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Hello,
I practice water changes once a week (25% RO-water) in all aquariums. After adding Salvinia, I have nearly zero nitrate in the water and the conductivity falls below the value of RO-water. So I think about the sense of water changes under the absence of nitrate.
Water change reduces humin- and fulvoacids, DOC and so on and adds new minerals. It is quite funny to first reduce those things and second to add them again in with peat, leaves or alder cones.
Some people say, water change reduces sustances that some fish secrete to prevent the growth of competitors. I dont know, because I cant see or meassure this.
The next reason to do water changes is to reduce toxic aromatics and bacteria. But the content of aromatics is not meassurable and the mass of bacteria is bound on substrate.
1 litre RO-water needs 4 litre tap water!
Perhaps it is adequate to add a little bit of tap water (new minerals) weekly, and only to do water changes when it is really necessary (the conductivity increases, to animate the fishes to mate, soaking duff and so on).
I am not really sure about this topic. But doing water changes according to a time schedule without thinking about “what you really do” is wasting water and cant be right.
Greetings
PatrickAlthough it is over 10 months old – it remains an interesting question.
I wonder why nobody else contributed to this thread.I found it looking for informations about the intervals of water changes that paro breeders normally keep.
I have several tanks using no technical equipment, just some additional lighting in the winter months. No heating, no filter. My fishes are Badis species, Dario and Pseudosphromenus. Every week I change about 20% of the water in these tanks, and they run quite well.
Now, having my first paros, I found a number of forum posts or articles which say that paros do not like too frequent water changes. On the other hand – paros like very clean water with low conductivity.
How often do the experienced paro breeders here make water changes?
In my opinion water changing is heavily overrated. Without significant water changes my fish look best. Sensitive fish mostly do much better without changes.
I haven’t changed water for weeks and now for the first time my Dicrossus filamentosus have swimming fry. I also experienced this with Heckel’s discus. This is a hard to keep species, but without any water changes they looked great and didn’t have problems at all.
I believe water changing is only good for inducing spawning in certain fishes. Otherwise it will only ruin the tank’s equilibrium and thus harm sensitive fish.
So you just refill the evaporated water? And never make water changes?
Here in Germany I know of a community of aquarists who never change the water in their tanks. There is an “Altwasser” (=old, unchanged water, I don’t know an English term for it) forum as well ….. very interesting.
The aquarium as a miniature eco system, with as little intervention as possible.
An appealing thought for somebody like me – already using only rain water and natural components – and no technics.What do the others think, and how is your water changing frequence?
I think its a bit difficult, and I am not sure what is best. To know about germs etc I have too little knowledge about what is really going on, – but experience of course learns you something.
I do not change as much water as I have done in my early years as an aquarist, and sometimes I do just fill up. But then again, I have very few fish in those tanks where I would do this.
But I quite often ‘tear’ a tank down, – because with the paros I dont ‘clean’ much, – so after some months of no cleaning and plant growing, leaves deteriorating etc. – or if the tank is full of fry, – then I simply take all out and the fishes are placed in a new tank. Most of the times this ‘changing’ set of spawning behaviour, which to me signifies that the fish actually appreciate this total replacement of the water.Another thing I quess is that once you get into the real low ph values there are probably less germs that can live there.
To the most experienced breeders of Parosphromenus things are quite clear: Water change as often as possible and as much as possible. These fish live in streaming or flowing waters. Nearly never (with a few exceptions only, that could be explained easily by a change in the landscape) they are to be found in still waters.
That means – and I agree with this by considering my own mentality – that doing seldom a water change is only a matter of laziness. I have 33 small 10-liter-tanks without any technique besides light. I am able to breed all species there and I do very little water change. I mainly use Ceratopteris as a plant of a certain hygienic value (the other plants, Java moss, other moss species, Java fern, rarely a crypt) could be forgot in that respect; they are merely decorative. (But even a filter would not alter the situation completely). Good, strong licorice gouramis are doing well in this situation but they don’t breed constantly. They breed – if well fed – immediately after a big change: of water or of the whole tank. But since I do not want them to breed constantly I am satisfied. There are friends trying to do much more water change than I am able to to, say every week a third or up to a half. They sometimes have a problem with this: the fish breed nearly constantly. Therefore they don’t admit freely but it’s true nevertheless: they become lazy, too.
My laziness is helpful, partly. It prevents me from having too much fry. Since my fish stand it for long times (weeks, even months in tanks with a pair only, some young and good growing Ceratopteris, everything is fine, or seems to be fine. Several times I had about fifty or sixty young filamentosus or linkei or spec. Danau Rasau growing up for a few months in that crowded environment of ten liters! Then the possibility or probability of outbursts of infections is very high, mostly Oodinium: small at first, not to be seen at all at the fish’s body, but if you don’t change water even in this situation it will grow rapidly. In bad cases I have lost the fish. So I feel guilty: it was my mistake.
I think we should admit that changing no waters or doing that in some weeks or even months time is biologically wrong even in a 50-liter-tank with one pair only and only due to our laziness. Even tanks with moving water or with filter streaming are a compromise if you want to keep organisms from flowing waters. Perhaps, merely keeping fish will not detect this, but breeding will. Breeding is the true measure of the fish’s well-being. And with the licorice gouramis we have to decide: the more often you are doing the changes and the more water you change the more young you will have. And our adult fish are rather hardy normally. They stand long periods of deteriorating environmental conditions, but then they don’t breed.
Of course doing frequent water change (as my friends and master breeders Allan Brown, Martin Hallmann, Günter Kopic, Horst Linke or Bernd Bussler (most of them dispose of plants altogether, that is to be added; not Horst who does it the same way than I do) t r y to do: weekly up to the half) presupposes technical means for this if you have 20 or more of small tanks of 5 to 100 liters. Above all you have to prepare the water in big enough quantities with the right pH between 3.5 and 6.0 and the right Microsiemens between 10 and 80. That all is difficult. I manage to a certain extent. But keeping my 33 small tanks in exact the way I consider the best I am totally unable. So I like my fish bearing my laziness for long times.
I always hope that they stand it without much damage. And often they do: Yesterday I moved my P. parvulus, not the easiest species, after about half a year in a tank well filled with growing Ceratopteris into a newly set-up tank with 80% of fresh water, and immediately thy began displaying and show signs of breeding behaviour.
There is a clear biological explanation of this: In nature our fish are not only inhabitants of flowing waters but there are clear spawing periods, too. They are dependent from big events, mainly heavy tropical rainfall. Then, the microfauna explodes and the young have enough to feed on. You can follow the same scheme in the aquariums: The big change induces the breeding behaviour. If you get healthy, adult fish anew, they try to breed in the next days. If you put your fish in a new tank with new water: they begin with breeding preparations. And if you change a big quantity of water: the same. And if you don’t they stand it. They normally don’t die. But they become lazy themselves. As I am.
So that’s my conclusion: The licorice gouramis are quite good for lazy people. They stand a lot of our laziness. Although there are borders. If you have one or two small tanks only, it’s no problem. The even a lazy person could change water rather often. Do! Your fish will reward this by spawning. And if you don’t? It will be no big problem if your tank is filled by growing plants, but the fish will not or seldom spawn. Sometimes at the beginng, nearly never later on. Until you overcome your laziness and change a big amount of water or even fill the whole tank anew or transfer the fish to a new tank at all.
So, decide if you want to speak about an ideal or about reality, about the ideal Paro-aquarist or about your real practice. It’s important to know both: You must know the ideal in order to know what to do if you can, and you must know the reality in order to know what the fish can stand.Thank you, Helene and especially Peter for your exhausting statements.
Ok, I see – it’s a decision between your own laziness on one side and the much bigger efforts for accomplishing nearly ideal living conditions for the fishes on the other side.
For me the limit for my laziness would be the well-being of the fishes, even if they don’t breed. I think if someone is too lazy even for that – he shouldn’t keep fishes or animals at all. I understand that you see it in the same way.As I told before, I make weekly water changes of about 20 %, sometimes more, in all my aquariums. I have very few fishes in these tanks, too. I keep the Badis species as single pairs, the Pseudosphromenus are two pairs in a 120 liter tank. All fishes began to breed soon after moving into their new tanks – and it’s the same as you told, Peter: You immediately have very much fry in a (then!) rather small tank.
It’s a simple decision according to instinct to make my regular water changes: I have the impression that all inhabitants of the tanks enjoy the “rainfall” – even the shrimps which I keep besides in every tank.
And – to tell the truth – it’s a pleasure for me, too. It connects you to your aquariums, keeps you in close contact. That’s my feeling – maybe it sounds weird….. And I know that it’s kind of luxurious – I don’t have 33 tanks, I can still indulge myself in making weekly water changes in the few tanks I have.Ok – I’ll stay with that, making my weekly water changes.
And I will keep in mind, Peter, that doing less water changes is a trick to keep fishes from nonstop breeding. It’s a kind of dilemma I’m in: I want to keep my fishes in conditions that are as ideal as possible for them. When I succeed the fishes breed …. and breed ….. and too many fry in a tank decrease the quality of living conditions (apart from the difficulty to find new owners for the fry…). I am happy that my fishes breed – but too many fry give me a bad conscience……………
To come to an end: The question of too many fry is still purely hypothecial for me – concerning paros. Let’s see if I succeed in giving them the conditions to start breeding at all.
Since the fish have clear spawning periods in nature I don’t believe it is good to keep them spawning constantly. They will get exhausted and die young. This is one of the reasons I don’t change water often. I mostly do it when I think it is a good time for them to breed.
Fish (and especially paros!) adapt and specialize to the environment they live in. For paros this is acidic and soft water with clear spawning seasons. Because they specialize to this environment they lose the ability to thrive in other conditions in a certain way. We experience that when they are put in wrong water. I believe this also goes up for spawning seasons. Paros are adapted to spawn in certain periods. Spawning them constantly means going against nature, which can only harm the fish.
Nature always knows best, so I have a strong tendency to believe her.[quote=”bartian” post=1343]
Nature always knows best, so I have a strong tendency to believe her.[/quote]Yes, that’s always been my principle, too.
But it’s like Peter says – paros never live in still waters with no flow. Even if it’s no raining season, there’s always a constant flow of seeping water trickling out of the forest grounds. They don’t live in totally stagnant water. And an aquarium with no water changes imitates stagnant water.
So I think it’s the best to change water regularly, but only in small amounts. To imitate the starting rain season (and thus the spawning period) we can change a greater part of the aquarium water. I use a sprinkling watering can to imitate rainfall.
I think this is the example nature gives us concerning paros.
I think that is a good way to keep them. So don’t change so much they breed constantly but do change little bits. That seems plausible to me.
I think important are constant water conditions. When you do water changes with water that has the same quality (RO water plus peat for example, same pH and conductivity) you can do big water changes. Once I changed 90% water without problems. But I think big water changes are often a waste of water, because you can clean the water with plants. Good plants for blackwater are Salvinia and Mayaca. I change water when the conductivity increases, so I keep this parameter stabil around a fixed point. But it depends on the aquarium. In my big 200l clearwater aquarium with Apistpgramma, I do not change water, because cond. is stabil at 15uS like my fresh RO water.
Hi all,
I’m still fairly new to this forum although I’ve registered for quite some time.
I emailed to Peter Finke 2 days ago and this is what I wrote;
Here’s another interesting subject that I hope to hear from your opinion. There is a similar topic in the Paros-project forum which you have all discussed there. However, I would like to include a few more things that have been in my mind for a while.
> An old/seasoned tank often accumulates a lot of mulm/decaying organic material at the bottom of the tank. I leave these stuff there whenever I do water changes, only siphoning the water column to about 30 – 40% and replace it with either 80% distilled water and 20% tap water or simply 100% distilled water/RO.
> Decaying leaves left in the tank creates a teem of microorganisms but I believe the species are different from the ones which usually occur in a normal aquarium (Those that obey the principle of biological cycling process).
Hope to hear from you. Thanks!
Dear Shi Xuan, firstly: welcome here. We are always happy about newcomers to the forum, but especially those who obviously have much knowledge and experience or ask very interesting questions.
Your topic is extremey interesting and I am not able to respond in exact a manner. I think nobody has investigated in the decaying processes intensely enough to differentiate the microorganisms in precise a way. But what I can say is that you are probably right in presuming that they are different from those which take part in the normal cycling processes in a well-functioning tank. The experience of experienced aquarists leads to that conclusion. But we don’t know which organisms are playing which role in this.
With Paro-aquaristics this is partly the same as in normal aquaristics, and partly it is not because of the different water values. The situation in a blackwater tank with very low pH and very low Microsiemens maybe rather different from that in a normal tank with barbs or cichlids. Presumably, the risk is higher that the change I mention below happens faster and with more serious consequences for the milieu of the tank. Blackwater aquaristics surely is possible but we know less about it than about the normal, ordinary aquarium.
Most Paro-specialists are eager to remove decaying leaves after a certain amount of time since we have often seen maladies and indications of illness in our fish when too Long exposed to that conditions. Catappia leaves fro instance should not remain in the tank until they are completely rotten; the healthy environment they can create changes into the opposite after about four or six weeks. Then they should be exchanged at the latest against new ones.
But I must admit that I often do not follow my own insights myself. That’s a problem.
So, I do not know of any scientific articles which inform us about what exactly happens here. I should be happy to know if somebody knows things better.
Hi Peter,
I’m glad for your response. 🙂
From what you mentioned, I believe what I’m doing is wrong. :unsure: Usually, I leave the leaves in the aquarium till they have fully broken down. I used to remove the mulm diligently but the fish don’t like it, so nowadays, I keep some of it.
Some of my tanks also have peat and I use various aquatic plants to delay the water changes, such as Ceratopteris sp., Java ferns, moss, Pistia stratiotes and Utricularia gibba. I noticed that whenever the decaying leaves and mulm are removed from the tanks, with fresh leaves added, the water turns slightly cloudy after 2-3 days. I think the removal of the detritus not only removes the physical waste, but also the microorganisms that are already thriving in it. The fresh leaves therefore, as they decay over the first few days, creates a new population of microorganisms. I’m sure this is similar to what is happening in an otherwise, normal healthy aquarium going through the phase of cycling.
As much as I have said, I hope to hear from more opinion from as many blackwater fish specialists as possible. 🙂
[quote=”Shi Xuan” post=2619]Hi Peter,
I’m glad for your response. 🙂
From what you mentioned, I believe what I’m doing is wrong. :unsure: Usually, I leave the leaves in the aquarium till they have fully broken down. I used to remove the mulm diligently but the fish don’t like it, so nowadays, I keep some of it. (…)
As much as I have said, I hope to hear from more opinion from as many blackwater fish specialists as possible. :)[/quote]Hi Shi Xuan, yes, in my opinion your practice is wrong, but equally is mostly mine although I think to better know it.
I am pretty sure that the final “mulm” is not the problem. On the contrary: I assume – as you do – that many useful microorganisms are living there. The problem – in my view – is the long process before, the process of decay in a very small amount of water. The difference of much flowing waters in nature and of little still waters in our tanks, may they be changed a bit nevertheless, is a big difference in structure. I am pretty sure that one has to diminish the time in which those processes afflict the milieu. The result, that “mulm”, is perhaps not nocious at all. But what was going on before is, as I see it.But I agree: Best would be a scientist who know this in Details. And second best would be opinions of experienced blackwater aquarists. Opinions could be based on experience. And that is better than nothing.
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