If I follow the EI guide it says that I should do a 50% water change once a week. My tank is approx 400L, so that's a lot of water to change in one go. My current regime (this tank is a discus tank) is 3 water changes a week of approx 80L each time - how would this affect the EI routine ?
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EI and water changes question
- Thread starter rt964
- Start date
Hello,
At the end of the day EI really does not care how often or in what quantities you do a water change. The reason water changes are important is because plants being fed huge quantities of food excrete huge quantities of waste which pollutes the water in a closed system such as a tank. The water change schedule offered by the basic EI plan is a suggestion to help maintain the health of the tank by removing as much of this organic waste as possible. If you prefer to change smaller amounts more frequently then you have lots of options but, the best path will depend on how your tank responds. If you do 3 water changes a week you could dose 1/3 the suggested amounts on each of the water change days, or you could simply dose the suggested amount on the first water change and ignore the fact that there are two subsequent water changes during the week.
It's not clear though why 200L is considered a lot in one go. Is this an issue of time? 200L takes twice as long to remove and replace as 80L. Is it because of the workload because you are still using buckets? Perhaps a change to a submersible pump and tubing might help ease the burden and speed things up as well.
Cheers,
At the end of the day EI really does not care how often or in what quantities you do a water change. The reason water changes are important is because plants being fed huge quantities of food excrete huge quantities of waste which pollutes the water in a closed system such as a tank. The water change schedule offered by the basic EI plan is a suggestion to help maintain the health of the tank by removing as much of this organic waste as possible. If you prefer to change smaller amounts more frequently then you have lots of options but, the best path will depend on how your tank responds. If you do 3 water changes a week you could dose 1/3 the suggested amounts on each of the water change days, or you could simply dose the suggested amount on the first water change and ignore the fact that there are two subsequent water changes during the week.
It's not clear though why 200L is considered a lot in one go. Is this an issue of time? 200L takes twice as long to remove and replace as 80L. Is it because of the workload because you are still using buckets? Perhaps a change to a submersible pump and tubing might help ease the burden and speed things up as well.
Cheers,
Hi,
Thanks for the clarification on the water change routine, it looks as though the "suck it and see" approach is best. I've ordered the various chemicals and will run a picture diary of the tank to see what changes (hopefully improvements !) I get over the coming weeks.
The reason for saying that 200L is a lot to change in one go is that I use a 50:50 mixture HMA (aged for 24hrs) and RO water, and I have about 120L on stand-by at any one time, so doing 200L in one go would require a couple more containers, that's all. Time-wise, I've got the water change routine down to a fine art and under 20 minutes, including a light vacuuming of the substrate surface !
Cheers,
Richard
Thanks for the clarification on the water change routine, it looks as though the "suck it and see" approach is best. I've ordered the various chemicals and will run a picture diary of the tank to see what changes (hopefully improvements !) I get over the coming weeks.
The reason for saying that 200L is a lot to change in one go is that I use a 50:50 mixture HMA (aged for 24hrs) and RO water, and I have about 120L on stand-by at any one time, so doing 200L in one go would require a couple more containers, that's all. Time-wise, I've got the water change routine down to a fine art and under 20 minutes, including a light vacuuming of the substrate surface !
Cheers,
Richard
Hi Richard,
OK, I see. It all seems rather elaborate though. I guess you are doing that because of your soft water fish, like Discus, Apistos and so forth? I hope you're not doing that because of plants, because plants don't really care about RO or HMA.
Cheers,
OK, I see. It all seems rather elaborate though. I guess you are doing that because of your soft water fish, like Discus, Apistos and so forth? I hope you're not doing that because of plants, because plants don't really care about RO or HMA.
Cheers,
You're right, the RO/HMA water is for the fish (12 discus and a whole host of other tank mates !). You can see a diary of the tank build and fish here: http://forum.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/showthread.php?t=70070.
