# Water Change for a Planted Tank



## Fish_Noob32 (Jan 10, 2010)

How much of a water change should I perform weekly in my planted aquarium. I know plants use excess nitrates so I'm not sure how much water to take out thanks


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## Harry Muscle (Mar 21, 2007)

Fish_Noob32 said:


> How much of a water change should I perform weekly in my planted aquarium. I know plants use excess nitrates so I'm not sure how much water to take out thanks


Best way is to find out how much nitrates are still left in the tank. Get a nitrate test kit and try to aim to around 10ppm (good for the fish and good for the plants). It's gonna take a bit of trial and error to get on a decent routine that leaves around 10ppm in the tank. If you're mathematically inclined you can take a mathematical approach to it based on what reading you get and what you're aiming for (ie: if you measure 15ppm and you want 10ppm, you need to remove 33% of the water to lower the nitrates by 33%).

Harry


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## Calmer (Mar 9, 2008)

This calculator is helpful as well
http://www.theaquatools.com/water-changes-calculator


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## Fish_Noob32 (Jan 10, 2010)

Thanks, I'll try the "trial and error" method. Thanks for the calculator as well!
Greatly appreciated!


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## qwerty (Dec 15, 2009)

Don't worry too much about it... Everyone has a different approach to water changes...

Planted aquariums are pretty forgiving when it comes to water changes, but water changes very rarely hurt anything. Ideally small water changes frequently (ie. 1%-2% daily) would never be a bad idea, unless you don't account for the removal of dosed nutrients, but you could easily do 20% once to twice a week, and you could probably even get away with 50% once every other week, or maybe even less.

With a heavily planted tank the main reason for water changes is to replace used up trace minerals and micronutrients since the nitrate production can often be negated by the plants.

It's a lot harder to do too many water changes than it is to do too few. My personal approach is to just be real easy going about it, but make sure they're happening regularly.


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