Small daily water changes

[eyeonforever]

I just put in a 45 gallon tank.  I was thinking of exchanging 1 gallon of aquarium water for 1 gallon of new safe water daily.  Would this be a good idea?

[KBOzzie59]

Initially my thought is no.  What is the current makeup of the tank?  Any livestock?  Any Plants?  What are the current water parameters?  If no livestock are you adding something to promote the growth of the bacteria colony?  

[Ken Dyer]

Sounds like a lot of work to me, but would be similar to an auto water change system so don't see any harm in it 😉

I think the easy answer is test your water before and after the water changes to make sure you are accomplishing what you are after with the daily changes. If small daily water changes give you the results you are after then sounds like that style may work for you. I know I just don't have the gumption to do daily small water changes, but we all settle into what works best for us over time.

[Searinaux]

When i set up my 20 gallon a couple months back I did a fish in cycle with media from another tank. I did 50% water changes daily for the first week, then slowly backed it down to 20% weekly. i think @KBOzzie59 nailed it with his question too

Quote

20 minutes ago, KBOzzie59 said:

Initially my thought is no.  What is the current makeup of the tank?  Any livestock?  Any Plants?  What are the current water parameters?  If no livestock are you adding something to promote the growth of the bacteria colony?  

 

 

[tolstoy21]

36 minutes ago, eyeonforever said:

I just put in a 45 gallon tank.  I was thinking of exchanging 1 gallon of aquarium water for 1 gallon of new safe water daily.  Would this be a good idea?

I wouldn't worry about doing that unless you have a way to automate those small daily changes. Otherwise, it sounds like daily work with no benefit. 

People have been doing weekly or longer period water changes for a long time now with success, so I don't know the benefit in splitting that volume up into smaller portions over a course of many days, unless there is something very specific you're trying to address/accomplish. If so, maybe share that as well.

That being said, doing daily small changes won't hurt anything. It's just a cost/benefit kind of thing -- the cost being an ongoing daily chore if this is not automated, the benefit being mostly negligible. 

Edited November 16, 2020 by tolstoy21

[eyeonforever]

I saw a guppy breeder say that his fish were very healthy because they had water changes 4 times a day.  I've heard of people using a drip system but my kitchen does not have a drainage hole like you might see in a commercial building.  Where would you put the outgoing water (drips)?

 

[tolstoy21]

@eyeonforever I ran plumbing through my wall that goes down into my basement where it connects to a waste line that drains into a utility sink.

For a beeeding setup I have in my basement, I overflow extra water into a tote that has a utility pump with a float switch in it that moves water from the tote into the same waste line. 

[Brandy]

You could possibly also plumb that into your sink drain under your kitchen sink. However, I think guppies are typically one of the hardier breeds, and I think 4x/day is a little unecessary unless you are wildly overstocked. If the breeder is keeping hundreds of guppies in a 20g grow out tank for instance, this would be more important.