Water changes

[gswalker]

So i would probably do a 40% water change every 2 weeks but once there adult it would change to once a week, would this be ok? Also i understand the water has to be the same temp and Ph as the water already in the tank? how on earth do you accomplish this without putting a heater in with the buckets you are changing the water into?

[MoliroMan]

U need to do 50% weekly water changes now since this will allow them to grow a lot faster and they will less likely get bloat from nitrate spikes!

When the weather gets cooler u will need to heat up the water before adding to the tank (esp with 50% water change), sudden temperature drop could be enough stress to trigger bloat. I tend to warm the water the morning i do a water change.

I also age and condition the water a week before every water change with the exact amount of buffer and salts to try to get the water as close as possible to my tank water.

hth

Dave

[Caesar]

So i would probably do a 40% water change every 2 weeks but once there adult it would change to once a week, would this be ok? Also i understand the water has to be the same temp and Ph as the water already in the tank? how on earth do you accomplish this without putting a heater in with the buckets you are changing the water into?

←

Get yourself a 200l drum and do as dave indicated. After I do a water change I pre mix and condition my water so it is ready for next water change. I also chuck a heater in the water the morning prior to my water change to get the temp right. It doesn't have to be exact but the closer the better.

Ave

[parrdog]

Ditto.

[gswalker]

Ahh ok, wow where is the cheapest place to get a 200 drum from? im only in a 2 bedroom unit so storage is hard lol. yeah will have to prepare to do water changes early in the morning and need to get an extra heater

[Ash]

Don't forget to get an elcheapo pump & some hose to shift the water from the storage drum to the tank. 200l by the bucket? I'm not that committed.

[MoliroMan]

i got my 220L grey drum from a hardware store in West Ryde on Cox Rd for $25 each. They are good quality, have a screw top lid and i think they were used to store olives so need to have a good wash and soak before use.

[parrdog]

I'm someone who transfers 220 litres from the drum to the tank with a 13 litre bucket. I always say I'll get a water pump but then I think of something more exciting to spend my money on. It does sometimes drive me nuts, but it aint that bad .

Jamie.

[Matthew]

G'day

Gavin I cannot say that I have ever heated my tropheus water. As you are aware we have some experience with tropheus. I can possibly see the logic in heating the water but to be honest I believe that it makes the fish a little tougher when varying temperatures occur in their tanks.

By the way the when the fish are in the lake the deeper they swim the cooler the water. They don't stay at the same spot in the water all of the time and will happily travel through multiple temperature colums of water in their areas of the lake.

PS I often see the tropheus spawning just after or as the new water is being pumped into their tanks. Oh yes and the buffers I add when I remember straight into the filter, sidedrops

Methinks some people are almost killing their tropheus with kindness. But then again I may be wrong.

PS a cheap hose and a $20 pump is all that is needed to stop you from carrying buckets of water. It is quicker and a lot easier on your back. Make sure you also buy some elbows (2x) so that you can make a hook out of the pipe, so that you don't have to stand their and hold the hose in the tank.

cya

[Tiger]

I do water changes straight out of the tap ........always have . Add declorrinater at the same time .......Waterchanges once a week if they are lucky (or if i get time) .........up to a month sometimes. ........Feed once a day ...add buffer straight in the tank. I don't keep Metradizanol or clout here.........no need so far

My fish are thriving though

This routine goes against what most of you think .

They are not that hard to keep .

I do have good filtration though.....Sidedrops and sumps

Cheers Kevin

[parrdog]

It's always comforting to hear that people are going against the grain and having success . I'm one of the ones that go strictly by the book but hey, that doesn't mean it's the only way to do things.

There's so much we don't know about these guys. The common conceptions about diet are recently being thrown out the window with the introduction of NLS.

Who knows, the strict routines of water changes and aged, buffered water may be next to go. Different strokes for different folks.

If anyone else is going aginst the grain and succeeding, let us know.

I will continue to do my aged water thing but I welcome the other options that others are using with success .

As has been said, these little guys are tougher than we give them credit for.

Great responses guys, I enjoyed your perceptions ,

Jamie

[MoliroMan]

In my opinion i think u should try to at least keep the tropheus at the conditions that the person u bought them from kept them in. And then gradually adjust them to the ways u intend to maintain them in. Do what works for you.

I think most of the people i sold my tropheus to will be keeping their tropheus in water buffered only with substrate. They have no intention of adding salts or buffers.

[parrdog]

Hey Dave, those of us that do the whole salt, buffer in the heated and aerated drum thing could be a dying breed .

I'll always do it that way though.

I also agree that you should mimic the conditions of the previous owner as much as you can before adjusting.

Jamie.

[parrdog]

Hey Tiger, I hope you're not tempting fate too much with that lack of Metro comment .

[anchar]

Jamie...I pretty much follow the same regime as Kevin without incident to this point. They are way tougher than is commonly believed IMO.

Until this week, I have never encountered any problems with Tropheus....thankfully this week just turned out to be a case of fussy eaters rather than something more sinister. Cheeky blighters Who knew they wouldn't eat flake and hung out 'til I bought pelletted foods!

Andrea

[parrdog]

Little buggers .

[MoliroMan]

Just a little plug to our new forum sponser!!!!!

My Tropheus Only Eat New Life Spectrum foods!

Nothing comes close in quality and freshness!!!!

[gswalker]

so what spectrum should i feed Tropheus?

[Ash]

cichlid formula I believe.

not that it really matters, most of them are the same "formula", it's just the size that changes.

[MoliroMan]

Ash is correct.

If i understand it correctly, they all have the same basic ingredients but Thera A has some copper in it to reduce white spot, the Finicky formula has garlic in it and the other formulas are mainly different in terms of size of pellets. I wouldn't use anything above 1mm for tropheus unless they are large adults.

I have started using Grow formula for my young fry since they are only 0.35mm diameter and they seem to be able to consume it.

I usually give them a staple diet of Cichlid formula and give alternate feeds of Thera-A and Finicky formula but i think just using Cichlid formula is sufficient.

It would be interesting to use the H2O stable wafers as well but i have yet to try them.

hth

Dave

[Ash]

Actually Dave, Thera A has garlic & a bit more protein (38% compared to Cichlid formula's 34%). Finniky formula has mussel & garlic, 38% protein.

[steph]

Man you guys heat the water in a difficult and time consuming way, not to mention it probably uses more electricity. Just boil the kettle and add a little bit to the bucket of water - not the tank, *duh* to bring it up to temperature. Hot water can also be used to dissolve buffers a lot faster too.

cheers

Steph

[CThompson]

By the way the when the fish are in the lake the deeper they swim the cooler the water. They don't stay at the same spot in the water all of the time and will happily travel through multiple temperature colums of water in their areas of the lake.

As you say, the temperature is different in accordance with the water’s depth, but also with the currents. But you can’t compare a wild fish’s ability to cope with a waters temperature difference and a temperature difference that may come about in a water change in our tanks.

If a wild fish finds a tempreture uncomfortable in the lake, they can swim into were they are comfortable.

In our tanks, if we took out say 1/2 to ¾ of the tank, and replaced it with water say 10 degrees Celsius lower than the tank temperature, where can the fish go to be more comfortable if the whole tank is this new decreased temperature? This is when a problem can occour.

It is not unusual to carry out 50% water changes, so there is potential for a big temperature drops if the replacement water is colder.

The difference here comes about with two variables. How much water was taken out of the tank, and what the temperature difference is between tank water and replacement water.

Where you live in Australia and the season will dictate how big a temperature difference you could potentially have.

I find it easier to cater for the worst, which means I have a heater (with thermostat) in all my water change barrels. If the heater turns itself on, it is needed. If it doesn’t – it’s summer. KISS

I too keep Tropheus, and have kept the same existing colony for many years. I always pre-prepare my water, including temperature adjusted. One simple reason for this is - what if something goes wrong? What if something unexpected happens? What if I have accidentally done something during a water change that has triggered bloat? What if I had pre-prepared my water, including heating and this could have prevented it? OH! Look! The horse has bolted, and it’s too late to close the barn doors.

Tropheus are hardy, but they can also have bloat touched off in them if we do something wrong, and I for one will do all I can to prevent as apposed to cure.

I just love them too much not to do ALL I can to do my best.

Craig

[parrdog]

I also do all I can to keep my Tropheus happy. I may go overboard but I only have one tank which helps. I use the pre- prepared drum method but others have success doing it other ways. It's what works for you and your fish.

Except for a Troph that jumped out, I have had no losses in 2 years using the drum method.

Jamie.

[CThompson]

I think my colony is 5-6 years old, would have to look at my records to know for certain. I lost 2-3 fish from bloat when they were first purchased (the ones I got from a shop, not the ones obtained from a breeder). I think it is unusual to lose a Tropheus from jumping.

It's what works for you and your fish

This is a comment I have never been comfortable with. As true as it may be , what works for me, if I do things on an....individua/eccentric type basis, is not the sort of advice I could tell others how to do it, even with the caveat of “it works for me”.

The advise I always try to give is often the way I happen to do things, but the way I try to do things is “best practice” type methods, and methods that I would and be happy to say to others - “it works for me, and if you do it this way, it will work for you too”.

“There is more than one way to skin a cat” as they say, and it is very true. In the case of how we keep fish, there is also more than one way, and at the end of the day the fish are still alive. But I think that in the choices that we make, the impact of those choices, depended on how good they are will impact on the tanks “Life Buffer”.

So you can choose not to pre-heat your water, you can choose not to use salts (home-made or Seachem) in either your tank or your water change barrel, and at the end of the day your fish may be okay. But in the course of the years the tank is about, can you say that something unexpected isn’t going to happen? Will it take years for the unexpected to happen? Or will it happen next week?

You asked gswalker if 40% water changes every two week is enough. That will depend on a number of factors. What size the tank, how many fish, what size fish, what sort of filtration, how often you clean your filters? My old Tropheus tank, of about 400 litres with 40 or so fish, half grown to adult, I water changed for about a year on a fortnightly basis, taking out around ½ to ¾ of the water. But then, my tank, crowded that it was, had new water put into it that had been aged, preheated, seachem salts and KH buffer, coral sand in the water change barrel which was aerated and pre-filtered.

I normally do a water change weekly, and am doing that again (each Saturday) now that my K1s are in their new 6 by 2 by 2’6” tank. I could probably get away with doing it fortnightly, but prefer to do it weekly as when I took on the tank, I took on the maintenance. With your living in a small flat (was that correct?), some of your choices may dictated by this constraint. Do your best to do your best, and at the end of the day if you run into trouble, you know it hasn’t been because you’ve been slack!

Hope that helps,

Craig