As long as I had my aquarium I’ve heard all kinds of advice on how to do water changes and how often. Partly this is probably because the need for a water change depends on the aquarium as a whole; how big it is, how many and what kind of fish you have, how many plants you have and how often you feed the fish – and so on. But I think there has to be some general rules that applies to all aquariums in general and that needs to be tweaked depending on the tank in question. My wife was worried about me and the aquarium, so she recently bought a general book on aquarium treatment in Finnish (“Akvaarion perusopas“). The author, Markku Varjo, is considered as one of the experts in Finland regarding freshwater aquariums so what he says in the book should probably be considered as general facts. How does it compare to how I’ve done my water changes?
With my 100 liters aquarium I used to change the water every other week by vacuuming the gravel and changing 20 liters of water. I felt this kept the water clear while at the same time keeping the aquariums natural balance. With our 180 liters Juwel aquarium I am not yet sure how we should do the water changes. When discussing with the local aquarium shop keeper, she said that it is not necessary to change the water that often since it is a big tank. But of course it depends on the water values like nitrates and nitrites.
In his book, Varjo recommends that 1/3 of the water is changed between 1-2 weeks. This is much more water and more often than what I did with even the old smaller 100 liters aquarium. He also doesn’t specify anything regarding differences between small or bigger tanks. So I am a bit confused. Should I change 1/3 of the water in my larger tank and do it every week? Maybe it is all up to the individual tank and how it works, but in general this feels like more water to be changed and more often than I am used to. Does this affect the natural balance of the aquarium?
Another thing that I reacted to in Varjo’s book was the he recommends vacuuming the gravel carefully only once a month. This to me sounds a bit strange – or at least its different from what I’ve done so far. Should the gravel have floating particles on the bottom? Or is this the correct way to keep the natural balance in the aquarium?
My plan for at least now is to change only the water every other week, without vacuuming the gravel, and change about 1/3 of the water. I guess it is good to have fresh water in the tank, and I hope this does not affect the natural balance then.
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