Continuous Drip Water Changes with Wilds

[JBurgo]

Anyone do this, or are we just moving too much water for it to work?

I have a 600L tank and do 300L changes every 2-3 days, usually try to stick to the 3 days, because only aging the water for 2 days irritates my fish. So instead I just vacuum daily.
I think I'd have to move around 100L a day to come close to matching my water changes.

But there's the problem, adding 100L a day of un-aged water directly to the tank is my concern. I could trickle it through activated carbon to help remove chlorine, but they don't like the water un-aged, I don't know whether it's dissolved CO2, PH or a combination of that, they just don't like it, and I don't want to add a stressor.

But I would like the stability it could provide.

Thoughts?

[Lido]

I met a guy who had a system that did continuous changes. He was in the Glendale area. His system ran to a 200 gallon water tank where it was mixed w/ RO, heated and then pumped into the tank at the bottom at a rate of 10 gallons per hour. There was an overflow at the top that went to a drain that went to his gardens. He had really nice discus. It seemed to work for him. His tank basically turned over daily. It seemed like it required a bit of an investment and some automation. It is possible and works.

[JBurgo]

That's a 750 L water change tank and 1 kL water turnover a day!
You said he turns over his aquarium daily, that makes it a 1 kL aquarium, right? Maybe an 8x2x2 with sump.

They say a dripping tap is about 20 L a day. I was thinking a trickle at about 5x as fast as a drip to make about 100L a day. I must be way off.
I don't think I have the above aquarium height capacity to store enough water to fill a reservoir tank that trickle feeds otherwise the answer might be more obvious. Maybe I need to think about using the roof cavity. That could work, except that on a hot day it might significantly increase the temperature in the tank.
I was also anticipating using the heaters in the tank to do the work.

Here's a link to Joey's YouTube, probably people have seen this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LimJJasPUlo

This isn't about saving doing water changes for me, it's about water stability. You still have to vacuum daily and do water changes, it just pushes the water changes further apart.

[Phillydubs]

Can I ask why you think or know the fish don't like the water that way or why it takes so long to age? Have you tested your water in stages? Straight from the tap, say 12 hrs later, 24 hrs, 36 hrs, etc?

Most water should gas off and be fine in 24hrs, many cases a lot less and some people "age" for a few hrs and in it goes...

Just curious to your thinking here?

[JBurgo]

Sure Phil, conversations are great.

I haven't tested the water in stages, on the API test kit t's right up the top of the Low and down the bottom of the High so it's difficult to pinpoint it out of the tap. The increments are in .2 as well, so my best guess is that it changes .4 from 7.2 to 6.8, but it could be changing 7.6 to 6.7 with inaccuracies factored and without a more accurate test (if you've noticed, it jumps .4 from 7.2 - 7.6 on the last increment). Testing the water in stages may not give me any more information due to these inaccuracies, but it's a good idea and I might have to pursue it, perhaps I can obtain a better tester. One thing I'm sure about is that I get a significant and readable change, and the water has the telltale signs of microbubbles gathering around the sides of the containers. It also pongs of chlorine like a pool.

I've never had a problem with 24 hour aging before, but I have usually aged for a week, because before I got the wilds I did weekly 30% WCs and I just filled up the aging barrels when I did a WC. But there were occasions where I didn't, and as long as I hit 24 hrs I was happy to do a change and never had a problem. The difference when I got the wilds and joined Simply, is I started doing 50% (or more) WCs every few days instead of 30% a week. This gave me problems if I got lazy and filled the aging tubs the next day instead of straight away. The fish would tell me.. admittedly I have some weak fish, but I have strong ones too. I think it's a combination of the higher % water change plus the shorter aging that's doing it, I don't seem to be able to do both. Here's a quote from another thread about another tank:

"I have a few tanks and one I keep a community tank of `leftovers` from previous tanks and fish my kids pick out from the LFS. It's not a huge priority in my fishkeeping, but I take care of it as the `kids tank`. There's a few discus in there too. I was in a bit of a hurry one weekend and I only aged the water from the morning to afternoon that day, threw some prime in it and did a 90% WC. The Discus hit the sand, turned black and their slime coat fell off. Lucky they're healthy and they bounced back over the next couple of days, but now I always age 2 days minimum and only change 50%. Even my Wilds last night got 1 1/2 days and they were upset for about 2 hours. Your water isn't my water, but like Phil said, `know your water`. And I just wouldn't start out at 90% daily un-aged water changes. People who do that know and prepare their water."

The guy I got the fish from is in the same area as me, he's an experienced older guy who keeps other expensive exotic fish, but it's obvious he wasn't doing something correct with these Wilds (at the time I just thought he wasn't doing enough WCs, (on top of a few other things). For one thing he was chemically altering pH. But he did say that this or that fish was black because he just gave them a WC and they `didn't like it`. And I'm pretty sure he primed and dumped the water. I think these fish stress, and when they stress regularly over time from stuff like this they get sick. When I age it longer, they don't show any signs of stress. Maybe it's something else, but I don't really have any way of analysing my water any further. And at least this is working.

My intention in this thread is thinking about, maybe there's a better way to get even more stability.

[John_Nicholson]

Drip system are extremely inefficient when doing large water changes so you need to drip in way more water than you think.

-john

[JBurgo]

Yeah, I'm beginning to see that. I pay for my water too, so it would get mighty expensive mighty fast, plus the inability to age the water, plus that it would raise the pH, add microbubbles..

[Hart24601]

I have my displays plumbed together on a ro/di drip. Total system volume is around 260g, I drip 76g right now equivalent to 25% daily w/c. Much past that % efficiency as stated drops off quickly. I call mine a drip but it's technically a peristaltic pump that runs 10min every hour with a drain in the sump.

On my grow out tank I have pvc drain and floats to perform 100% w/c whenever I want as larger w/c with the crazy amount they eat.

I use 3 44g Rubbermaid bins to hold the water and remineralize. I absolutely love drips on my display tanks. There are also pothos, uv, purigen, carbon, and a water lettuce/hyacinth refugium on there. Very little maintenance I need to perform on the system. Both tanks are BB as well.

Now if you think 20-30% is ok for the display is another question between (adults or whatever you wish in there). If not then drips are not the best unless you have a system you can drain the volume at once and the drip refills it or you have a drip and still plan on large waterchanges and it's a backup.