How much water do you change?

M

mary

Guest
hi there, some of our wee axies have hatched!! just wondering how much water should you change in the tank daily?
 
With eggs/larvae, I changed 100% daily with day-old, treated water.
 
I kept my hatchlings in small tupperware tubs, about 20 to a tub. I used a brine-shrimp net to herd them all into a corner, and used the turkey baster to suck the water out. The brine shrimp net keeps them from getting sucked up. I guess only about 90% of the water got changed each time, but it was definately a substantial amount.

I don't know if it's necessary to do 100% changes. If you're doing 50% daily, and removing uneaten food, I think you should be okay.
 
I do similarly. When the larvae are small, I pour out the water gently until I have just the larvae and a small amount of water left, then add fresh water. Or use the turkey baster. When they are larger (less fragile), I pour them into a regular fish net, then dump them back into a fresh container of water. A brine shrimp net wouldn't be good for this, as it would trap both the larvae and a lot of the dirt. I guess it is stressful to some extent, but only for <1 minute per day. I've never lost any larvae due to this method.

However, if the larvae are being kept in an actual aquarium, it's not really feasible to do 90-100% water changes. In this case, do as much as you can, within reason. And be sure to clean out all debris from the bottom every day.

For larvae, my person feeling is that the best housing are EITHER (a) a well-cycled planted tank or (b) small tubs that can be totally cleaned out frequently. Trying to steer a middle course (a new aquarium) is the riskiest method (although it can work OK). If you have a lot of eggs, it may be worth trying several methods to see what works best for you.
 
I'd never thought of herding all the larvae into a corner - I kind of imagined netting each one individually! Thanks for those insights - it helps to visualise different techniques. I guess you build up some 'turkey baster muscles' eventually! Takes some pressure to work the thing doesn't it?
 
Hey Jen, your not implying that it would be necessary to do a large water change in an aquarium are you? The only reason to do that would be if something is fouling the water really fast.

on the small container method for hatchling, I had to take mine out of the 15 gallon and put them back into a tubberware beacuse they havn't grown with the exception of one, who must have eaten one of the others. To be honest, I wish they would all eat each other and I would end up with only about 3 really healthy ones...
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Hi Jeff,

I believe that yes Jen is suggesting that and when dealing with small containers it works very well provided the water is at the same temperature as the larva. The water just needs to be aged a day or two so it has degassed.
I have used it with many species of both caudates and anurans.

Ed
 
I guess the de-gassing is one of the things I have overlooked... Now I realize the problem using the well water my have been posing. Thanks
 
Jeff, if the larvae are in a well-cycled aquarium, then I'd recommend a 10-20% change about every day or two if the larvae are fairly crowded. If there are only a few larvae, and no non-live food, then the usual 10-20% per week would be fine.
 
Mary, degassing is allowing the water to sit for 24 hours or more to allow dissolved gasses to dissapate.

Jeff, if you leave the water (I used buckets for mine instead of jugs) to reach room temperature, you shouldn't have a problem with gas. I never degassed well water, only city water.
 
Here is the million dollar question- they told me that the water here on the hill is all well water and has no chlorine or chloramine added.

It seems to me that there must be some otherwise someone may get sick and sue them.

They claim otherwise, anyone else on a water system that has "no chlorine"?
 
My local treatment plant uses ammonia compounds as an antibacterial agent, not chlorine or chloramines.

Just call and ask specifically what they use to treat the water.
 
I'm aware (amine = ammonia). They don't specifically use chloramines.
 
Typically water treatment plants do not add chloramines to the water. They add ammonia to the water and then add chlorine (typically as HOCl) to it to create the chloramines. This is the standard in water treatment.
I cannot find any literature that discusses the use of ammonia compounds (other than chloramines or ammonia in the use to create chloramines) in treating drinking water....
Can you provide better details?

Ed

(Message edited by Ed on September 04, 2006)
 
Here is where my confusion is laying right now: in terms of de-gassing water, dissolved oxygen is infered when de-gassing water, or are we assuming that the oxygen content has no relevance? I am then guessing that chlorine is the gas we were talking about, and of course chloramine. It was my understanding that compound is not actually unstable enough to age out of the water for safe use.

Working with choline for a few years at one place where i was employed gave me some new insights on its sanitizing proporties. From what I have seen, it is "used up" rather quickly, and by that I mean it forms "combined chlorine" that is no longer sanitizing, but just sitting in the water and basically just smelling bad, like a hotub. Which is what a "shock" treatment of chorline is used for and blah blah blah.

Mabye there is some info to help me understand this whole thing better, as I have just confused myself more as to the whole nature of what happens to the chlorine/chloramine.
 
Hi Jeff,

When water (particuarly cold water) and well water come out of the tap, often the levels of gases dissolved in solution are in excess of the saturation point (which is why a cold glass of water can get bubbles to form on the inside of the glass when it sits for a few minutes). These gases are in excess of atmospheric pressure (I should have said could be in excess of) and allowing the water to sit for 24-48 hours allows these excesses gases to come out of solution. This is why degassing is recommended.

Did you really mean choline? (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choline)

This used to occur when simple chlorine was added to the water to control bacteria but chloramine is too stable to remove this way. Chloramine can be removed by filtering over activated carbon (which removes the Cl). If the tank is established the small amount of ammonia is rapidly converted by the bacteria.

Does this help?

Ed

(Message edited by Ed on September 04, 2006)
 
Thanks Ed, I think I kinda have my confusion under control. I didn't mean choline btw, just late night typeing.

So back to the larvae issue, obviously in a shallow container method, cycling is not an option, so the chloramine issue is still unresolved, i guess I have to quiz down the water people and figure out whats up, but I think I may belive them when they told me there was nothing but water coming out of the pipes, as I have had no problems as of yet.

Now that the new larvea are hatching, I have decided that this batch will go into a 10 gallon half full with a sponge filter.
I am trying brine shrimp this time caus the daphnia situation is a huge pain right now and I cant seem to get enough and soforth.

The 3 week old larvae are still in a shallow container beacuse it is the only way to know how much food they have, but I have to get my mom to change the water and put daphnia in there beacuse I live to far away to do it and I have to keep them at my moms untill i move and the weather is cooler.

On a sidenote, I moved my adult axies into a 20 long and filled it about 2/3 full. I have no filter in there at this point and I am wondering if that will be ok for a while, considering how much water I have and ony 3 axies. What is everyones opinion on that? I could always move the submersible fromt the waltl setup to makes things work for now.
 
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