PlanetCatfish.com

Hello, greetings from South Korea!
Recently I have been quite active on the South American catfish forums! I got a ton of useful advice, always nice to learn something new! My gratitude to everyone who helped me!
This time I have a shared category question; as the title says, do you fish enjoy their water changes?
In the past when I used to keep larger fish (Especially cichlids) in larger tanks, they seemed to really hate their water changes, sulking and refusing food for quite a while afterwards.
But now, with a smaller tank, keeping bristlenose plecos, otos, Corydoras sterbai & hastatus, as well as 4 silver halfbeaks (Dermogenys sp.), and a ton of red cherry shrimp, I found these guys could care less about water changes. In fact, for the two cory species, water changes seem to stimulate their appetites! They are seen more actively foraging during and after adding water! The two suckermouth species and the shrimp just ignore the action, and the halfbeaks get excited from both the rush of water and the individual droplets flying about! Trying to snatch up anything that moves at the surface! They must think the water droplets are insects dropping in from above haha
You could say I have some personable fish, but am I the only one who has fish who love their water changes? I am sure there are more! Please enlighten me!

Corys and plecos often respond to water changes, especially cool ones, but spawning. So yes, I think they like the changes.

Cheers, Eric

I've seen this behavior from cories and glass catfish. On the other hand, the electric catfish in my lab always hides for some time after a water change. This probably depends some on relative temperatures and conductivities. I see the biggest activity changes in the glass cats when the water is also low conductivity.

I think all fish like fresh water in the tank as long as it doesn't change the water perameters. But if you have wild or skittish fish they may hate it because it stresses them out.

that's why I want auto water change!

While I think all fishes do enjoy fresh water, I´ve noticed the same behaviour with cichlids. I think they are just too smart, seeing all the changes in their tank.

What does help, is changing water with two hoses, one taking water out,the other bringing it into the tank, effectively keeping the waterlevel in place. But in case there is chlorine in your water, this might not help.

In early spring I always have one very bad water change, in order to have the ponds filled with old tank water, I need to wait longer in order to have the water really old, then I don´t dilute it, but I replace it for water form other tanks, upstairs, which can than flow into the pods as wel.

For the fishes in the tank in the livingroom they will have to see a lot of changes in ane afternoon, before the get clean water.

For the ponds this old water will turn green in a few weeks, and than red from Daphina. These I can feed my fishes, but after that the watger will not turn green again, regardless the sun.

Last Friday I had this heavy waterchange, in order to be able to put fishes in the ponds in
May.

Thanks everyone! So I was not the only one!

Seems like a water change with cooler water and a meal of frozen bloodworms gives good vibes!

It must seem like a gust of fresh air after being stuck in a dust storm for a while?