Water Change Experiment

[Discusthing]

I believe someone was doing an experiment with daily water changes v. a longer interval for the water change. I think they signed off from the board for awhile also. Does anyone recall who this is and what the current status of the experiment is? Thanks.

[lesley]

In my experience, with a heavily planted tank, you can go longer without water changes, but my fish always look happier after a water change. I tried to draw it out longer but have now settled for every two to three days. If you watch your fish carefully, you will see that they love fresh water. I have just come to the computer after changing water (was the third day) and fish looked okay before but now they are just that bit more more alert, hunting around the plants looking for food and just look "better". I usually do every second day.

Sorry, don't remember who was doing the "experiment".

[ShinShin]

It always seems to be that when water changes are reduced, time catches up and discus begin to get sick. Raising healthy, vibrant discus requires time and effort. Jack Wattley once stated at a talk he gave, "One must decide if they want to raise discus or watch TV."

If water changes are that big of a problem, maybe one ought to raise angels or oscars.

(I am not infering you are thinking about reducing water changes. You're probabally just curious about the experiment results)

[Dave C]

I did an experiment with daily vs. weekly w/c here...

http://members.shaw.ca/dclubine/Experiment.htm

That was awhile ago and now I no longer keep Discus. But in the end I found that daily w/c were unnecessary and I managed to have the same success with Discus doing w/c 3x a week.