How to do water changes?

Question

When I change 20% of the water in the tank, do I have to put conditioner and put the water right away or wait. And do i put freshwater salt and wait again when I change the water.

Answer 1

What I do is have an empty plastic container, pour tap water in the container and let it set a bit to get it closer to room temperature, which would be close to the tanks temperature. The conditioner works instantly, so its your choice when you want to put it in, but anytime is fine. Also, freshwater salt is not usually necessary except when treating disease or if you have special types of fish that need the extra salinity. However, if you still prefer to use it, wait until all of the crystals dissolve, because if any of them hit fish skin when your adding the water, it could burn them badly.

Unfortunately the answer below is wrong, dechlorinators work instantly.

"dechlorinators safely remove chlorine instantly from tap water, making water changes safe for fish."

Answer 2

All de-chlorinators work instantly being usually comprised of Sodium Thiosulfate. If you use salt it can be pre-dissolved (best if marine salt is used, such as African Cichlid aquariums) or if plain aquarium or rock salt is used, the salt can be directly added to your aquarium.

For cleaning your aquarium a Gravel Vacuum attached to a siphon or re-circulating filter works best. If you have a planted aquarium, you should NOT vacuum the sand, as this will tend to be sucked all the way thru the vacuum, and this will also disturb the natural aerobic and anaerobic filtration going on in the substrate being performed by the bacteria and plant roots. You can drain this water into a bucket or attach the siphon to a long hose and drain it outside or into a toilet using gravity.
There are other products that hook on to the sink, but these are over rated and waste water. It is simpler to just get a long hose and get an adapter and attach your hose to the sick to fill, but drain your water into a garden where it will do some good (unless it is saltwater of coarse).
I prefer to leave the fish in during this process, as I feel more stress is added to the fish removing them and then placing the fish back in new water conditions that the fish are not accustomed to. Add water back slowly, and if tap water is used make sure the temperature is similar to the aquarium water already present in the aquarium, you can generally safely add warm tap water to correct this. Although in the Marine aquariums I maintained, I brought my own water and it was invariably colder than the aquarium, but this does not present as much of a problem as many think. If you do some math; Say your aquarium is 78 F and you add 20% water back that is 68 F, that is 1/5th the volume, so 1/5th of a 10 F difference is only 2 F.
What is more important is adding a de-chlorinator to your tap water (if tap water is used) WHILE the water is being added. I prefer Start Right, this product removes chlorine (and the chlorine ions attached ammonia in chloramines), removes heavy metals, and very importantly naturally stimulates the slime coat in fish vs. products that drop an artificial wad of slime into the aquarium that generally sinks to the bottom anyway.

For more cleaning information including reason for, please see this article:
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_cleaning.html

Answer 3

Im with Brian on this one.. You dont have to have the water sit. I just did a water change on one of my tanks today. I use a gravel cleaner and it sucks up the yucky stuff. While Im doing that I have a bucket of water with the salt and conditioner waiting so that it will be at least somewhat close to room temp. After sucking out some dirty water and the waste with the sucker I just pour the clean water in and turn the filter and heater back on. It normally takes me a half hour to clean my 5 gallon and about an hour to clean my 10 gallon. You dont have to wait 24 hours before putting water back in the tank either.

Answer 4

when you have taken out 20% of the water put some tap water into a bucket and put some dechlorinater in and mix it well before gently adding to the tank, pouring to fast into the tank will stress the fish and move plants and decoration.

Answer 5

yes you have to put conditioner and yes you have to wait 24 hours till you put your water in your tank