50%+ daily water changes during cycle

[Danny]

Hey guys,

I see it is pretty common to do huge daily water changes on new tanks while going through the first few weeks, I'm pretty old school where you fill it and wait type thing.

So my question is, how does doing such big daily water changes affect the cycle?

What is the main reason it's done on planted tanks and not the general fish tank?

 

[Ispookie666]

When u set mine up - I did my first change after a week.
I'm not sure about the benefit of daily -unless you have ammonia and livestock at the same time

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[ian_m]

No need for such large frequent changes if planted. Leave for 6-12 weeks heavily planted, no fish, odd water change and you will be ready to go. Use things like Amquel daily to neutralise ammonia if you have to add fish early.

 

[Tim Harrison]

I usually do the 50% water change thing, I find it often helps to control, or even avoid completely, the diatomaceous algae outbreak often associated with a biologically immature tank.
I think the idea is to remove dissolved and solid organic carbon, which can be a significant contributory factor to such algal outbreaks.
Plants transitioning from emersed to submersed growth tend to release a lot of organics as they adapt to life underwater.
I guess in this case, at least, dilution is the solution to pollution.

 

[ceg4048]

I agree with Tim. Large and frequent water changes are important because doing so removes organic pollutants as well as toxic chemicals such as ammonia and nitrite. Additionally, the water change oxygenates the tank.

People always seem to assume that all that is needed to foster development of beneficial bacteria is lots of ammonia. This leads to a lot of problems later on if one focuses solely on NH3/NH4.
The beneficial bacteria are aerobic, which means that Oxygen is vital to their development. Avoiding the water changes stifles their development because the result is low oxygen levels, which fosters the development of undesirable bacteria and pathogens.

It does not matter whether the goal is a fish-only tank or a planted tank. The biology the same as far as that goes. If the tank is planted, then the water changes are even more critical because they depend on gas exchange. As Tim mentions, they must change their structure to be able to breathe underwater. Pollutants in the water that they themselves produce stifles their development. This is one of the reasons new tanks often develop algal blooms. Poor maintenance, poor CO2 combined with too much light is a deadly combination.

A daily change is unnecessary. 2X-3X per week is fine for the first 4 weeks or so.

Cheers,

 

[Danny]

Thanks guys good input.