Re: [GSAS-Member] Water Changes

["Betty Goetz" <haika@drizzle.com>]

I bet you'll get a bunch of different approaches to this (wink). My
approach would be to take into consideration your critter bioload and the
kind of filtration you are or are not using. Also, whether you have and
plants to process some of the nitrogenous wastes. For instance, I have a
small sponge filter in a 10g planted tank with 7 growing koi in it. I do
water changes daily at about 30-40%. Since that provides indoor plant
water, I have incentive and I don't have larger tanks set up yet for these
growing koi. I could probably do this weekly and they'd live, but I'm
trying to give them better conditions than baseline survival (wink). On
the other hand, I have a densely planted 10g tank with a small sponge
filter and one pair of peacock gudgeons. I rarely do water changes in that
tank....just when there is an accumulation of mulm that is distracting
from the looks. Probably once every 2-3 months.

I could probably add some nitrogenous waste testing to see if I'm
accumulating nitrates or whether I'm controlling ammonia and nitrite with
the sponge filter's biological filtration but I'm too lazy. I start doing
that when I have problems or other questions I'm trying to answer.

And I have a 29g tank and a 20g long empty in the garage and a stand for
them outside in the carport that I just have to lug into the family room
and set up for the baby koi. But it hasn't happened yet (weak grin).

Betty Goetz

> I do a 50% water change every Sunday on each of my tanks.  Is this too
> much
> or too often?  Why?

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