water changes "how"

[fish_r]

hi
with my water changes @ the moment i do it slowly straight from the tap with a long hose and i add dechlorinator as i start to fill,
is this ok with discus ? or should i age my water
i do a 30% water change weekly, but now i have discus i am going to do it twice a week i think ?

[Nathan]

the mor water changes the week the better.

a lot of people on this forum age there water, but i dont, i just add seachem prime and put the water in the tank, doesnt seem to bother the discus to much

HTH

[FishLover]

WC is a touchy topic here. Most people will tell you the more the better, which I agree to a point. We also have to consider that keeping Discus for most of us is to make us happy, not to make us working harder.

It all depends on what is your purpose of having discus (and maybe few more):
1. Your fish load comparing to your tank size
2. How much/often/what do you feed your discus
3. How good is your filter system?

If your fish load is low (10+ g per adult), with a good filter system, and you DON'T want to breed them, you may get away with once a week 30-40% WC, provide you don't over feed your fish and you don't feed them heavy things like beef heart. These are the food the breeders like because they promote fast growth and they are cheap compareing to other fish foods. If you only want your fish look pretty, IMO you don't need to feed them heavy food like that (maybe once a while for a change), which less the bio-load of your tank, which let you get away with less W/C (once a week).

There are TWO different threads of thought here. One from the BREEDERS point of view, one from the average fishkeeper (like me). Because they have different purpose of having Discus, their method of caring for the Discus may have some differences.

Breeders are more likely to have more water changes, heavy feedings, and heavy fish load. They are more demanding on the water condition and depend on more W/C as a sure way to keep their stock healthy and fast growing. Their purpose is to grow them fast and look round shaped.

As an average fish keeper, you may not need to grow your discus as fast as you can, nor do you need to grow them as big as you can, nor do you really care if they look perfectly round or shaped like a football. All you care is they look pretty and coloful. I will be happy as long as my discus are happy and showing off good colors. Most of us may not have the time to do W/C every day. The way to make sure our Discus are happy is to reduce the fish load, reduce the feeding and stay away from food that can mess up your tank water (like beef heart). With all these actions, it is posssible to make the average fishkeeper happy too (without doing W/C everyday).

[aquaholic]

hi fish_r
As i am newbie i don't like to give advice but one thing for sure is that water should be the same temperature
as your tank water.
I run my water into a bucket add my ager give it a good stir then into tank:)
I think fishlover has summed it up well.

cheers andrew

[fish_r]

thanks a lot for the advice guys,i really appreciate it :)
i wont be breeding in this tank, so just want to keep the fish happy really.
i have a fluval 405 with all noodles and foam pads. "5 foot tank"
i feed all my fish once in the morning and once in the arvo, and only what they can eat within about 5 mins
my fish load is
5 bn's soon to be 3, 20 neon tetra's soon to be none,
5 SAE soon to be 3, 14 rummy nose soon to be 25
and 8 harlequin rasbora, soon to be 15-25 and of course my 5 discus :)
it will be pushing me to do water changes 2 times a week as i have two tanks and other hobbies too, but hoping to manage it...
the real thing that concered me was changing water directly from the tap and adding dechlorinator as i do it, as iv'e read it can kill ur biological filter ?

[FishLover]

I use a plastic container that holds about 40% of my tank water and run the tap water with a hose put the new water in there first, add Prime and Discus Buffer, then pump it into the tank.

That way I can control the temp and other water parms without stress out my fish. I think most people here do that. You have to pay a bit up front. (about $20 for the container, $50 for a good pump, make sure the pump can reach the hight of your tank including the stand) I think $70 is not that much considering we are having Discus.

The pump and container really made my water changes much easier. I think my discus like that too.

[fish_r]

thx fishlover
i already have a large container, just need a good pump now.
i did my first water change with the discus in last night
40% and woke up this morning and one discus was obviously sick :( it was on it's side on the substrate, i gave it a prod with my tongs and it swam off, but got home tonight and it had died, the others are pretty quiet too :( althought they did feed a little tomight, so hopefully a good sign ?
i will definately age my water next time and bring it up too the same temp as the tank.
cant afford too many losses and i hate killing fish !

[FishLover]

Sorry to hear that.

When add water, please make sure the following water parms are close match to your tank water:

1. Temp
2. PH
3. make sure you use Prime or something else, make sure to follow the instructions on how much is needed

You also need to check your water PH over a time period to avoid PH swings. Take some tap water, mesure the PH, then wait for few hours, mesure the PH again, and mesure it again in 24 hours. Compare the value to see if you have a PH swing problem or not. PH swing is deadly for Discus if the value is too much (anything over .3 change within 24 hours is going to stress your discus, more could be deadly)

[shayesmommy]

about water changes.
my fish are all well. but my water drops about a degree or two F when i change it. my bf does it the same temp of the tank. and we let it sit a day or two.
but when im sticking my hands in teh water cleaning the tank. and mixing the aged water i can definatly feel the change of temp. but it doesnt drop to much and we do it on a different side of the tank.
how do you make sure that ur aged water is the same temp. Here we have 5 5 gallon buckets and unless i buy five heaters theres not much ican do?

[Inspiringfish]

I fill 1 gallon jugs (for me, easier to carry, and get it into the tank) and place them in the bath tub (I can fit 24 in the tub). Fill the tub up with hot water until I get the desired temp (digital thermometer).

[FishLover]

I just use part hot water and part cold water to fill my container. I know it may not be good since it may contain cooper in the hot water but I was counting on the Prime to remove it.

One or 2 F is nothing to worry about, over 3 F difference you are going to stress the fish. That's what I read somewhere.

[Benny]

look back in the DIY area to a thread i made about my waterchange setup.

I have a 220L drum under my house, with a 250W heater and dual outlet airpump and two airstones. I heat and airate the water for 2 days before adding it to my tank.

I use ACN water ageing drops, theyre fantastic.

Waterchanges of 140+ litres take me no more then 25-30 minutes nowadays :) It makes life very easy when u have the right equipment.

[RichVic]

Hi Fish-r
How are your fish today?
I read you did a 40% change, but not why? Did your tank have high levels of Ammonia/nitrite/nitrates or what?
Did you use cold water? or use a declorinator etc. Could you describe your routine so that the more senior members may spot an error somewhere?
I'm reasonably new to the hobby too, but noticed early on, that my fish were stressing when I did one big change instead of smaller, more frequent water changes. In a 5ft tank, there's not going to be much of a temp drop if you do a 10% change with room temp. water for eg.
Perhaps that fish died because there was high ammonia etc the day of the water change? Also, the tank will always cope better with a mistake which involves 10% bad/wrong/contaminated water rather than 40%, if you see what I mean.

I think it best to test water parameters daily for a while then every other day and so on. This is to confirm what you think is happening with the filtration system and your bio-load is actually correct. Clean water never hurt a discus - even if the temp drops 2 -3 degrees I think the fish would cope - its known to induce spawning and it does occur in the wild - temp drops overnight and in high rainfall etc.

Here's my current routine. I have a drum with a pump which holds 40L of cold water and I add seachem prime to it. Daily I siphon the bottom of the Bare bottom breeding tank (36x18x18 inches) as needed - around 3-5 mins and refill the tank about 2 minutes. I then re-fill the drum and leave
at the ready, for unexpected emergencies. I move this from tank to tank
as needed. The planted tank & Pleco's are much dirtier and need 80Lt at least each time. I just pump in x2. I use the garden hose through the back door to fill drum and I have a spare length of garden hose which I attach to the Siphon & empty the tank into the garden. We do the tanks
on Wednesdays, take-away night and again on Saturday mornings. We do all the tanks in around one hour. Hardly a big lifestyle killer if you get a bit organised. Hope that helps. Vicki

[fish_r]

thx for all the suggestions guys :)
the other 4 discus seem to be doing ok now and also there colour has come back, i did the water change cause i read the more the better with discus usually do it once a week but now increasing to twice a week. i usually do 30%, i also did a big trim of my plants @ the same time and moved a few plants around, i used water straight from the tap which was adjusted to be around the same temp as the tank, approx 2c lower and added stress coat water conditioner "left over from my axolotl"
my bioload should be ok as the tank has been running for a fair while now, but i havnt tested for ammonia for a cpl of weeks, will do tonight though, last time i checked my perams were all ok.
i think the thing that affected the discus was maybe the ph, as i tested it b4 the water change and it was 6.8 then the next morning it was 7.3
even though i am broke i forked out to buy a 100lt round container today and a heater to age my water b4 doing the water changes in the future, now i just have to get the pump, also got some peat to add to the container to get it to around a simmilar pH to what my tank is, so hopefully next time i do my water change all will go ok next time, will only do 30% too.
i'm off now to setup my 3 footer the same as this tank for more discus
so it hasn't detered me at all "yet" :) hmmm need more room for a bigger tank :lol:

[shayesmommy]

thats a great idea inspiringfish.
thanks for the idea.
every water change i yell at him that its to big of differenece and tehy could be shocked. and hes like blah blah and doesnt do anything . and i cant really buy 5-6 heaters.
so that will warm it up a bit. thanks

[RichVic]

Great news about the others being okay. Phew! The Ph swing will do it - I didn't originally know that from 6 to 7 was ten times more alkaline and from 6 to 8 was one hundred times more alkaline- so although half a dregree does not sound like much to the newbie, it is in fact x50 more acidic/alkaline a the sudden shift will stress some fish to death. At least the others were able to tough it out - Good luck. I've pm'd as well

[fish_r]

hmmm well another fish died today :( was swimming around last night like it was trying to get air from the top of the water but wasnt taking any air from the surface.
thought it might of been too much Co2 but the levels were 25ppm.
i checked and all perams are ok except my gH is really high approx 250ppm, but where i live it is renouned for having really hard water. the other 3 are eating fine as well as my other fish...

[FishLover]

Few things will change your PH level:

1. Co2 in your tap water. Most likely, your tap water has some CO2 in it and when let it out after 24 hours, your PH can go up more than .5

2. Things in your tank. Groval, deco and so on. Do an acid check on anything in the tank to make sure they do not react to acid.

3. What do you use to lowering PH. PH Decreaser will only work for few hours and the PH will shoot back after 24 hrs, which is really bad for the Discus. Use Discus Buffer if you have to. Peat is good but slower to react and may cost more if you buy them at LFS

4. Co2 in your tank. That will keep your PH down but be careful, too much Co2 will kill your fish. If your fish were trying to get air from the top of the water, I would say there maybe too much Co2 in your tank water. Especially at night when your plants are not product Oxgen, the Co2 level could shoot up and may kill your fish.

5. Hard water will have higher PH.

There maybe other factors but I think these are the major ones.

[fish_r]

the only things i have in the tank are driftwood thats has soaked for about 5-6 weeks and a woomera rock,that doesnt affect the pH cause i had it in another tank previously, i have a peat base of about 1 1/2 cm and aquaclay above that.

i dont use any ph bufferes etc, still got to look into them but the peat base does lower my pH, pH @ the moment is approx 6.8 @ dark and 7 b4 lights out

i dont think it was Co2 ? i tested my levels and they were 25ppm which is on the higher end, but should be safe @ them levels for my fish.
just to be on the safe side i dropped my Co2 flow a little and added an airstone @ night
all testing was, ph 6.89, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5, kH 6, Gh 250
every thing looks fine too me in that lot except the gH
all my other fish seem to be ok ?

[Brilliant]

WC is a touchy topic here.

:wink: I'll say...
I use reverse osmosis and deionization. I have my opinions about chemicals such as prime. I wont get into my opinions. I use RO/DI to remove chlorine AND soften the water.

[jim from sydney]

WC is a touchy topic here.

:wink: I'll say...
I use reverse osmosis and deionization. I have my opinions about chemicals such as prime. I wont get into my opinions. I use RO/DI to remove chlorine AND soften the water.

Hi Brilliant....i am considering this too......tell me how much % RO do you use??? and as i am totally ignorant about de-ionization do i need this, as my water is very soft??? btw where are you?????
regards....Jim

[DR.V]

I also do my WC straight from the tap.

I dont add anything. For the past 4 years ... no problemt at all.

Good luck.

[Robdog]

Depends what tank/fish in my place. For my main discus tank it's just bucket after bucket with similar temp water and a bit of Prime and occasionally some South American cichlid salts. Don't know how affective or special the salts are tho. I love gimmicks.
For my apisto tanks I normally fill a big bucket, add a peat stocking and airpump for a day, warm it up and dump it in. Recently been dabbling with some rainwater but that requires a 30 minute drive.

[jim from sydney]

I also do my WC straight from the tap.

I dont add anything. For the past 4 years ... no problemt at all.

Good luck.

thats very interesting to hear...where are you in sydney???