Water change frequency question

"Dick" wrote in message
...
On 15 Jul 2005 09:17:21 -0700, "dragon"
wrote:

My bettas are all in unfiltered 2.5 gallon tanks. How often would
ya'll recommend I do a 100% water change? I've been doing it once a
week in the past, but the fishkeeper at my LFS thought that was too
often. So, what does everyone think?

dragon

One thing to be said for frequent small changes, it is easier to use
tap water and not have to fiddle with the chemistry. What is in the
tap water is diluted. I do 20% twice a week and use water straight
from the tap. I would guess frequent (say daily) small changes (say
10%) would also keep the bacteria alive and not be in a constant "new
tank cycle."

I am guessing as I have larger tanks all of them filtered.

dick

Theoretically (and especially if your tap water has only chlorine), you
should be able to run a trickle water changer system, so water is being
constantly added (and overflowing through a discharge). The % of
chlorine divided by the volume ratio calculated into the 24 hours needed
to dissipate the chlorine would result in what could be an insignificant
and harmless amount of chlorine.

The trouble is that no where is there any claims as to what a safe level
of chlorine is, and there is a lot of variation according to the species
of fish as well.

Another theory is to use the UV frequency which would break the chlorine
or chloramines bind, and then just remove the resulting ammonia through
natural methods. I'm well motivated to learn chemistry now, but it's
about 30 years too late ;~).
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