water changes

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ohioballer

Guest
this is a poll on water changes:
how often should water be changed out of the tank? And do you filter the water or add distilled water, or just from the tap at room temp.
 
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ohioballer

Guest
are all of you too tired to comment today. dont you want me to do this right so i dont kill hopeless little fish
 

nacl-h2o

Active Member
Your waking us up to early.
To answer your first Q. It depends on your water quality. If your nitrates and phosphates are lower you won''t need to change as often. If their constantly high you will have to change it more often to control them. An you can use distilled or filtered, I wouldn't recommend useing tap. What ever you use test it for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, phosphates, and silicates, even copper if you use distilled. Most distillers don't use copper pipes for distilling water but a few may.
I use purchased RO/DI for water changes and distilled for top off.
 
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ohioballer

Guest
no im just home from work already while everyone else was sound asleep :) :) :)
 

chrismilano

Member
I do 20 percent every 2 weeks. I just do it each payday so its easy to keep track of. I also change my charcoal with each water change.
tap water gave me some problems with algae growth so I invested in an RO unit. If you're keeping your tank for the long haul, its worth 200-300 bucks. I actually got one with my home water softener so I got a deal, but shop around... If youre in the sticks, maybe your water isnt too bad, but if you're near a city I would be more concerned... Im sure you have a general idea of how your local tap water is. Most salt remove chlorine anyway, but if iron and phosphate is high, it makes it much more of a challenge.
 
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