No water change ever ?

[Stevie]

BlueBaron,thats the great thing about fishkeeping,there in no real right or wrong,now there is commen sence (spl?) like keeping a bala shark in a 5g tank or putting a gar in with neons!!!! However a lot of it is trial and error. I have done LOADS of silly things and loads of weird things have happend to my tanks. Like when I kept a betta with tiger barbs,and they never touched him,or the one eyed cherry barb I had that ruled the tank with a iron fin,or what about my 3 spot goramie (not spelt right,I know. It the fish that delta hates,you know??) that vanshied for 3 weeks,only to be found swiming around with no problems one morning!!!!

Like I always say "anything is possble" (have I heard that before???)

So if you want to try no water changes,I say knock you self out,you wont know unless you try. I mean look at Delta,he seems to be doing well with his tank. Im sure people told him he was mad when he was starting,but his fishkeeping skills seem sound. I cant vouch for his personalty mind you!!!!! lol

 

[spiffergirl]

10ppm is VERY low, what we all strive for.

ha! i strive for zero (or as close to it) in my tanks, as we all do.

 

[2e0raf]

my dad used to have a 6 ft trop tank, mum says thay never changed the water all thay had was a external filter that sucked the water out of the tank cleaned it and put it back in. that was all. unfortunatly i cannont ask him direct as he is not around (unless thay invent a telephone to heven)

 

[Balloon Fish]

are you talking about a sump filter? sump filters sound awesome i wanna get one but i dont have a big enough tank to use it..

 

[2e0raf]

deuuo. all mum can tell me is tat it was external and expensive apart from that i know nothing

 

[sbsociety]

Story bout my sister... She had a 30 gallon (which I just got from her a few months ago ) which she didn't do a water change since she got it, about 2 years ago. She said she fed them daily. She had one 6 inch pleco, two cories, & some other fish (forgot). She says she's had one or two deaths inside the tank, unknown reason. And a few from jumping out, she had no top. I took the pleco and the cories but one died within a week. Anyway, the water was nice and clear, and everything looked great...

That is UNTIL... the day came to move the tank and the water. I took 3 buckets of water, and left about 2 inches of water for the move... chucked the rest (total of about 1/5 of the tank water) Anyway, went and loaded it in the car, started driving, turned around, and saw the water was completely BLACK from all the junk in the gravel...

Moral of the story... you can go a while without the water changes... but once you mess with the gravel, you'll definitely see what you've not been cleaning! lol.

 

[depthC]

The external filter that has been mentioned was most likely a canister filter or possibly a sump.

Ive got a NWC tank myself. Its a 5.5g tank with lots of plant mass and 20 watts of floro lighting. The only fish in the tank is a red male betta. I feed him when i remember and he is alive and kickin. Its got a penguin mini power filter on it so thats 100 gph on a 5.5 so the tank is cycled 18 times per hour.

Andrew

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

About the black water coming from the gravel:

Whenever I DO perform some gravel vacuuming, I get up a LOT of black crud from down there. I have very deep gravel in most of my tanks, about 3 inches in the 20gallon tank which was a NWC tank for several months. The last time I vacuumed some gravel from that tank I did a section that had not been vacuumed in probably 4 or 5 months and the water that came out (about 3 gallons) went into the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket. There was probably about 1/4" of debris resting on the bottom of the bucket. Make great plant water for the house plants. I siphon the filthies of the eater out and feed it to the house plants. They really show the difference when drinking from the fountain of my fish anuses. (ani (sp)?)...Rarely do I ever find the need to refer to multiple anuses, so not sure which is right.

 

[Balloon Fish]

I used to save my water change water for my mom's plants but now i just get a long tube and siphon the water outside so i dont need buckets, except for my 20 gallon which i still use a bucket for but on a 40 gallon it is a back breaker...

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

I'm really glad you shared that idea with us Balloon Fish. As soon as I move I'll be setting up the 45 gallon and it had not yet occured to me to place it near to a window so I can drain it outdoors. Excellent idea! (Cose to window, but not in direct sunlight)

 

[Balloon Fish]

my 20 gallon is like a foot away from a window and doesnt have any light comming into tho but its a lot of trouble siphoning out of the window cause i have to hold the siphone head and i have to be at the window at the same time...so i just stick to the old fashion buckets if you do a lot of the water changes and stuff you could probably build a pvc pipe system that you can just go outside and suck at the end of it so you dont have to take out the python or whatever you use everytime you do a water change (just a suggestion) i might make one myself but i dont wanna keep the window open 24/7 gonna have to find a way around it

 

[spiffergirl]

They really show the difference when drinking from the fountain of my fish anuses. (ani (sp)?)...Rarely do I ever find the need to refer to multiple anuses, so not sure which is right.

Hahaha!! I found this to be hilarious, Delta. I even looked it up for you:

Main Entry: anus
Pronunciation: 'A-nus
Function: noun
Inflected Form: plural anus·es or ani
: the posterior opening of the alimentary canal

Source: Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

Thanks SpifferGirl. Now I just need to start a poll about whether people prefer to use anuses or ani when they are talking about multiple butt holes...

I really should have known that talk of No Water Change tanks would have led us down the path of talking of anuses.

 

[wayne]

Back to the point. And I know we've been all thro' this before, but whatare you going to with the stuff that doesn't go into the nitrogen cycle. And how are you going to keep kH up, and thus control your pH?

I'm sure that it's well possible to have a nwc tank, but I have a feeling it's going to limit your fish choices quite a lot.

And what's wrong with sunlight?

I like LOTS ofwater changes, and big ones too. And carbon. And I seem to have so few problems compared to many....... obviously I'm doing something wrong as I've taken the 'excitement' out.

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

Well, Wayne, my KH went UP, (from 13.5 degrees to 15 degrees over the course of about 8 months) not down when I stopped doing water changes in my tank for several months, due to the hard tap water I kept adding to top the tank off. I geuss if I had different plants like Vallisneria or sagitaria that were capable of stripping carbonates out of the water (biogenic decalcification) this effect would have been lessened to some degree.

Something I am still unsure about is what happens to all the sulfates I dump in in the form of ferrous sulfate (iron). I also dose with Potassium Chloride, and I believe plants can extract chloride from the water, but unsure about the sulfate.

 

[wayne]

Well that's fair enough, my water is so soft (0 - 1 kH)I'm pretty certain I could crash my pH down pretty quickly if I didn't buffer/change it to get huminc acids out. Good for blackwater fish, not so good for others.