Exactly How Do You Do Water Changes?

rgs1975

I have a 25 Gallon tank, it's about 20" tall and sitting on a stand that's about 3' tall. The tank is in my living room, no where near a sink.

I've been doing all my water changes with a 5 Gallon bucket and a drinking cup. I scoop out water with the drinking cup and dump it into the bucket. Repeat 20 million times and you're done. This is problematic because it's extremely time consuming, very difficult when you get towards the bottom of the tank and it's messy. Remember it's in the carpeted living room. My wife never likes seeing me do this.

Is there a more efficient, cleaner method I could be using, taking into account there is no sink near by?

JohnnyD44

Pick up a gravel siphon....it works just as the names says...it's a siphon....and you can run the tube into your 5 gallon bucket, or I run mine out a window near the tank.....also works well becaues you can dig into your gravel and get rid of all the hiding detritis and fish waste......

here's the one I use......tons of places sell them and just about everybody i know has one....

Siphon Kleen

i have two of them, one for each tank....my 20G i run about a 12 foot tube to a window and my 55G has a 15' tube to our sump pump in the basement....

rgs1975

Interesting. So it works just like taking gas out of a car right. Stick it in your tank, put the dry end of the hose lower than the wet end and give it a good suck to get it started? I've been using the Eheim sludge extractor for cleaning the gravel...it doens't remove the water from the tank. Below is a pic of it I found online.

Twistersmom

I have one tank in the basement with carpet. I use the siphon like Johnny mentioned, and drain the water into the 5 gal bucket.
They make these great aquarium mats that will soak up any spilt water and keep it from soaking through, into the carpet. That mat has saved me a few times, when distracted and did not realize I had a full bucket.

I also have the gravel cleaner you pictured, but never use it. The gravel siphon, while doing water changes works better.
It does work the same as taking gas out of a car.

Unrulyevil

this is has to be the funniest and yet tragic post ever!

Byron

The manual water changer mentioned previously is probably your best option; I used to use one with a 55g and several 25g tanks. If you had more tanks or larger ones, a Python or Aqueon water changer would be better, it connects to a faucet (must be threaded, as in for a garden hose) and you syphon out and fill up using the tap. But for one 20g tank not that practical given its cost over a manual one (unless you have other tanks of course).

One question from your first post, how much of the water do you change? You mentioned getting near the bottom, leading me to think you're changing much of the water. A partial water change every week can be 30-40% of the tank volume; I wouldn't recommend more than 50% except in an emergency. And always every week, whatever amount, to maintain a more stable biological equilibrium. Pardon me if I misunderstood your post.

rgs1975

I do partial changes (25%ish) on a regular basis (shoot for once a week but miss one every now and then). I've only had to do a 100% change out once and the residents were moved to temporary tanks during the process. That change out took all dang day long with the drinking cup.

SinCrisis

wow, you're really dedicated to tank maintenance if you use a cup and change out that much water... that's over 6 gallons with a cup O.o Gravel vac is your best bet or a python if your willing to spend a little more. Even for small/med tank like a 25, a python makes life super easy. But it does require you to take into consideration how far your sink is from the tank. They make super long tubes but it may be a hassle if your rigging this tube from one end of you home to the other. Also watch out for how big of a vac you get, i had an old one that was designed for mostly exchanging water and it would suck my gravel out of the tank and into the bucket if i tried to vac gravel with it. Get the smaller ones if you have more time and want to clean the gravel more thoroughly.

tigerarmy

This is actually a very useful post for me. I am starting my new aquarium and I am going to have problems changing water too since I am going to have my 20 gallon in the same type of place as you. Only mine is in a wooden area and can't easily get wet.

Byron

Just a caution, from experience--no matter how careful, you will always have water splashing on the floor. I can't fuss over that, too much effort working with larger tanks, so mine are in a carpeted room where the cheap carpet can absorb the minimal amount of water that hits it during any tank maintainance.