I've never done a water change. How EXACTLY is one done?

DarkCreep

Do I just get a bowl, remove 20% and re add the water then condition?
or is there certain steps to do?
Will I disturb the fish in any way by all the "waves"?
How many times a month do I do a water change?

I have 2 4" goldfish in there with a crab. I will get more fish, Im really leaning towards larger fish since I have a 55G. The pleco died , and the Eel died (I dont really mind for him though). I will get 2 more Plecos and some more 4" fish.

I tried doing a search, but search features in all forums suck.

BJP

You pick up a gravel vacuum sized to your aquarium from a store and hopefully if it's a small store they'll throw in a free demo on how to use it but it basically siphons water out of the tank through tubing and has an end you move up and down in the gravel to vacuum up wastes.

A bucket or something to collect the water. If the tanks large I go further and add a garden hose fitting to the bucket so I can roll a hose out a door and let the bucket empty itself while it's filling.

For small tanks transport the clean water in pitchers or small buckets after adjusting the temperature. You can also dechlorinate or add other additions at that time directly to the bucket so they get predissolved. For larger tanks I use a hose attached to a sink and add the additional chemicals during the top off or immediately afterwards. Hopefully you're not adding lots of stuff.

How often is simple. Test the nitrate level. Pick a number you feel is the highest acceptible level. Do enough water changes to never let it cross that point. That might be once a week 10% now. It might be once a week 50% this fall. By next spring it might be twice a week 50%. The numbers take all the guessing out. As the fish grow and you increase feeding or add more fish, the numbers will rise faster and higher. Once it gets to a point you're unwilling to increase the frequency, percentage or both of water changes to keep pace, you're officially overstocked and a larger tank or population reduction will be needed.

christopherhicks

BJP I used a declorinator when I first filled my tank. When I do my water changes I dont use any is that ok. I have a 75gal and a 30gal which is down right now due to a leak fun fun. They have been set up fpr about 3 months now and I dont see any problems. When I first set up the tank I didnt cycle it first it was the 30gal had lots of problems never lost a fish but I was just lucky. I had to do water changes every day to keep amonia down. Is it ok to not use declorinator for water changes

BJP

That really depends on what's coming in with your water. Simple chlorine I can gas out easily as I refill my aquariums or ponds by allowing it to splash in at the surface although I also include aeraters on my hoses to assist. A simple aerater is to add a standard inline hose shutoff to the end of your garden hose. A Whispere Junior intake strainer should then slip securely into the end of the hose shutoff. In addition to aerating it directs the water out of the hose sideways in a circular pattern keeping you from blowing the substrate around.


Pictured above with a black garden hose.

Chloramines cannot be gassed out and need a simple dechlorinater to break the chlorine ammonia bond. The chlorine should be converted to salt/electrolytes and the ammonia can then be consummed by the bacteria or plants.

Most dechlorinaters offer some ability to detoxify heavy metals that could be coming in also but it's up to you to determine which or if you have coming in and wether it's enough to worry about.

Some will add additional salt inclusions and some base level of electrolyte is needed at least in the trace levels.

Other than that, whatever additions that come with the specific dechlorinaters other than just cranking up the cost per use and feeding het blooms or algae/diatom growth like the phosphate in Stress Coat, fall into the faith realm either claiming to do things we can't verify or aren't really sure we need.

The most common of those inclusions is meth blue, a bacteriostatic dye. I usually keep a bottle of that around when I'm breeding anyway seperately since it's great at identifying fungused eggs.

DarkCreep

Oh I see... I used filtered water in my last water change, the kind from the store. Would that help any more then sink water?

BJP

Without a full set of tests to tell me what's left in the bottled water compared to what's coming in with the tap water and a description of what's being housed in the tank there's no way to say. Either one could be good, they both could be bad as is, or one could be good and the other bad. There's just no way to say without testing.

That reminds me I've got a new test kit to play with. I found a box of pesticide test kits at work I'd forgotten we had. It tests for atrazine, simazine, cyanazine, propazine, simetryn, prometryn, prometon, desethyl atrazine, atraton, desisopropyl atrazine, tertbuthylazine, ametryn, and 2-hydroxy atrazine.

Enquiring minds want to know what the fish are swimming in and what I've been drinking.