Water Changes

[bk]

I'm clearing up brown water from algae bloom and tanins.
How much and how often can I change the water without freaking out or
killing the fish?
Our fish are African Cichlids, they seem pretty hardy, but maybe they're
fooling me.
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[Benign Vanilla]

"bk" > wrote in message
...
>
> I'm clearing up brown water from algae bloom and tanins.
> How much and how often can I change the water without freaking out or
> killing the fish?
> Our fish are African Cichlids, they seem pretty hardy, but maybe they're
> fooling me.

The two major factors to consider when doing water changes are temperature
and chlorine/chloramines. It's not advisable to do more then a 40% water
change every few days. This will help keep the water temp from changing too
much. You can ignore this rule, of course, if your water supply is similar
in temperature to your pond water.

The second consideration in water changes is water treatment. If your water
supply is treated with chlorine or chloramines, you'll need to add a binder
to protect the fish. Chlorine and chloramines are very commonly used by
water treatment facilities because they are not harmful to us in low doses,
but they'll kill lesser critters, including your fish. These water
treatments burn the fish's gills. It's always a good idea to keep some
Chloramine-X, Stress Coat or similar additive around, especially when doing
water changes.

BV.
The above question and answer are being permanently added to
iheartmypond.com soon. It can currently be found
http://www.iheartmypond.com/topiclist.asp?l=3&c=Filtration&sc1=Water%20Quality.