Changing Water for Your Guppies: How often?

If you are a beginner hobbyist when it comes to guppies then you have a lot to learn.

Learning about the fish that you buy is important so you get the most out of your purchase.

Chances are before long you will want to get into showing guppies which is a real extension of a terrific hobby.

In order to change the water in your guppy tank, there are a few tips. Make sure you have the right tools and materials to help with this task.

Article Contents

Aquarium water change frequency

No matter whether you are just keeping your guppies for your own enjoyment.

Take it more seriously and get into the show platform for these fish, proper care in many different aspects is highly important.

You are going to have some ongoing maintenance once you have set up your aquarium for your guppies.

How often should you change water for guppies?

One of these areas that you have to be really on top of is the proper water changing.

During your learning phase of guppy keeping, you will have learned what the water requirements are.

You must make sure that you maintain the same water standards as you go through the water changes.

Even if you are not showing you want to be proud of your guppies and you want them to be totally healthy and looking their best.

A great deal of success in this area is totally dependent on keeping the proper water conditions.

Changing the water will remove all of the uneaten food and fish waste that accumulates in the tank.

There are different opinions as to how often the water should be changed and you are going to have to find what is most required for your specific tank.

Tanks vary in size and it depends on the number of guppies that are being housed in the tank that helps to dictate the amount of water changing that is needed.

Optimum water quality for Guppies

The general consensus is that for optimum water quality the water should be changed by about 30% to 40% of the tank water each week.

There are some breeders that are really intent on keeping their water in pristine condition and they will do water changes each day by removing 10% of the water and replacing it.

There are indicators that with this way of doing it that the fry does grow much faster and bigger.

Another advantage that many say with the daily water change is that it helps to level off the pH readings.

It also helps ammonia regulation so there aren’t as many ups and downs with these chemicals in the water.

If you’d simply do not have the time to do a daily water change,

then the other standard is that a lot of guppy breeders will charge 30% of the water every five days.

Leaving it for a full week is not recommended.

Why do guppies die after water change?

There are several different methods that you can utilize for changing the water and it will all depend on your setup which works best.

You will also want to determine whether you want to remove all of the decors from the tank when you’re doing your water change.

If you’re doing it on a daily basis then most likely because you’re only removing a small amount of water at a time you won’t need to do this.

If you are doing it on the five-day cycle, you may find that you need to remove some of the decors as they will not stay in place during the water change.

Again, this will be up to the individual preference.

While you are changing your water you may want to clean the filter pads at the same time.

At first, you may be a little nervous about your water change because your guppies tend to be small,

especially if they are fry and you don’t want to end up siphoning them along with the dirty water.

If you do not have a small siphon hose to help you with this job no doubt you will be able to find kits at your local fish store.

One thing that you need to keep in mind is if you have an underground filter that this has to be cleaned properly.

You will have to clean the gravel at least on a weekly basis when you do your water change.

Otherwise, the organic matter gets trapped in this and causes decay which can create unsafe water conditions.

Once you have set up a routine for changing the water for your guppies you will find that it’s not such a difficult task.

In summary

Remember to treat the water that you are replacing in the tank appropriately so that it remains in balance.

You want the same conditions as the water that you originally set up in your tank.

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