my tank is new, it has cycled and i am about to add the last few fish, how long should i wait before i do the first water change. by the way it is a 55 gallon tank with a eheim ecco canister filter for a 80 gallon tank...i feed once a day for 3days then oneday without feeding..all the fish are small i have giant danios, zebra danios, otto's, gouramis, clown loachs. will be adding 2 more loachs and 2 more gouramis, and 1 or 2 bala sharks and maybe a red tail shark..kinda want them all to grow up together
Dealing with bala sharks previously, do you know that those minos get way to big for a 55 gal? They are great when they are small but I have seen full size and I am telling you, they get huge. I have seen them in a 300 gal tank and was impressed at their potential. Not only do they get over a foot long but they are about 8 inches from top to bottom and about 6 inches wide. You may want to reconsider them when they get a little bigger or get a new larger tank. And I am very curious as to why you feed them for a couple days and then not for one day. I have been dealing with tetra and African cichlids for a very long time and I even run a forum for African cichilds and never have I heard anyone say that before. Would like to understand the theory behind that.
thanks for your response. yes i do know that they get big, and i will be upgrading to a larger tank.Will get another 55gallon then will move up to something in the neighborhood of 155 or larger. The reason they are fed like that would be because i am a flight attendant so i am not home everynight. hence the feeding schedule. I have been reading everything i can get on cichlids and i really like the LAKE TANGANYIKA cichlids, was wanting to put the bala shark in with them. I have a friend that also is a flight attendant and he has bala's in with the cichlids. I really like the discus but i dont think that i can have them with my schedule.
Would be nice but remember if you had the idea of getting an id shark I wouldn't friend had a 4 foot id shark in pond a year back the pond was 15,000 gallons.
thanks for the info...and no i wasent thinking about a id shark.....maybe something along the lines of bala sharks, albino rainbow sharks, rainbow sharks, red tail shark, a few silver dollars and a few loaches
I have a 55 gallon tank too. I water change twice a week, 9 gallon each time. I siphon out 9 gallons on Monday, then another 9 gallons on Thursday, a total of 18 gallon a week. Which puts it about 25-30% water change a week.
Average % a week is 15-25%. YOu should get in the habit of water changing per week. I have a log book that I keep, notate everything you do.
A water change is equal to a river in the sense that water in a river is never the same. It constantly flows, changes. This is the reason water changes is a must. I am sure your fish will appreciate it. It's their instinct to have changing water aka water changes.
