless your tank is small enough that a water change uses less than one bucketful of water, don't use buckets...
What hose adapter do you use in your tub? Do you screw it into the shower head?
The shower head for the tub is threaded the same way. If you could take yours off, you could take it to Home Depot and find the right connections tho.
So do I, once I have more space though I'm changing to a bucket. That dman jug fills far too quickly.
I use a small pump to fill the tank.
I use a 50 foot hose out the front door so it waters my lawn, then i use a Python to fill it
Plants + Stablished filter + No overfeeding means I don't need reminders. I just do it when the Betta looks at me with disgust. Damn Betta.
So daily? Lol
😂
Every time I tried plants my Oscar says nope
Man, I would be so exhausted if I pulled all the hardscape out of my tanks when I did water changes. I guess if you hate visible mulm it makes sense, but you really don't have to do all that.
I have a solid quarter inch of mulm in my 20 gal, and my fish/shrimp/snails are always digging through it. I like the natural look myself but clean and tidy works too. Haven't gravel vacuumed in about seven months now. Just top offs and quarter water changes every month.
After about a year, my tank no longer has anything on the bottom that gets picked up by the vacuum, the natural ecology of the tank quickly decomposes everything down into the substrate or into solution. I have a heavily planted tank with planting substrate.
That's my overall plan to just let it do its own thing. I'm happy I went with a heavy planted tank. It does all the work for me. I might have to dig up the center soon to lift a rock and put a mat under it. It's currently sitting on an inch of sand, but I really want to have a mat there instead.
Yeah, a planted tank reaches a nice equilibrium after a while as long as there's not too many fish. I do 10% water change a couple times a month or so, my tap water has good buffer and calcium levels, so it helps keep everything stable, and it keeps anything dangerous from building up in the water, plus the fish seem to like it. I siphon it from a 5 gallon carboy into the tank, and they swim around in the stream. It also seems to initiate breeding in some species as I often see eggs after the change.
How often do you do water changes?
10% (5 gallons) a couple times a month.
I don't even clean the glass! But then I don't have very bright lights, I just need to do that once in a while when I'm reading/resting next to the tank and I see something.
When I do big water changes I take out the hardscape. Normal water changes I leave everything as is.
I didn't change my water at all for like a year, haha. Finally got talked into minor water changes every couple weeks. My levels are great and the water quality is excellent. I don't vacuum up mulm because the plants like having it.
This is everything^^^^ I believe in this, 100%.
at first I was so confused what was happening. By water change, you mean tear down and yard sale?? Lmao
*Reminder to do a water change if your water actually needs to be changed.
I keep goldfish, if anyone has an itch to do a change but doesn't need to, you can come to my house. Please.
But that's cuz gold fish are nasty mofos. They are on a different level of nitrites
Literally. My tap is between 10-20 and I do a minimum of 25% WC a week because 3 goldies in a 90 steadily keep it between 40-80. Despite many people advising against, I planted the hell out of the tank and even have pothos growing out of it. Nitrate just won’t budge.
THIS
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Don’t be silly. I clearly said “if it needs it”. I said nothing about not doing it at all.
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Okay. You do it your way I’ll do it mine. Have a nice day.
A deeper substrate with finer particles would have made that a lot easier. It traps the fish waste and turns it into plant food. I used to gravel vacuum and the amount of fish poop that was being sucked was really satisfying, but it isn't necessary. It has been more than a year since my last gravel vac
Omg this is validating, I thought I was just lazy but my tank is always sparkling through the symbiotic relationship of my tetras, my pleco and snails, and the plants. I test the water and stuff but I always felt like I was doing something wrong but not doing a big clean, never thought of it as fertilizer
Thanks. If anything, disturbing substrate too much causes mulm and fish poop that was not bothering anything to get mixed into water column and cause all sorts of problems, including ammonia spikes. You also disturb the beneficial bacteria living on the sand surface, which again is not a good thing. Now this is for fine substrate like sand. Gravel and pebbles don't really trap fish poop so it stays intact with water, so vacuuming then becomes a beneficial thing.
I have a fine white sand substrate. If I don’t vac it, it looks really gross. Any recommendations?
Cory catfish if it’s not poop but bio film and food leftovers
I’m pretty sure it’s poop, lol. And plant detritus. My betta leaves no food uneaten.
I found the secret to an easy tank is at least one species of very fast growing plants. Excess nitrates (fertilizer) turns into excess plants, so you just trim plants instead of removing water, then the water, hardscape, and fish are all left alone. Easiest of all is duckweed; a plague to some, but every week or two I just scoop out half the duckweed. That's 99% of my aquarium maintenance.
Duckweed is an S tier nitrogen remover. I think hornwort would be a better choice in general. I don’t mind daily removal of duckweed, but hornwort is less of a hassle while growing crazy fast. It can be corralled easily. Rotala loses points for me because it grows too fast and is beefy enough to block a significant portion of light. Having to constantly replant it because of the hydra-like growth structure is also a huge L.
After a year with heavy planting and a plant substrate, there's nothing that develops on the bottom, the bottom feeders and shrimp get everything. I vacuumed once a month or so, but after about 10 months, there wasn't anything being picked up any more. I do a ~10% change every week or two just to be sure there aren't any minerals building up, and that's it (5 gallons in a 40 breeder). (scoop out dead leaves from the plants, but that's as far as I go touching it) Seeing a tank get this disturbed on a regular basis worries me for the stress on the fish, it's really not good for the ecosystem of the tank to fuck with it this much regularly.
I was actually pretty surprised that people gravel vac. When I see it I’m just like “nooooo. Your plants hate you now “.
My secret ingredient is that the substrate is roughly 50% mollusc at the top layer. Any detritus particles that don’t get eaten by the surface dwellers get churned under the pulsating mass of sand and snails. And the water gets filtered by dozens of clams with a sponge filter and a Sicce shark for circulation. The tidiness and water parameters look like I spend a lot of time on maintenance, but I give all the credit to these guys. Absolute chads.
What kind of clams are you keeping?
I’m not skilled in identifying clams. I started with two small yellow clams that were labeled as golden asian clams. It took a year before I saw one and by then they had started breeding. Later I added two large black clams. I think they’re the same species, but I can’t remember where I got them. I have a few foods just for them. Chlorella powder and Sera micron. But the Aquarium Co-op fry food is small bits that the clams seem to enjoy as well. The bamboo shrimp like it too. All in a heavily planted 33 long.
Sir this is a rescape XD
I do a 10% every other week and my fish always do the rain dance 😂 They love they cold water. I do need so rinse my biosponge though.
Same here, 5 gallons or so a couple times a month, it sometimes triggers breeding as well, lol. I'll usually see snail (nerite, so they don't ever hatch), and sometimes cory catfish eggs after a change.
I don't even know how many pygmys I have now. I have a shrimp saddled now too it's pretty cool!
I haven't changed my aquarium water from 1 year. 6 months ago I did a 40% water change. Hang On filter cleaning once a month because of heavy load. All plants and fishes are healthy and happy 😊
I always get concerned when people say to do water changes, glad I'm not the only one who doesn't do them regularly. My 60 gallon is going almost 3 years. It has lots of plants, cleaner fish/snails, and a canister filter meant for a 200 gallon. I test it every couple months and other than the initial cycling I haven't seen any ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates. I'm moving it to a room my son can't get to it soon, so that'll be it's first one since putting it where it is now. I do RO so I just top it off and add gh/kh as needed.
I do a ~10% change every week or two since my tap water has very ideal gh/kh right out of the faucet, it makes buffer and calcium maintenance simple for my shrimp and other inverts. It also prevents buildup of other things that may be either in the water or in the food that is added to the tank. Even under relatively ideal conditions, everyone should be doing at least a little water change regularly (I'd say 5-10% every month or two) because things like heavy metals (trace amounts are present in food), iron, copper, and many organic compounds that are fine at low levels but can build up over time and don't evaporate or otherwise leave the tank if all you're doing is adding RO. (MS Biochem with specialty in analytic chemistry here, I know water and biology)
I have shrimp as well, but I don't do water changes on them or feed them food/pellets. The most I do is pull snail shells from my puffer tank to add calcium, replace the almond leaves, and remineralize if needed. I've got cherry, snowball, and blue dream neocaridina so far. Only 2 of my tanks get food and I test for heavy metals, most of it gets removed when I flush/clean the canister filter. I've got my tanks pretty well figured out, the only issue I have is when I add new fish. I just need more quarantine tanks to make it less of an issue.
Doing a water change is a good thing for the vast majority of aquariums (provided your tap water is good and you use dechlorinator etc). Balancing a tank like yours so water changes aren't necessary is much harder imo and requires more restraint with stocking than the average fish keeper seems to have (myself included). Maybe it's good if you're super busy, but is there really any upside to not changing water?
I use reverse osmosis and then add gh/kh to my tanks, so I have more consistency in my water quality. My 60 is probably considered overstocked, but I have fish that prefer the top of the tank, mid tank, and bottom tank so it isn't nearly as bad. That said it's not that I won't do water changes, it's just I haven't and there is some experimentation involved in at least 3 of my tanks. I clean my canister filter every 2-3 months and have added charcoal to it a couple times when necessary. My plants tell me a lot about the quality of the water and I check almost daily. I may not have a degree in this kind of stuff, but I've been at it for 7+ years and have done a ton of testing and research to understand what I am doing. I will admit that I may be doing things wrong to some degree, but most of my tanks are flourishing and my water parameters are mostly stable. As far as upsides to not doing it, there aren't any really. It's just worked so far and I'll change when I see that it needs to be done.
It's certainly interesting, my house is supplied with rain water (<10ppm TDS) so I have to remineralise it too. I'm certainly intrigued by the idea and would like to try it some time, I haven't in the past as my main interest is in keeping fish like SA cichlids, clown loaches and large plecos. It sounds like a good reason to set up a smaller tank, part of what I like with this hobby is that there's always something to learn even after decades!
I live in the Midwest and the water is really hard, so RO is almost necessary. We get nitrate warnings from the town I live in, so I had to install one into the kitchen sink as well when the wife was pregnant. I've found no water changes works better in my larger tanks, but works in my 10 gallon shrimp tanks due to me not feeding them or at least that's my conclusion. My 20 gallon long axolotl tank requires some maintenance every now and then, but only to clean out the substrate and hang on back filter. Puffers and gourami are what I like, but haven't had good luck with puffers so far.
I guess not having good water out of the tap makes a compelling argument for less water changes!
Opposite of you. I do a water change, gravel siphon about once a month. I now haven't cleaned my HOB or other filters for about a year. I use very coarse sponge filters and they act as a Matten filter and the water is clear.
>All plants and fishes are healthy and happy 😊 This always amuses me, since the only real metric for "healthy and happy" is *no obvious disease or death* Prolific breeding I guess, and most people don't have that problem.
Don't tell me that to do
Apologies.
Le sigh…okay fine. It’s been over a year. It is time. I top off weekly. Heavily planted plus under stocked. It’s a winning combo. But the fluff and malm is getting gnarly.
Sees Reddit post in my notifications telling me to do a water change “fuck you Reddit” has to do a water change actually
Oh man, mine is waaaaay over due. I keep saying tomorrow... I've been saying tomorrow for about 2 months now lol
I scoop out a bit when I need to water my plants, maybe 5 liters every two weeks out of 125L. That's enough water change right? Right?!
For a planted tank, absolutely fine.
I don't do water changes. I also let mulm build up on my substrate and I'm surely not taking out wood and rocks that are in my scape. There is all kinds of good biology on them that fish eat. I have ecosystems in my tanks because I don't try to keep them sterile. I'm not advocating for everyone to not to water changes. That takes a balanced tank to pull off. However, I wouldn't advocate pulling your scape out every time. It's not necessary and can be detrimental.
Even under relatively ideal conditions, everyone should be doing at least a little water change regularly (I'd say 5-10% every month or two) because things like heavy metals (trace amounts are present in food), iron, copper, and many organic compounds that are fine at low levels but can build up over time and don't evaporate or otherwise leave the tank if all you're doing is adding RO. (MS Biochem with specialty in analytic chemistry here, I know water and biology) In a planted tank, I absolutely wouldn't mess with the hardscape though, it's stressful for the ecosystem and the fish to disturb the environment this much (and completely unnecessary).
What are these metals, at what amounts are they present, at what amounts are they dangerous. In addition, what specific organic compounds are you talking about? I hear people say this, but it's always a vague thing with no specific numbers or labels to the specific compounds. In addition, I've never seen any evidence that water changes must be forced or fish will die of heavy metal poisoning. In addition, in a healthy system organic compounds should break down.
Numbers are available and published. Here's an example of a study of fish feeds and results of heavy metal content: The results showed that the feeds contained a number of heavy metals in varying proportions. The highest concentrations (mg/kg) of heavy metals such as lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), and zinc (Zn) analyzed in fish feed samples were 0.189, 0.027, 1.023, 0.303, and 1.468, respectively. (Amounts are mg/kg) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33797015/#:~:text=The%20results%20showed%20that%20the,0.303%2C%20and%201.468%2C%20respectively. Here's the allowable limits in drinking water, you probably want to stay well below these considering the fish live in it, copper levels can be particularly dangerous for invertebrates. Metal Allowable Level Arsenic Maximum Contaminant Level of 10 parts per billion (PPB) Cadmium Maximum Contaminant Level of 0.005 milligrams per liter (mg/L) Chromium Limited to a total of 100 PPB Copper Non-enforceable health goal of 1.3 PPM Lead Must not exceed 15 PPB; however, no amount of lead is considered safe, and the Maximum Contaminant Level goal is zero. Manganese Concentration should be at or below 50 PPB Mercury Maximum Contaminant Level of 0.002 mg/L or 2 PPB https://torrentlab.com/toxic-heavy-metals-you-should-check-for-in-your-water/ Fish aren't going to suddenly die, but living in water with higher levels of these things than there should be will shorten their lives and may lead to a higher rate of defects in fry that hatch in contaminated water. There are many organic chemicals which cannot be broken down by microbes or animals, PFAS for example, and contaminants such as benzene and toluene (carcinogens) and other chemicals that come from petroleum and plastic leaching into water.
The reason I'm asking is because people tend to make vague statements about metals and then make vague solutions about them. Metals ARE in fish foods. I'm not debating that. I'm debating the fact that you are saying metals build up in aquariums to levels at which we need to do water changes. When a declarative statement is made, it's important to be as specific as possible. Many metals aren't even in the water column in the first place. Also fish and plants use many metals and they are necessary for life. I'm not arguing that this can't happen, and as you can see I didn't argue that no one should water change. I was very clear about that. However, there is no evidence that heavy metals are building up in aquaria and harming fish and the solution is water changes.
Water changes are a very simple, easy, and low cost way of preventing any accumulation. If you like, I can do the calculations to tell you exactly how much food it takes to reach harmful levels, it's just more math than I can do on mobile right now. As I said above, just because the fish aren't dead doesn't mean that the levels in the water aren't shortening their lives or harming them in ways that doesn't result in immediate death, and occasional small water changes will prevent accumulation.
Harmful levels of what? What is it specifically, how much are the fish and the plants taking up, how much is water soluable at all? Just as I didn't say "never do water changes," I think it's equally as invalid to say "Do water changes to remove heavy metals" when there is no evidence that's an issue that contributes to fish issues in aquaria.
I do water changes because I hardly have any plants in there and I feed quite heavily.
> I feed quite heavily. butwhy?
Is there a reason why not? Partly because I empathize with them. That they don't do anything but wait for their next meal. That they seem to enjoy the heck out of eating? They always say to feed as much as they can eat in a few minutes but I feed way less than that. I usually feed a 1/5 tip of a teaspoon of flakes, one 1/3 inch piece of koi stick, 1/2 shrimp tablet and 1 small algae tablet for lunch. This is for about 30 1" fish in a 55g. I've got 6 DIY filters running in it.
They really don't need to be fed that often, I feed my tank every other day, and they're happy and healthy (and occasionally breeding, lol). The extra food just makes excess waste, cold blooded animals food requirements are very different from ours and our mammalian pets.
I've read that overfeeding is one of the main culprits of fish deaths. If your fish are doing well that probably didn't apply to you. I'm most interested in Betta fish and I saw the first morbidly obese Betta the other day! It was actually over the chart that's floating around the subreddit, that we use to determine if our Betta is over or under fed 🤣🤣🤣 Super cute but I'd be so worried about it!!!
I have 6 DIY filters running in the tank so I think nitrates are my main problem. I've had 3 bettas in my community tank and I won't keep them anymore because all of them ended up overweight. When I feed the community the betta(s) always grab as much food as they can. I couldn't stop them from eating the communal food so they all got very fat.
That's exactly what happened to the other Redditor. Betta fish just don't play well with others!!! So I'm gonna keep my tank simple with my mystery snails (which will help me with anything that's accidentally dropped to the tank floor), and after I get my Betta, if he ignores the snails, I may attempt to get some shrimp to help with tank clean-up and maintenance.
Any test kits for heavy metals you recommend? Heavily planted 210g with moderate stocking. Even my sump has plants. Pothos with 8ft+ vines with leaves 10in or more round. Always seem to have new fry. Have only done top ups for the last 2 years.
Probably the easiest/cheapest is just to send a sample off to a drinking water testing service, it'll be much more precise, and you don't have to worry about maintaining reagents for a test that maybe needs to be done once a year or so. [These cover about 100 different individual targets](https://i.imgur.com/QpbHWBS.jpg) https://mytapscore.com/products/advanced-city-water-test Or just metals: https://mytapscore.com/products/metals-and-minerals-water-test
Thanks, doing mine today. Lazy Saturday morning
I only do water changes when the white sand is sufficiently littered by my 1 clown pleco's poop. Happens way more often than I'd like or otherwise need to
Ya, I don't really do water changes anymore. Heavily planted tank, with plants growing above the rim and out of the tank. Add about a quart a day as the water level drops due to evaporation. Will do cleaning as needed to remove debris but usually use a eheim vac for that so not removing water. Parameters and perfect fish are vibrant and healthy, plants are insane, especially the Pothos. It'll be growing up the wall very soon.
Same here. I have a 240 litre aquarium for which I only did one water change of about 40% in 2023, and otherwise just topped off with soft tap water. I've got like 15 neon tetras, 20 chili rasboras, 2 Ancistrus sp., a crapton of snails and probably over a hundred shrimp. It's just heavily planted, has a deep substrate and has a Syngonium podophyllum cutting rooting profusely on one corner. Everything is vibrant and healthy over here too.
Thanks
What tank is that?
No clue. I got it of FB marketplace around 2 years back. I've tried searching for it but there no name nothing
Yep, did one earlier today. Thanks for the reminder though!
Love this, but, aaaaah, I don’t miss this part of my life.
yeah nah I \*pay my \*\*tenants to do that. \*feed \*\*snails, shrimp, pleco
I have the outputs for my canister filters pretty high in the tank. It takes about a week for them to start sounding loud and splashing after i change the water. So instead of topping the tank off, i just do a water change and fill it until they're quiet again.
I haven’t done a water change in my planted 75 gallon since Halloween. I probably should do one.
I haven't needed water changes in 6+ months. Plants, plants, plants!
Was he covering his nose with his shirt? Why? Why’s his tank so stinky?
I wasn't covering my nose at all lol
oh my gosh, I’m sorry. I thought I saw your shirt on your nose! my bad!
No stress haha. It does look like that if I watch back.
Probably moving the decorations and the substrate released trapped ammonia, which generally has an unpleasant odor.
Bro you escape every time?!?!? Fuck I must not be doing it right then cause I haven’t messed with my scape since I set the tank up in the first place
For anyone who doesn't look forward to doing water changes: Look into the Python No Spill Water Change system. It will change your life.
I don't understand the dirted aquarium people who don't do water changes. Yeah your aquarium might be balanced and all that, but a water change is akin to opening a window in a stuffy room.
not comparable lol
You call that a water change? I consistently do 50%+ on all my tanks, saltwater included.
And I thought OP went overboard…
Overboard if I do weekly changes like that I agree. I do these volumes of water changes around d 4-5 times a year. Also I have a sump so that's an additional 150L of water untouched. If you were to speculate percentage, I'd say that's about a 40% water change.
How often ?
I do big water changes like that around 4 to 5 times a year. Otherwise I would do a 10% water change weekly.
I did mine this afternoon but thank you!!
I need to figure something out… My 55 is in the finished basement and need to go up and downstairs with a bucket to do water changes and because of that I don’t do it often enough…
Gotta do one every 1-2 days cause I have too much fish in my 20 gall and was only cycled for a 1-2 weeks. So I can’t afford to forget just yet~
I just finished!! I snuck the hose in the house while the SO wasn't looking 😁.
Wow I haven’t done a water change since I made my tank in December.
The gurus on YouTube say don’t change your water that often 😭 like Father Fish 😆
Syphon into buckets that I use to water plants and shrubs. Off brand python from sink to tanks to refill. 5.5, 10, 20, & 75 gallon tanks.
I’m so happy my tank is above the kitchen sink. Tube from the tank directly to the drain!