Water Changes & Substrate

So, as many of you guys know I've been working on a Lake Malawi setup. Well, it's now currently inhabited with a Lwanda colony (pictures to come soon)!

Anyways, the question at hand is this: The substrate is a combination Caribsea Ocean Direct Live Oolite Sand and Caribsea African Cichlid Mix. These have done a good job raising my PH and keeping it steady at 8.2, but when performing water changes, should I mix in some buffering agents? Like baking soda & epsom salts or some other premade mix like SeaChem Malawi/Victoria Buffer?

Epson salt? NO. What is the ph right from the tap? How big of a water change do you do? What size tank?

Madness wrote:Epson salt?  NO.  What is the ph right from the tap?  How big of a water change do you do?  What size tank?

See, this is why I asked  

I actually haven't performed any WC yet, as I wasn't too sure! Anyways, it's a 55g and I would be doing something like 50%. PH at the tap is usually about 7.2ish depending on how bright the light I'm reading the chart is under and in the tank is at 8.2ish.

My only question would be, why 50% on the water change? I have 2 tanks where I want the ph to maintain around 6.8, and my tap is 7.8. I do about a 35% water change each time and have no worries.

My suggestion would be to drop the % of water changes down to 25% and do them every 4 days. The first being a gravel vac the 2nd being just a water change. The type of substrate you have in your tank should do just fine buffering the ph where you want it. If it is a concern, go to the fish store and buy a bag of crushed coral and either mix it into your substrate or put it into a mesh bag and float it in your filter.

So many people freak out and worry so much about their ph, honestly I never check my ph, and unless you do something stupid, you should never have a massive ph drop or rise. IMO, ph is not a worry for you.

Madness wrote: why 50% on the water change?

Mostly for convenience. It's kind of a hassle to setup for a water change, and I'd like to minimize that as much as possible. It's just easier to perform one larger WC than multiple smaller ones in a week. I guess I'm just spoiled by my planted tanks, where I could go weeks with just topping them off.

bronzefighter wrote:

Madness wrote: why 50% on the water change?

Mostly for convenience. It's kind of a hassle to setup for a water change, and I'd like to minimize that as much as possible. It's just easier to perform one larger WC than multiple smaller ones in a week. I guess I'm just spoiled by my planted tanks, where I could go weeks with just topping them off.

Oh we gotta get this guy either a sink adaptor or a tie in under the sink, and a 25 foot hose with a quick connect to run to his bathroom. Bathtub for the drain, quick connect under the sink to refill


Don't tell your landlord...

Ha, I have a quick water change kit, but the whole "200 year old house" doesnt help with the slow draining sink. i might have to look into a larger diameter hose though.

Epsom salt is used by some African keepers, along with baking soda, to try to replicate the rift lake water parameters. I only did that with one tank because it was being used by the person who had the fish before I did and I kept the same routine for them.  I add enough to treat the amount of water I change, but I use pool filter sand in all of my tanks, so I don't have any substrate that raises the pH or hardness. I don't know what the difference in the parameters would be after a big water change and if you would need to add buffers or not.  

In my other tanks,  I don't worry about it. And I do change over 50% in most.  I'd rather do 25% twice a week, but I don't like to drag my water change stuff out either.

I bought 50 feet of vinyl tubing from the hardware store, the kind that they sell on rolls, cut to whatever length you need and use that to drain out the window. I bought a diameter that fits my gravel vac, but a larger diameter will drain faster.   I  refill with a python.

Using buffering agents is time-consuming, but not problematic as long as you're good with a calculator, a tape measure, and have a decent gram scale.  

I do 50% changes every 2 weeks 9 of my tanks.  I then supplement measured (1/10 g scale) amounts of seachem equilibrium (GH) and seachem alkaline buffer (KH) to maintain GH and KH targets in all of my tanks.  Different tanks have different targets, so it's a process of measuring and calculating how much water is being added, and then how much of what chemical to add for which tank to hit which target.  I have all the necessary information in a spreadsheet, printed out and stored with my chemicals and water testing stuff.  

This approach has so far been a huge win for platies, snails, and my plants.  Western Washington water can be extremely soft, which can be detrimental to snails and livebearers.  Now my platies and snails are thriving.  Plus the plants appreciate the extra stuff in the water - my java fern has greened up substantially and I have less algae since I started using this process.

So in summary - don't sweat it if you don't want to, but modifying water parameters isn't always a bad idea - just be smart about it.

Anyone have a better way to get a siphon started than sucking on the hose?  I have an aqueon water changer that I use hooked to a running faucet for both drain and fill.  It's wasteful, but it saves time.

Edit: I apologize for unintentionally thread-crapping; I don't keep Africans, but the information did seem relevant to the discussion. Feel free to mod me into oblivion if necessary.  

pbmax wrote:Using buffering agents is time-consuming, but not problematic as long as you're good with a calculator, a tape measure, and have a decent gram scale.  

I do 50% changes every 2 weeks 9 of my tanks.  I then supplement measured (1/10 g scale) amounts of seachem equilibrium (GH) and seachem alkaline buffer (KH) to maintain GH and KH targets in all of my tanks.  Different tanks have different targets, so it's a process of measuring and calculating how much water is being added, and then how much of what chemical to add for which tank to hit which target.  I have all the necessary information in a spreadsheet, printed out and stored with my chemicals and water testing stuff.  

This approach has so far been a huge win for platies, snails, and my plants.  Western Washington water can be extremely soft, which can be detrimental to snails and livebearers.  Now my platies and snails are thriving.  Plus the plants appreciate the extra stuff in the water - my java fern has greened up substantially and I have less algae since I started using this process.

So in summary - don't sweat it if you don't want to, but modifying water parameters isn't always a bad idea - just be smart about it.

Anyone have a better way to get a siphon started than sucking on the hose?  I have an aqueon water changer that I use hooked to a running faucet for both drain and fill.  It's wasteful, but it saves time.

Edit: I apologize for unintentionally thread-crapping; I don't keep Africans, but the information did seem relevant to the discussion.  Feel free to mod me into oblivion if necessary.  

Not sure how hooking to the faucet saves time, not to mention (like you said) very wasteful. If you dont want to SUCK on the end to start the siphon, then just stick your gravel vac tube under the water invert it so that it fills with water, pull it out of the tank,(the water will obviously start flowing) once the water gets about half way down the tube, place it back into the water. Water is now flowing.

As for your last comment, completely unnecessary. You added great insight to the OP's question, why would you even think that you were THREAD-CRAPPING? Makes no sense to me why you would think that.

As for Epsom salts, it is used as a laxative and designed to clean out your system. (in humans) It has been proven to be quite helpful when trying to eradicate internal parasites in fish. So if you are constantly adding Epsom salt to your water, arent you really screwing up your fishes digestive system? I know what happens to humans when we have constant diarrhea.

Madness wrote:
Not sure how hooking to the faucet saves time, not to mention (like you said) very wasteful.  If you dont want to SUCK on the end to start the siphon, then just stick your gravel vac tube under the water invert it so that it fills with water, pull it out of the tank,(the water will obviously start flowing) once the water gets about half way down the tube, place it back into the water.  Water is now flowing.

As for your last comment, completely unnecessary.  You added great insight to the OP's question, why would you even think that you were THREAD-CRAPPING?  Makes no sense to me why you would think that.

Hmmm, I've tried that method of siphon start in the past but had mixed success.  My 10g tanks, for example, aren't really big enough to do that (when compared with the size of my gravel vac).  I'll try it again the next time I do my changes and see if I can pull it off.  The faucet gets the siphon going very quickly, even if the output is at the same elevation as the tank (the garage is 2 steps down from the house).  That's the time-saver - I'd have to move the whole 70+ft hose multiple times if I didn't use the sink so I could keep the output lower than the tanks I'm draining.  The garage tanks would have to drain out the garage door and then I'd have to relocate to a different door after that (the bath tub in the 2nd bath is kind of, well, storage right now ).  I'll figure it out I guess. It's worth the effort to curb the water waste.

Leave it to you, Madness, to make being polite into a crime!   But thanks for the vote of confidence, all the same.

Totally agree with the thing about dipping your hose in the tank to prefill the siphon and get a quicker start! Us with smaller tanks can't do that, but then again we can just water change with a bucket!

On the bit about the water faucet saving time... I use the water faucet and hose to drain some of my larger tanks. If your tank water level is higher than the water faucet's level, you can use the water faucet to start the siphon, and once water in the hose is lower than the water level of the tank (2 seconds?) you can turn off the water and let gravity do the rest of the work. If I were to keep the water running, it would certainly save time, 4 times faster, but it is super wasteful on the water bill. My 29 gallon empties at about .5 inch per minute with just gravity vs 3 inches per minute with water running. As an added bonus, since I setup my tank about right, I can walk away from the hose, and the siphon will automatically stop at about a 20% water change (that's the level of the water faucet!). Siphons are all about height!  

And appreciate the attempt to be polite   Just keep the self flagellating to a min to avoid being too annoying

And now, back to water chemistry, pbmax, what did you end up going with for your chemical setup?

Madness, you are using a much smaller amount of epsom salt when adding it to harden water than you would to treat for sick fish.

I start my siphon the same way madness does.  On small tanks, I take the tubing to the faucet and let water run into it until it's full, cover the opening with my finger and take it to the tank that needs draining.  If I had to suck on tubes, I would quit fishkeeping.

MRTom wrote:
And now, back to water chemistry, pbmax, what did you end up going with for your chemical setup?

I detailed the stuff I use in my above post.  You're welcome to PM me if you want to discuss the gory details of per-species GH and KH requirements.

Betty wrote:
I start my siphon the same way madness does.  On small tanks, I take the tubing to the faucet and let water run into it until it's full, cover the opening with my finger and take it to the tank that needs draining.  If I had to suck on tubes, I would quit fishkeeping.

I was thinking about doing it that way too.  I'll have to get a 3/4" threaded plug to keep the output from leaking if I did it that way, but it does sound doable.

I usually put one end in a bucket when I fill it and carry it that way so I don't need to worry about any dripping.  I can actually take my finger off of the opening if I put the tubing flat in the bottom of the bucket.  The water stays in the tubing as long as I remember to plug it with my finger before I lift it.

fishNAbowl wrote:

bronzefighter wrote:

Madness wrote: why 50% on the water change?

Mostly for convenience. It's kind of a hassle to setup for a water change, and I'd like to minimize that as much as possible. It's just easier to perform one larger WC than multiple smaller ones in a week. I guess I'm just spoiled by my planted tanks, where I could go weeks with just topping them off.

Oh we gotta get this guy either a sink adaptor or a tie in under the sink, and a 25 foot hose with a quick connect to run to his bathroom. Bathtub for the drain, quick connect under the sink to refill


Don't tell your landlord...

,my opinion as well. I use a 50`suction hose hooked to my faucet got it at petsmart for under $60. Sure beats the bucket brigade!!

I use this to start the siphon on my smaller tanks...works great.  We bought it for our Eheim 2217 canister but have found we can use it for our small tank siphons also.  Best of all...no sucking.  But for the long tubing that we run on the big tanks...John just goes outside and sucks on the tubing a bit.  Not hard to do and works great also.

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cichlid-gal wrote:I use this to start the siphon on my smaller tanks...works great.  We bought it for our Eheim 2217 canister but have found we can use it for our small tank siphons also.  Best of all...no sucking.  But for the long tubing that we run on the big tanks...John just goes outside and sucks on the tubing a bit.  Not hard to do and works great also.

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My luck id suck a gallon of tank water in my mouth and feel green til the next day.

i use an aqueon system as well, i also dont pay for water (included in utilities) so i just use cold for doing the suction. however i have on occasion just started the syphon up (typical mouth suction) and just have the other end wedged in the bathtub, it does take forever this way but if i feel like saving water its my method. plus with 25 feet of tubing its just like blowing glass to get it going.

vaquero wrote:

cichlid-gal wrote:I use this to start the siphon on my smaller tanks...works great.  We bought it for our Eheim 2217 canister but have found we can use it for our small tank siphons also.  Best of all...no sucking.  But for the long tubing that we run on the big tanks...John just goes outside and sucks on the tubing a bit.  Not hard to do and works great also.

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My luck id suck a gallon of tank water in my mouth and feel green til the next day.

that's the nice thing about this siphon...no sucking...you just pump it and it pulls the water into the siphon tubes