arfon

reading this now to myself it sounds a bit strange but lets see * i have a 1,000 litre tank and if i was to change 50% of the water (500 lts) with fresh chlorinated water, *obviously with the amount of water change the temperature would drop considerably. so my question is - would i be able to fill one bucket with cold water, the 2nd with hot water *straight *from tap and vice versa until the tank is full again? PS my aim is to keep the water at the same temperature *so i don't stress the fish out during the BIG water change. thanks for reading * o

capekate

Hi there
just wanted to let you know how I do my water changes to match the same temperature as the tank water. I take the thermometer out of the tank, and check the reading. Then at the tap I just get the water to the same temperature by checking it with the thermometer. Then I know the water I am putting back into the tank is exactly the same temp as what is in the tank. I use a five gal bucket for emptying the tank water, and another for putting new water back in. The tap water is treated with Prime before going into the tank. Thats all there is to it for me. I have a well, so no worry about chlorinated water, but I believe that Prime takes care of that problem for you if you use it.
hope that helps to answer your question. ~ kate

arfon

thanks Kate. so after you've filled the bucket with cold water from the tap, you then add hot water from the tap to adjust the temp in the bucket to the same temp in tank? thanks. PS . just wanted to clarify that its safe to add hot water straight from tap ( with few drops of API stress coat conditioner)

capekate

hi..
I adjust the water coming from the tap to the temperature I want it to be. This is the water that I put in the bucket. I dont use cold... then hot... then cold.. then hot to get to the right temperature, that would take forever trying to get the right temperature. Its alot easier to just turn on the water from the faucet to warm, check the temperature coming out of the tap by using the thermometer that I hold under that faucet, once I get to the right temperature I want, I start filling the bucket. I add my water conditioner also at the same time.
~ kate

Luniyn

Just let your tap water run with both hot and cold on so you get a mix that is close to your tanks temperature. Also depending on how often you do these water changes, you are better off doing less water more frequently then large water changes once and a while. If you are doing these 50% water changes every week then no problem, but if you are only doing them every 2 or more weeks then you might be causing more stress then is needed on your fish. You would be better off doing 20%-25% water changes weekly then 50% ones every 2+ weeks. Even if the water conditions are bad, the fish will get used to it to some degree, and then if you go and add a lot of new water, the conditions will suddenly change from bad to good in the tank. The problem is the word "suddenly" as any quick change (even if it's from bad to good water) stresses the fish. It's much better to keep things stable in the tank and slowly make changes to water quality. If you are doing the 50% every week then it should be ok, but you might be stressing yourself out unnecessarily . If your nitrates are around 10ppm after the change and only rise say to around 20ppm after a week, just change enough water to get it back down to around 10ppm. It could be less then 50%, but might take a bit of experimentation. Just throwing that out there.

arfon

for the last 10 days or so Ive been doing 20% daily water changes to try to bring my nitrate levels down from 40ppm . todays reading shows the levels have dropped to 10ppm which I'm happy with. Doing just 20% water changes and adding just 'cold' conditioned water hasn't done much to drop the temperature in the tank due to the volume of water it holds. i also read that 50% water change now and again is more likely to stress fish than a 25% water change more often. thanks for all your input regarding this,

armadillo

You have a 1000l tank! My god that must take days to maintain. P.S. am also very jealous

arfon

lmao armadillo . the larger the tank the easier the maintenance so I'm told ! Ive had the tank around 2 years now and all is good. usually consists of weekly water change (20%) unless nitrates are high. clean the glass and gravel and every 2 months clean the powerful eternal filter which keeps the water crystal clear. this little bit of maintenance is nothing compared to the pleasure i get from it. now added lots of plants and looks pretty good now. must get pics as soon as i get my hands on a digi camera.

armadillo

What about the gravel vaccuuming. Does that take a lot longer? And the water changes, do you carry hundreds of buckets around or do you have a fancy system? I'd love to save up and get a bigger tank, but I want to know what am setting myself up for.

arfon

the only hassle i suppose during maintenance is the water changing which requires filling the bucket up with water x4 then transferring it to the tank ( so not much work involved ) the external filter has a valve which i attach a pipe to and then able to drain the water straight out into the drain so no heavy lifting. i have a lot of snails in my tank which come to life during the night when lights are off and these really help with cleaning of gravel. PS if I'm honest i dont clean gravel that much myself and 90% of the time all my API test reading are good. ( also my clown loaches help to keep the snail population down a little) Ive some plants in tank like Java moss which snails seem to leave alone. so genearally not a lot of work involved at all and fish seem happy so must be doing something right if i was to sell the tank i would definitely have to get a decent size one again. lucky i have patio doors leading to living room or the tank would not fit into the house through normal sized doors

armadillo

OK, 4x is fair enough I suppose. It's 2x 2 for me (only have 50L, but filling and emptying require a trip with bucket), so that's not that much of a change. How come, if your tank is 20x the size of mine? Am not that practically minded, sorry. Probably a stupid question.

So the valve empties it, but you have to carry the water to fill it again, is that it?

Was a bit worried about getting snails for some reason. I think I read of outbreaks at times, and how a lot of diseases treatments for fish would kill the snails off. But that was from the corner of my eyes. Good to hear good feedback about them.

Thanks for your enlightening responses. Am more and more thinking of going big... My next step is 150L, and we'll see if I can handle that. That's already 3x the size, so it's a decent step up.

arfon

basically thats all there is to it. check out 'fluval fx5 external filter' on google. pretty expensive but well worth it in my opinion. i had a 150l tank and i was always changing the water because it soon got cloudy. maybe someone else out there can answer the question why a larger tank needs less maintenance than a smaller one. i know that when we had a power cut ( 12 hrs) and the temperature dropped considerably all the fish survived because the more water in the tank the longer it will stay warm if the heater was to pack in.

i think snails add to the natural look but i do agree with you that some may carry diseases and they can breed like mad if i really wanted to get rid of a few id leave some lettuce or cucumber in a jar and within 2 hours or so the jar would be full of them then id get rid of them. but at the moment they are manageable lol

arfon

There is one downside after all at night when the tank is lit up i tend to watch the fish rather than the repeats on tv the tank lights up the living room and is very relaxing to watch

armadillo

Oh, so it was true about the snails not always being welcome? Really wasn't sure. I think I'll steer clear of them. Don't want the moral dilemma of having to dispose of the excess population! Meet the chairwoman for the defense of invertebrates!

Luniyn

Think of it like this, take a small cup of water and drop 1 drop of food coloring into the cup. Chances are that the water just turned a new color. Now take that same single drop of food coloring and drop it into a 5 Gal (19 L) bucket of water. Chances are you didn't see anything happen other then the drop just completely dissolve into the water and disappear. The same holds true for adding ammonia (though fish waste and food) or whatever chemical you are adding to the tank though whatever means. In a small tank you are going to see the concentrations of that chemical rise at a much faster rate because there just isn't as much water in the tank to dilute it to non-existence like the drop of food coloring in the large bucket. So maintenance is required much more frequently in the small tank compared to the large one simply because of it's large volume. There is more too it then that (i.e. if you have an overstocked large tank you will have just as much problems as a small tank, etc.) but you get the idea.

arfon

very well explained Luniyn, make sense now. so bigger is better

Luniyn

No matter what she tells you... oh sorry... wrong discussion . But yeah that's why it is always highly recommended to get the largest tank you can afford as your first tank and not these little 5 or 10 Gal "Starter" tanks the pet stores try to sell you. The have their place, but a newbie will have a much easier time with a larger tank because it leaves more room for error.

arfon

lmao.