Anymore takers???? surely someone must have something new to add about the way they do their water change, any maintenace/ tips- or is it that simple lol

I do a 25% water change on my goldy tank and my tropical tank once a week-10 days. With my goldies, I take it out one bucket at a time (2 gall bucket so 4 or 5 buckets) and then refill using dechlorinated tap water with a bit of salt added. I let it stand til the bubbles have gone (about 15-20 mins) and then tip it right in. I don't bother with bringing the temp up anymore.

Same with my tropical (but with no salt), only it's more like 1 bucket. I don't tip that in though, I've got another trick to get the new water in I 'borrow' my cat's scratching post (it's about 5ft tall) and put the bucket of water on the top platform. Then I just syphon it back into the tank it takes a while but it's got a sand substrate with quite a few plants so I don't want to stir it all up. So that's my little trick!

Good tip, that must be some large cat you have!
Any more tips out there?? come on dont be shy???

Do you turn of the electricity when doing a water change, rinse filters & clean gravel? What happens to the bacteria in the filters when the electicity is turned of? I do not feel comfortable doing the above till I have unplugged the tank from the mains. Depending on how extensive the clean is, does not take more the 45 minutes. Am I doing it wrong and destroying good bacteria?
Cheers.....

Quote:


Always unplug the tank from the mains!!

The filter will be fine, for an hourish, just don't clean your filter, gravel, ornements at the same time, rotate it, so one week you do the gravel, week after the filter, ect, then you are't depleating the tank of its good bacteria all at the same time.

Oh and always clean your filter ect in old tank water, not tap water, sorry, I'm not being patronising, I bet you already do that anyway!

i only spend about 10-15 mins on each of my freshwater tanks (3 x 5-6gallons and 10 gall goldies), roughly once every two weeks. i have found they are doing better now i am leaving them alone a bit more (apart fom the goldies, dont leave them, they dont like it!) but i have got the process down to a precision manoever now, the glass gets wiped, the water comes out,and goes back in again, i don't warm it up in this weather (do in winter as the water comin out the taps is so cold!) and i just pour it out the bucket, carefully, never seem to disturb anything.
filters are rarely off for more than 5 mins-ish. marine tank is a different story, my babies get special treatment, they get there floss changed twice a week, and a weekly water change, and they all get topped up, almost daily in this weather, and the heaters have been off for weeks now! (am sure moms electricity bill is better for it tho!)
my 4ft tank gets a tidy/clean once every two/three weeks unless anything needs doing, sometimes the fluval gets clogged sooner and has to be cleaned, but its got a huge external canister too, which doesnt need touching very often.
dont add anything chemical to any of my tanks, apart from declorinator in the new water, dont use fertilser for my plants either. they grow well enough on fish waste!
so am quite lazy really, but i believe in keeping it simple!

i remove 10L (1 bucket) from my 40L snail raiseing and stickleback tank and empty that bucket into a big bin thats outside which my nan uses to water the tomatoes etc

i then siphon the 10-11L of water from the 120L community tank into the 40L tank thats next to it to fill it up

i remove another 10L bucket of water from the community tank, doing a gravel vac at the same time

this water also goes in the bin

i then add aqua plus to the empty bucket and fill with cold tap water and add a bit of boiled half way through to raise the temp to about 25C (tank normally runs at 26C) so the tank will cool down a bit more in hot weather

i then do the same with the second bucket but i dont use any boiled water so that tank cools down when its at about 28C

i do this when i feel like it really, anything from once every two weeks to 2 times a week


i remove 1 bucket from the 70L shelldweller tank every other week


btw my tap water has ~3ppm of nitrate so it reduces the tank level very easily

I do 25% water change once a week. I have a quick swish round with an algae scrubber (one of those magnetic ones). Then I siphon the water out into a big plastic bin, hoovering the gravel as I go. The first bin's worth goes on the garden, the second bin's worth is saved for watering said garden during the rest of the week. Then I scrub the rear of the tank to get rid of any remaining traces of algae (doing this after removing some of the water stops me splashing it all over the living room!).

Fresh dechlorinated water is added using a bucket, in the winter I add boiled water to the bucket to bring it up to temperature but don't bother in the summer as the tank is usually too hot anyway and needs cooling down. I've started adding salt to the water as per tip from Fishy-Fishy I tip it in at the spray bar end of the tank as this helps it mix in nicely. Sometimes the water change sends one of the males off into a frenzy of luvvin' but this soon passes

Total time is approx one hour but it does keep the tank nice and clean and the fishes happy. I find it quite therapeutic too! I rinse the filter in old tank water about once a month. I leave the filter running during a water change.

BTW the tank holds approx 350 litres, it's a coldwater tank with five goldies and live plants.

Any algae is removed from the glass and the plants trimmed if they need it.
I change around 25% of the water using a syphon and bucket every week to ten days the externals are cleaned out once a month the internals are simply rinsed through of any major muck each change.
Water is added back at around the same temp which I measure by hand although I agree that Im more particular with this in the winter when the water from the taps is ice cold.
I add salt only to the brackish tank I never salt my goldies constantly nor do I add any chemicals or plant fertilisers etc.
Thats it no tricks as simple as I can keep it like Gillian says
In all five tanks takes the best part of three hours to complete, although in fairness i always have the tv on while im doing it so sometimes I get distracted!

Gillian,

Wondering why you have an external filter as well for your 4ft tank? Would the one that comes with the tank (internal for the Juwel 240 lites I have) not be sufficient? I was thinking of getting the Ehiem external and adding it on alongwith the existing filter. Would it help?
thanks.....