Can you do too many water changes?

I was just wondering if there is such thing as overkill with regards to water changes? Can you do too many? Basically, due to being flat out in work, doing water changes on the tank went on the backburner. I lost one of my beloved pitbull plecs so decided I needed to kop on. I have since being doing a 1 bucket change per night. Its a 155l tank and the bucket is 12L (not quite full so roughly 11L of change) so its not exactly a huge amount but just wondering could this have any ill effects, or hypothetically could larger changes frequently be a bad thing??

I think it depends on the water in the bucket.
Is it straight from the tap?
10% water change daily is a bit too much, but shouldn't harm the fish if it's pretreated with some sort of conditioner.
What other fish do you have up there?

smitas5 wrote:

I think it depends on the water in the bucket.
Is it straight from the tap?
10% water change daily is a bit too much, but shouldn't harm the fish if it's pretreated with some sort of conditioner.
What other fish do you have up there?

Well kind of straight from the tap, treated with Easy Life Fluid Filter Medium before going into the tank. I have 2 GBR, danios, cardinal tetra, rummynose tetra, and a few cory and a molly from my first tank. There is 1 pitbull left after originally having 2. Its a bit of a mishmash of fish that I bought for my original 54L tank and then ones that I bought when I got the new one.

What are your water parameters?

If you do the water changes correctly, then I can't see there a problem in doing as many as you can fit into a day.
But, it does depend upon the fish.

In the days of having a bigger system to run and the younger bonesto do it, there would be many tanks (especially discus) that would get 70 to 90% water changes per day everyday.
Some tanks were on a constant water-change system.

There would, however, be a few fish that water changes may trigger rapid aging (killies being one such group).

Where you do get dangers is not doing the water changes properly or in leaving it ages and then doing massive water changes.

ian

I do lots of water changes but the thing i find is to keep them regular and to the same time and day.(Once a week should be fine for you or else 2 30% water changes would be fine)Depends on filters that you have and how well stocked your tank is ect.
I do water changes on my fry tanks everyday 50%.If i had the option i would have auto change on allot of my tanks for fresh water system all day everyday

smitas5 wrote:

What are your water parameters?

Haven't tested them in a couple of days Smitas and in work now, so not sure to be honest. Last time I checked they seemed to be fine (I know Ian will give out to me for saying that!, but mean that Ammonia, nitrate & nitrite are within acceptable levels) Also should mention that I have a Fluval 205, Fluval U3 internal & Eheim Power Filter 200 internal filter on the tank as well. I am using them to provide extra filtration (obviously!) and also circulation to get rid of dead spots in the tank.

igmillichip wrote:

If you do the water changes correctly, then I can't see there a problem in doing as many as you can fit into a day.
But, it does depend upon the fish.

In the days of having a bigger system to run and the younger bonesto do it, there would be many tanks (especially discus) that would get 70 to 90% water changes per day everyday.
Some tanks were on a constant water-change system.

There would, however, be a few fish that water changes may trigger rapid aging (killies being one such group).

Where you do get dangers is not doing the water changes properly or in leaving it ages and then doing massive water changes.

ian

Thanks for the reply Ian. I figured as per most things it depends on many things - the fish you have, the tank you have etc.. Can you see any issues with the stock that I currently have Ian (mentioned above) with regards to the rapid aging?

PompeyBill wrote:

smitas5 wrote:

What are your water parameters?

Haven't tested them in a couple of days Smitas and in work now, so not sure to be honest. Last time I checked they seemed to be fine (I know Ian will give out to me for saying that!, but mean that Ammonia, nitrate & nitrite are within acceptable levels) Also should mention that I have a Fluval 205, Fluval U3 internal & Eheim Power Filter 200 internal filter on the tank as well. I am using them to provide extra filtration (obviously!) and also circulation to get rid of dead spots in the tank.

igmillichip wrote:

If you do the water changes correctly, then I can't see there a problem in doing as many as you can fit into a day.
But, it does depend upon the fish.

In the days of having a bigger system to run and the younger bonesto do it, there would be many tanks (especially discus) that would get 70 to 90% water changes per day everyday.
Some tanks were on a constant water-change system.

There would, however, be a few fish that water changes may trigger rapid aging (killies being one such group).

Where you do get dangers is not doing the water changes properly or in leaving it ages and then doing massive water changes.

ian

Thanks for the reply Ian. I figured as per most things it depends on many things - the fish you have, the tank you have etc.. Can you see any issues with the stock that I currently have Ian (mentioned above) with regards to the rapid aging?

I don't see anything in your tank that would get stressed over you opening the top everyday (some big fish do), and those fish would do quite nicely with frequent water changes.
There is a different between a mature system and old manky water. You can still do very regular water changes and keep your system mature.
Now, I wouldn't recommend just going out and doing the massive water changes that I used to do as that does take quite some equipment to do to make sure that there is as little disturbance to the fish and that you can remove all toxic substances from the water.

ian