Daily water change

I have a 220 gallon native tank, I am changing 4 gallons a day which
works out to about 50 percent monthly. Is this Ok? 2 emperor 400s and
air lifts. I dont add any chemicle, just tap water and a teaspoon of
noniodine salt per gallon. 2 months and everyone is happy.

Tom

"tom" wrote in message
m...
I have a 220 gallon native tank, I am changing 4 gallons a day which
works out to about 50 percent monthly. Is this Ok? 2 emperor 400s and
air lifts. I dont add any chemicle, just tap water and a teaspoon of
noniodine salt per gallon. 2 months and everyone is happy.

Tom

The daily dose of chlorine is shortening their lives and stressing them out.
Larger, less frequent water changes with properly treated water would be
better for the fish.



--

billy
--
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"Dinky" wrote in message
ink.net...
"tom" wrote in message
m...
I have a 220 gallon native tank, I am changing 4 gallons a day which
works out to about 50 percent monthly. Is this Ok? 2 emperor 400s and
air lifts. I dont add any chemicle, just tap water and a teaspoon of
noniodine salt per gallon. 2 months and everyone is happy.

Tom

The daily dose of chlorine is shortening their lives and stressing them
out.
Larger, less frequent water changes with properly treated water would be
better for the fish.



--

billy
--
Need tech help?
news://news.winextra.com

He might be lucky like me, our town adds nothing to the water other than
lime. Just a little alkaline so my guppies like it.

Larry

Check to see what has been added to the tap water.

My tap water just has chlorine added to it. For my small aquariums, I don't
add any chemicals either. When I have finished changing the water, I fill
up my container ready for the next change. By the time I use it, all of the
chlorine has disappeared.

This method will work for you too, since 24 hours is long enough for the
chlorine to dissapear.

Jim



Make sure
lonerider wrote in message
...

"Dinky" wrote in message
ink.net...
"tom" wrote in message
m...
I have a 220 gallon native tank, I am changing 4 gallons a day which
works out to about 50 percent monthly. Is this Ok? 2 emperor 400s and
air lifts. I dont add any chemicle, just tap water and a teaspoon of
noniodine salt per gallon. 2 months and everyone is happy.

Tom

The daily dose of chlorine is shortening their lives and stressing them
out.
Larger, less frequent water changes with properly treated water would be
better for the fish.



--

billy
--
Need tech help?
news://news.winextra.com

He might be lucky like me, our town adds nothing to the water other than
lime. Just a little alkaline so my guppies like it.

Larry

i would be surprised if 4 gallons of chlorinated tap in a 220 gallon
would even be noticeable. thats only 2 percent of the water, and by
the next day that 4 gallons has dissipated the chlorine.

tom

"Jim Morcombe" wrote in message ...
Check to see what has been added to the tap water.

My tap water just has chlorine added to it. For my small aquariums, I don't
add any chemicals either. When I have finished changing the water, I fill
up my container ready for the next change. By the time I use it, all of the
chlorine has disappeared.

This method will work for you too, since 24 hours is long enough for the
chlorine to dissapear.

Jim



Make sure
lonerider wrote in message
...

"Dinky" wrote in message
ink.net...
"tom" wrote in message
m...
I have a 220 gallon native tank, I am changing 4 gallons a day which
works out to about 50 percent monthly. Is this Ok? 2 emperor 400s and
air lifts. I dont add any chemicle, just tap water and a teaspoon of
noniodine salt per gallon. 2 months and everyone is happy.

Tom

The daily dose of chlorine is shortening their lives and stressing them
out.
Larger, less frequent water changes with properly treated water would be
better for the fish.



--

billy
--
Need tech help?
news://news.winextra.com

He might be lucky like me, our town adds nothing to the water other than
lime. Just a little alkaline so my guppies like it.

Larry

"tom" wrote in message
om...
i would be surprised if 4 gallons of chlorinated tap in a 220 gallon
would even be noticeable. thats only 2 percent of the water, and by
the next day that 4 gallons has dissipated the chlorine.



It's like a small amount of poison gas being released into your home every
day. One day's worth isn't enough to kill you, and it dissipates, but over
time it WILL make you sick and cause health problems. A bottle of ammo-chlor
is cheap, or, take the other poster's suggestion to let a large container
sit, at least overnight. That will at least take care of the chlorine.


--

billy
--
Need tech help?
news://news.winextra.com

Depends. If regular ol' chlorine, that'll work. However, lots of
municipalities (at least in the U.S.) add chloramines to the water, and *those*
won't dissipate in just a day.

"Jim Morcombe" wrote:
Check to see what has been added to the tap water.

My tap water just has chlorine added to it. For my small aquariums, I don't
add any chemicals either. When I have finished changing the water, I fill
up my container ready for the next change. By the time I use it, all of the
chlorine has disappeared.

This method will work for you too, since 24 hours is long enough for the
chlorine to dissapear.

Jim



Make sure
lonerider wrote in message
...

"Dinky" wrote in message
ink.net...
"tom" wrote in message
m...
I have a 220 gallon native tank, I am changing 4 gallons a day which
works out to about 50 percent monthly. Is this Ok? 2 emperor 400s and
air lifts. I dont add any chemicle, just tap water and a teaspoon of
noniodine salt per gallon. 2 months and everyone is happy.

Tom

The daily dose of chlorine is shortening their lives and stressing them
out.
Larger, less frequent water changes with properly treated water would be
better for the fish.



--

billy
--
Need tech help?
news://news.winextra.com

He might be lucky like me, our town adds nothing to the water other than
lime. Just a little alkaline so my guppies like it.

Larry

(tom) wrote:
I have a 220 gallon native tank, I am changing 4 gallons a day which
works out to about 50 percent monthly. Is this Ok? 2 emperor 400s and
air lifts. I dont add any chemicle, just tap water and a teaspoon of
noniodine salt per gallon. 2 months and everyone is happy.

Daily changes sound like a lot of extra work, but there's certainly unlikely to
be any harm with 2% water changes per day. If your tap water is chlorinated,
you probably should be adding some dechlor, 'tho, otherwise you're added a
source of stress to your fish. Probably should be vaccing the gravel on
occasion, too.

"tom" wrote in message
m...
I have a 220 gallon native tank, I am changing 4 gallons a day which
works out to about 50 percent monthly. Is this Ok? 2 emperor 400s and
air lifts. I dont add any chemicle, just tap water and a teaspoon of
noniodine salt per gallon. 2 months and everyone is happy.

Tom

I've yet to master the ability to know when my fish are 'happy' with
water parameters. However I have no trouble determining when they are
unhappy ;~)

Whether it's ok or not would (I think) depend on :
1) what your municipality adds to your water
2) your fish-load
3) your plant-load
4) your filtration capacity.
5) the type/size of fish
6) a few other details

1) They haven't been able to determine what level of chlorine is safe for
fish, probably because of the very different susceptibilities across the
different species. If it was really chlorine, then I suspect the
combined rate of dissipation & evaporation would minimize any bad
effects. If it was one of the chloramines (we use mono-chloramine in
Ottawa), it would be more problematic, and I'd be less certain. Then the
fish-load, type, size and plant-load start factoring in more, and of
course, what concentration of chloramine is being used (1% or 5%)?
Probably easier to de-chlor it.

2) For a low fish-load, your rate of w/c is high. For a large fish-load,
the rate is low, so ymmv.

3) Live plants (growing) always work to your advantage. Non-planted
tanks don't have this extra safety zone.

4) Emperor 400s are rated for 80g, so you are a little underfiltered, but
it would depend on your fish-load. It's a bit shy on the mechanical
filtration, but with 4 bio-wheels, you have great biological filtration.
A tank of minnows would be happier than a tank of large-mouth Bass ;~)

5) Small adult fish have a much smaller biological footprint than larger
fish or juveniles in a grow-out tank. The need to change water can be
seen by the amount of food you put into the tank. Some of this is
converted to changes in physical size (bigger fish and growing plants),
but I think most ends up back in the water.

6)

Your rate of adding salt is also a consideration. I haven't thought it
through enough to be sure if it's a concern or not. For illustrative
purposes, I'll use an extreme example: a gallon of water evaporates and
you remove 4 gallons, and then you salt the 5 gallons of water going in
(instead of the 4g removed). This would cause your salt levels to creep
upwards, so you would need fish which would not mind the extra salt. I
realize that very little water evaporates in 24 hours, but the rate of
evaporation is constant, even if you water change more often. With
less-frequent water changes, the rate of over or under salting error
accumulates more slowly. When you go to a daily routine, I think that
salting errors accumulate faster. Try to salt according to the water
which you remove.

On the good side. because of the tank volume, you can have a much greater
bio-diversity in plants & fish, which better fills all the food niches,
which works to your advantage. Also, with everything else being equal,
small frequent water changes are far less stressful on the fish.

ps: Because of the way the water dilutes, changing 110g in daily
increments will not add up to 50% of a 220g. Someone else can do the
math (my weakness), but you just need to be aware of that.

If you were to go to an automatic water change system, I'd connect an
in-line carbon filter using Centaur carbon (talk to calgoncarbon.com),
and invest in a chlorine test kit (less than $20). The test kit used
periodically would let you know what your carbon life is. Keep your flow
under 2.5gpm (easy with a drip system & overflow). Actual operating life
depends on what other contaminants were in the water, but your life
expectancy would typically range from 6 months to 3 years. An aquarium
society would be a good place to arrange to buy bulk carbon buy (which
can be sold by the cubic foot). Another method is to get a UV light
designed for the wavelength which breaks the chloramine bond ;~) *heh
heh* Don't get me started.

NetMax