What’s so important about … Water Changes
By Donna M. Recktenwalt
Certainly we all know that water changes are essential to the health and breeding potential of our fish. But how important are those water changes, anyway?
The answer varies.
“Because of my job schedules I have gone several weeks without water changes and had no losses,” reports Steve Halbasch. “What I did notice, however, was a reduction in growth rates.” After noticing this during several business trips, Steve did some experimentation with his fish (primarily cichlids), and found that “fry that had frequent water changes grew faster than fry that received no or fewer water changes. It made very little difference if a filter (power or otherwise) was on the tank…. It also appeared that the fry with the frequent water changes grew to a larger size when mature.”
Michael Chang reports similar results from neglected water changes. “I find that if I’m really lazy and only doing water changes every three weeks, the fish are fine for a couple of months but by the third month of laziness they start to deteriorate and I have losses. I think that if you’re not going to use filtration, you’re going to have to be a bit more diligent with the water changes. Also, having plants in the tanks seems to help. I mostly use hardly plants like java moss and java fern.”Water Changes for Small Fry
We all know that fry grow better when their water is kept clean, and that means regular water changes. But many fry are sensitive to changing water parameters. So how do you change the water in fry tanks without overly distressing or losing fry?
“I use Billi Tetra Sponge filters,” says Robert Nahn, “and let the water back down through the airline by gravity. The filter head must be above water level to do this. I like Tetra Sponge because it is very fine. Other sponges, such as Dirt Magnet, seem too big for very tiny fry.”
Brian Watters suggests using a large tank for newly hatched fry, starting with a low water level and then raising it as the fry grow by adding clean water. “One of the advantages of using a large tank (although starting off with very shallow water) that has an established filter and plants is that you should not have to change the water until the fry are quite large.” Once the fry start to take brine shrimp, small additions of water can be made every couple of days. Brian uses this technique for all his Notho fry. If it does become necessary to change the water for small fry, he suggests suspending a small brine shrimp net in the tank, and using an airline hose or one of similar size to siphon from within the net. A slow siphon won’t draw the net against the intake tube.
– G.C.K.A. Newsletter, August 1999