daily PWC

[finnfinnfriend]

Will doing PWC's several days in a row mess up my cycle?

[teeneythebetta]

what % are the water changes youre doing?

[finnfinnfriend]

Originally Posted by teeneythebetta

what % are the water changes youre doing?

30% and 50% so far 2 30% and then 1 50%

[teeneythebetta]

mmm.. it will probably be okay. dont overly siphon the gravel. keep any eye on parameters. the worst it could do is go through a mini cycle but that probably will not happen since very few BB live in the water itself.

just curious, why are you doing such frequet changes?

[finnfinnfriend]

Originally Posted by teeneythebetta

mmm.. it will probably be okay. dont overly siphon the gravel. keep any eye on parameters. the worst it could do is go through a mini cycle but that probably will not happen since very few BB live in the water itself.

just curious, why are you doing such frequet changes?

Oh I havent been syphoning the gravel at all... I was going to tomorrow though because tomorrow is weekly maintenance day anyway...

I am doing them for two reasons; one to get the salt concentration down as much as possible without messing up the cycle (his treatment is done) and two because I had to pull a swallowed hair out of him the other day and he jumped out of my hand and landed on a hard surface, so I figure some extra clean water for a few days might prevent any infections

[Oldfishlady]

Since the beneficial bacteria are sticky and adhere to all the surface areas-like the walls, decorations, plants both fake and real, in the top layer of the substrate and in the filter media....very little are in the water column itself.....You can make all the water only changes you need and not hurt the cycle.....Over cleaning and under cleaning can cause a mini cycle by removing too much of the BB or the BB suffocates and starves under mulm/debris buildup....

[finnfinnfriend]

Oh okay thank you! What exactly is a mini cycle though? How long does it take?

[Oldfishlady]

Mini cycle is when you have a spike for a few days until the BB catches up-Easy to take care of with a water only change for a day or so....

Just monitor water prams for a few days or if you don't have test kit-make water only changes for a few days to be safe.

Depending on your stocking/bioload, how mature the tank and what caused the mini cycle-It can vary on how long it takes the BB to catch up....Usually it only takes a few days to a week....unless you had a crash-then you basically start over.....

[finnfinnfriend]

Oh okay. Well I've been doing water only changes except for today because it's cleaning day anyway but I want to do water onlys for a few more days. A mini cycle probably won't even happen but if it does it will probably be only a couple days because it's a 5 gal tank with one betta.