kilofey
Member
i was on yahoo answers earlier and someone asked a question about their 4 gold fish in a 10 gallon tank... clearly overstocked... they said something like i did a big water change and siphoned all the poo from the gravel and quite a bit of the water. now my fish seem lethargic.
someone replied and said that the ammonia had probably spiked because they over cleaned the tank... to me, it just didnt make sense because ive always heard the phrase "the solution to pollution is dillution".... meaning, get the crap outta there. i answered the question saying, removing the poo could only help the tank because it gives the bio filter a chance to catch up and they will need to do more frequent water changes than what they had been doing since the tank is already overstocked. the person sent a message back to me telling me im totally wrong because removing all the poo is removing the tanks ability to break down waste... but i just dont see how thats possible because the bacteria does not live on the poo or in the water, it lives on the porous surfaces like gravel, walls, plants ect. i had also mentioned that the problem was probably the lack of dechlorinator and that could have killed off all the bacteria if they didnt use it because chlorine kills both good and bad bacteria, and possibly if they took a while to clean the tank that tank walls could have dried out that it could have killed off some bacteria.
i just dont see how doing a large water change on a very overstocked tank could be at all a bad thing..... am i wrong? its bugging me now.
someone replied and said that the ammonia had probably spiked because they over cleaned the tank... to me, it just didnt make sense because ive always heard the phrase "the solution to pollution is dillution".... meaning, get the crap outta there. i answered the question saying, removing the poo could only help the tank because it gives the bio filter a chance to catch up and they will need to do more frequent water changes than what they had been doing since the tank is already overstocked. the person sent a message back to me telling me im totally wrong because removing all the poo is removing the tanks ability to break down waste... but i just dont see how thats possible because the bacteria does not live on the poo or in the water, it lives on the porous surfaces like gravel, walls, plants ect. i had also mentioned that the problem was probably the lack of dechlorinator and that could have killed off all the bacteria if they didnt use it because chlorine kills both good and bad bacteria, and possibly if they took a while to clean the tank that tank walls could have dried out that it could have killed off some bacteria.
i just dont see how doing a large water change on a very overstocked tank could be at all a bad thing..... am i wrong? its bugging me now.
