Water changes

[RNJ]

I plan to have a 1/4" fine white sand substrate in my 180 gallon tank and do every other day 55 gallon water changes. Do I need to vacuum the substrate with every water change or can I just vacuum say once a week and just do water changes the other times?

[fljones3]

It's not hardly any additional time to vacuum the poop while doing a WC. The poop will show up readily and you will want it gone before a week goes by.

[14Discus]

Imo, vacuuming the substrate is an integral part of every WC. Even white sand has broken down waste in it. The cleaner, the better. If your sand is fine, you will have to be careful not to suck up the sand. A longer, wider than your hose diameter, vacuum tube helps greatly. I use a coarse white sand and it works well in that hardly any sand ever gets sucked up more than a few inches in the tube, then falls back down.

[Vinni Smith]

I accidentally gave my house display tank a "Willie" 99% WC.

Was having a few business website problems, talking on the phone with IT guy and then realized I was draining the tank.

They were not flopping, but they were indeed swimming on their sides.

They all seem happy now.

[Oxboy]

With a tank that big, I'd say depends on the bioload. If you have 25 adult discus, then every WC if you can. If you have 1 cherry red shrimp in there, you could probably do 1x a week.

[Iminit]

Lol I’ve got to say cherry shrimp don’t like the water cleaned that often :).

[Willie]

I accidentally gave my house display tank a "Willie" 99% WC.

Was having a few business website problems, talking on the phone with IT guy and then realized I was draining the tank.

They were not flopping, but they were indeed swimming on their sides.

They all seem happy now.

If you do 100%, then the discus will pretend to be flying saucers. ;)

Of course, this only works with bare bottom tanks. Any substrate could potentially scratch horizontal discus.