how many water changes per week?

[divy]

i was just wondering how many 100% water changes should i do a week?

my tanks hold 2.3litres each i have no filters but i do have java moss in each tank to keep the ammonia levels down

[fighter boy]

prob once every 3 days or so would suffice.... but once a week wouldnt hurt if ur short on time.... java moss does a great job at absorbing nitrates and such.... nice plant over all....... i would thik that how would the ammonia levels change from ammonia to nitrite and so forth if you havnt got a filter?? i thaught you needed a filter to do that job and then the plants came in once there was nitrate present.... im not sure... but anyway once every 3 days....

regards, fighter.

[Bettarazzi]

If you remove waste regularly (eg every day) and do mini-top ups during the week, I reckon you can get away with 50% water changes, once a week. My juvie jars hold only about 1.5 ltrs and I'm doing 50% water changes once a week, and poop removal and top up once in the middle of the week if they're really lucky and I'm not feeling lazy. The juvies have been jarred for about 3 weeks now and they've only been really lucky once. If the water is really foul looking I do a 100% change but it seems to differ from jar to jar. That's just what I do and probably should mention that these juvies are not all that precious to me.

If they were imports I think I'd be treating them a bit differently. The smallest tank that I've got an imported fish in is a 20x20x20 cm which holds about 7 ltrs and there's a small sponge filter in there.

[Callatya]

A 2L jar will get to a problem level of ammonia within about 4-5 days (fish becomes visibly upset if left any longer) however if you add some gravel, a small rooted plant (java fern or anubis or something) and some ammolock or zeolite, you can get up to 8-9 days.

Ideally, I'd do 2 x 100% a week, but the more stable you can make it, the better.

If you can age a large bucket of water and use that for your changes, that'd be great :)

[Chuckie]

I am just curious why you posted this in the Classifieds forum! Moved ...

[divy]

ok thanks for the info ill do 2 water changes a week

and sorry lilli i didnt relise i did that, my bad

[Chuckie]

:) it's ok :D

[michael]

ok thanks for the info ill do 2 water changes a week

I change my water once a week. The fish are in 2 litre plastic bottles and fed twice a week. Sometime i go 10 days with out a water change. All my fish are healthy.

[Bettarazzi]

Only fed twice as week? Wow, maybe I'm seriously overfeeding. Less food, less poo, fewer water changes..... sounds good to me.

[Stuart Elflett]

I played with a few mini-aquariums for friends, a nice big glass vase, a handful of seeded gravel from my tank, java moss and a sprig or three of elodea or foxtail, and a few tiny fish, white cloud mountain minnows, medakas, etc... I told them to give the tiniest pinch of food, and change two large cups of water every other day, or a cupful every day, and those tanks have been self sustaining... that's roughly giving a 10% change daily - does that not work with betta's??? (I ask, because the initial idea came from a site suggesting this as an easy seller for markets, etc, and they listed bettas as a possibility for it...)

[brettc777]

That would be good if you could change 10% daily, I did a 50% water change for a 2ft and 1.5ft last night and boy it was a workout with an 8 litre bucket.

I think it would be much easier doing a daily change of 10% rather then waiting 4 or so days then doing a 50% change. Its alot more effort doing a bigger change.

Thinking about it... really its pretty much the same as changing 50% every 5 days. Water mixes up... so the old water and new water will be mixed so the levels of toxins in the water would be mixed and dilute into the new water. Taking 10% out and putting 10% in each day should dilute the toxins that build up so after 5 days you have done a 50% water change in effect.

There might be other benefits of doing small changes such as less shock to fish due to different elements such as the difference in PH (hardness/softness), Temps etc.