if my water quality is good, do I need to still do frequent water changes to get fish to breed?

[CornAndCrawlers]

Hi all! I've got some well established planted tanks that I test monthly and never needs any maintenance other than topping off evaporated water. 

My question is, do I still need to frequently change water to promote fish to breed even if my water quality is good?

[CJs Aquatics]

what kind of fish are we talking about if I may ask? 

[lefty o]

some fish get triggered by it, but for the most part, no. if the water is good and the fish are happy it will happen.

[tolstoy21]

Yeah, if your water is clean, you just want to focus on having the correct params for the fish to breed -- temp, gh, kh, ph, etc.

But as @lefty o said, some species are trigger by a flush of clean water that drops both the temp and/or GH/KH. So it depends on what you're trying to breed.

The frequent water changes come in handy when you have a packed grow-out tank full of fry that you're trying to grow.

Personally, I do perform a lot of frequent water changes on my breeding tanks, but that's only so I don't have to go around and measure the tanks params all the time.  But it's certainly not necessary.

Edited August 28, 2022 by tolstoy21

[Ken Burke]

Adding to @tolstoy21and @lefty o, I find regular water changes allow me to feed a little more aggressively without worrying about getting my water too funky. Lots of fish need some conditioning together them in shape for a spawn.  

[CornAndCrawlers]

On 8/27/2022 at 7:15 PM, CJs Aquatics said:

what kind of fish are we talking about if I may ask? 

ive got one tank with Johnny darters that im trying to breed, and another tank with fathead minnows that id also like to try and breed. both tanks are established, have plenty of caves and I feed frozen and live food only. 

[rockfisher]

I don’t do water changes unless there are is a problem. I breed corys, angelfish,L-333 and L134 plecos and discus. The discus need a top off of water with corrected ph. I think it depends on how you do things. There not one way to do things. I agree with @tolstoy21but for me I need to not change water, because it totally messes up the water conditions . If I was in a different area I think that water changes would part of most breeders programs and should be. I do things differently out of necessity and learning what works for me. I’m sure most people should have water changes as part of the plan. I think that you should go with what is working for most people first and then make slow small changes if needed. Patience is key.  I would recommend that if you do see breed to do a water test just to see what the perimeters are so you can try to get back to those and if you did any thing before like water changes or adding fertilizer. The corys and angels for me breed a day or two after I add magic shells.

[modified lung]

TDS can also be a useful gauge for when it's been too long since the last water change. Many fish will slow or stop breeding when TDS reaches a certain level above normal. For example, my tap water is about 350 ppm TDS and my CPDs slow their breeding around 600 ppm TDS.

[CJs Aquatics]

I feel like what everyone has said on here is right on the money, I was going to say water changes can trigger breeding but aren’t necessarily required 

[gardenman]

And large water changes can even be detrimental in that they can flush hormones from the water and some of those hormones can trigger breeding. Some exotic pleco breeders add guppies and other livebearers to their tanks as the hormones released by the guppies in spawning and giving birth seem to encourage the plecos to breed. If you change a lot of that water, you'd flush a lot of those hormones.

[CornAndCrawlers]

thank you all for the feedback. I feel way more assured after reading this feedback and I will be patient 

[tolstoy21]

And to be completely transparent, the tanks I do a lot of WC's on are on an auto water change system. I have some tanks that get remineralized RO water and others that I have to boost the GH quite a bit.  Those, I rarely change water on, basically as needed.

So, all my WC habits can be 100% attributed to laziness (there is no science to it)--I auto-change a lot of water so I don't have to worry about keeping track of params (especially when stocking density is high or I'm intentionally over feeding). On the other tanks not on auto WC, I change water infrequently because why make work for myself if I don't have to?

Edited August 28, 2022 by tolstoy21

[rockfisher]

On 8/28/2022 at 9:14 AM, gardenman said:

And large water changes can even be detrimental in that they can flush hormones from the water and some of those hormones can trigger breeding. Some exotic pleco breeders add guppies and other livebearers to their tanks as the hormones released by the guppies in spawning and giving birth seem to encourage the plecos to breed. If you change a lot of that water, you'd flush a lot of those hormones.

I can totally agree with this. I use 55gal tanks with a divider with to pairs of angels in each tank. I just use egg crate so other fish like panda Corys in the tank to travel to both sides.  When one lays the other with Almost always lay the same day or the next day.