How many water changes?

[Disco]

I have two 3" discus in my 20 gallon and I'm doing water changes every other day. Am I going over board or is this good for the fish?

 

[geoffgarcia (Guest)]

I have 3-  2" discus in my 15 gallon and I do water changes once a week and nobody is complaining.... I also have 2 ottos, 2 flying foxes, 100-200 malaysian trumpet snails(literally), 3 yellow legged shrimp, and 2 glass/ghost shrimp in there.
They just don't generate any waste (that I can see) so for me I think once a week is fine.

The tank is planted to about 20% capacity and uses a Magnum HOT 250. And I feed Tetra-colorflakes,freeze dried blood worms (which i never see them eat), some marine food (which the LFS suggested but once again I never see them eat) and some random flakes that the pet shop suggested..which they do eat!

 

[Disco]

Yeah, now that I think about it, I think I'll do 4 changes a week. I just think good water can make up where any other areas my fail, such as good water can help out a bad diet or resist diseases etc...And you have really good water wit ha magnum on a 15 gallon!

 

[Disco]

Wait, scratch that. 4 changed a week is the same as every other day. I'll do 3 changes a week; Sunday, Wednesday, and Saturday.

 

[dork187]

sunday wednesday saturday...
wont you then be doing a change on two consecutive days? sunday and saturday?
ive been thinking about this a lot lately
ive been doing one 25-35% water change a week
but that was just with one discus
now that i have two
i think im going to start a 25% twice a week
thursdays and..... ummmm how about mondays?
its hard to do too many water changes but you want to make sure that the water is treated and preferably aged
i let my water sit over night with an airpump in it and a bag of peat
waterchanges are your fishes best friend
but dont do so many water changes that you get burt out by them

 

[ronrca]

In my 90G I have 6 Discus and 2 Rams. Water changes every tuesday and Saturday. Important is to keep measurements. If NO3 goes up too much in one week, then more water changes. If not, once a week might be ok.