The Puffer Forum

Just curious, how often do you guys change your water under normal circumstances, once a week? every other week? once a month? and what percentage of the tank volume do you usually change?

I know that the recommended is to change 10-25% every week, or somewhere around there, im just curious what you all normally do? I know on my freshwater tanks I normally do a 20%-25% change every 3 weeks. But on my saltwater tank Ive been doing a 10%-20% change every week, sometimes sooner, but thats simply because im still on the "tail end" of cycling, so to speak. Im hoping to minimize it a bit once im sure the tank is stable just to make my salt last a bit longer but i dont want to jeopardize the health of my fish or inverts in any way, shape, or form.

210l freshwater tank with one Hairy Puffer. I fish out the poo, and take out 2 12l buckets every morning, replacing with 2 12l buckets treated with AquaSafe and SafeStart. On Saturdays I clean the filters - rinse the mediums in one bucket of dirty tank water, and replace the water in the filter with another. The filters then get a dose of Safe Start to top up any bacteria lost.

Probably overkill, but the tank is very clean and very stable.

Standard practice here (other than FOWLR) is 50% weekly water change with vacuuming the substrate. If the tank is more than lightly stocked &/or particularly messy feeders, more may be needed. Very few puffer tanks could get away with only 25% partials weekly. The nitrate titers would go too high and the GH decline too much. Clean and stable water parameters is the aim.

HTH

75% weekly

Stratters--stop adding Safestart. No need, once that tank's bacteria is stable & established.

Oh great, that's going to save me a fortune!

Are you feeling any better?

Yep, I'm out in S Carolina looking for a place too live so away from the reef tanks for a while. Can't wait to get them torn down & gone! Then, there's moving the 6 FW ones 750 miles...

That's going to be fun. And there's me fretting about moving my two into the new kitchen when it's finished.

Glad you're feeling better, but sad for you that you have had to give up SW tanks

I hate moving with a passion. And my last move was ~5 miles, some 28 years ago. The one before that ~ 45 min. to an hour tops. I sincerely hope that I never move again.We built this hoping that it would be our retirement home as well, and It is working well so far. The gardens are shifting to lower upkeep gradually, and the number of fish tanks gradually declining and shifting to lower care rather than experimental set-ups. So far it is promising...