How Often Should The Water In The Aquarium Be Changed?

2023 Author: Molly Page | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 22:49

After the aquarium is planted with plants and fish, the hobbyist should strive to maintain a stable regime in it. For the normal development of fish and the prevention of a number of diseases, a certain chemical composition and biological balance are required in water, which is maintained over many years.

Water should be topped up as it evaporates, the glasses are cleaned, the aquarium soil is only partially no more than 1 / 5-1 / 3 of the aquarium volume. Moreover, even a partial replacement of water should not drastically change both its gas and salt composition.

In aquarium fish farming, a complete replacement of old water is extremely rare. Even with the mass death of fish, it is not completely changed. When completely replacing the water, you need to make sure that the new water meets all the hydrochemical parameters required for the existing fish species.

Completely change the water in the aquarium in exceptional cases: when undesirable microorganisms are introduced, fungal mucus appears, the water blooms violently, which does not stop when the aquarium darkens temporarily, and when the soil is very dirty. Plants suffer from a complete water change: discoloration and premature death of leaves occurs. If the aquarium is biologically properly populated, plants, fish and bacteria in the soil and water can replace a good filter.

The opinion widespread among novice aquarists about the need for frequent water changes as a prerequisite for the normal maintenance of exotic fish is deeply mistaken. Frequent water changes in the aquarium can cause illness and even death of fish.

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In most cases, a water change - although a regular 1 / 5th water change in an aquarium is always desirable - does not have an indoor pond life stage. This life in an aquarium, depending on our skill and desire, can last from several days to 10-15 years.

What does that require? Replacing water by 1/5, up to certain limits, of course, (adding lifeless tap water) will shake the equilibrium state of the environment, but after two days it will be restored. The larger the aquarium, the more resistant it will be against our inept interventions.

Pseudotrophyus Zebra (Maylandia zebra)

Replacing half of the medium will disturb the equilibrium stability, some fish and plants may die, but after a week the other homeostaticity of the medium will be restored again.

Replacing all the water with tap water can completely destroy the environment, and you have to start over.

* If you decide to start an aquarium, and before that did not deal with it, but there is a desire to arrange everything not hastily and somehow, start with a small reservoir of 100-200 liters. It is just as easy to establish a biological balance in it, to form a living environment, as in a small one, and it will be much more difficult to destroy it with your inept actions than in an aquarium with a capacity of 20-30 liters.

In an aquarium, we do not keep aquatic animals and plants, but an aquatic habitat, and the main task of the aquarist is to maintain an equilibrium, healthy state of this particular environment, and not its individual inhabitants, because if the environment is healthy, then the inhabitants of this environment will be fine … The habitat during the period of its formation (when the plants are planted in the ground, and a week after that the first fish are launched) is extremely unstable, therefore, it is strictly forbidden to interfere with the work of the aquarium at this time. What do we have to do?

Within two months, you cannot change water: what is the point, instead of semi-tap water, which is just turning into residential water, to add sterile tap water again? In a large aquarium, a water change will slow down the formation of habitat, but in a small one this intervention will cause disaster and everything will have to start over.

Pseudotropheus zebra (Pseudotropheus zebra)

In two to three months, the emerging aquatic habitat in the aquarium will enter the youth stage. From this moment until the complete reorganization of the aquarium, you need to start changing 1/5 of the volume of water every 10-15 days, or monthly. The inhabitants of the aquarium do not seem to need such a renewal of the environment, but the habitat needs it to prolong youth and maturity. During a water change, you can clean up with a hose to collect debris from the ground, clean the glass. In an aquarium with a capacity of more than 200 liters, add a thin stream of tap water. For small reservoirs, the water must be kept in the room or heated to 40-50 °.

In six months, the habitat matures. Now only a rough intervention can spoil the existing biological balance in the aquarium.

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After a year, it's time to help the habitat not get old. It is necessary to remove accumulations of organic matter in the soil, that is, to clean the soil. For two months, regularly washing the soil, it is necessary to ensure that the total mass of water removed with garbage does not exceed 1/5 of its volume in the aquarium, even in the largest home reservoir it is possible to wash the entire soil. But we rejuvenate the habitat for a whole year, and a year later we repeat this operation again.

In this way, degradation of the habitat is prevented and the aquarium brings joy to its owner for many years without major reconstruction.

Aquarium. Practical advice”. V. Mikhailov

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