Habitat - Indoor :: Water Question

[Dillon]

I noticed everyone talking about doing Full water changes?

Isnt this bad?

Dont you ALWAYS save some of the dirtied up water in the tank before adding and not completely drain it?

Or this only true with fish?

[emma]

The reason on not changing all the water it to make sure some good bacteria stay in the tank. For partial changes, you do that just to make sure the water stays clean for the turtle.
I do 100% water changes because it is easier for me to just clean the tank out totally since it gets so dirty and because I only have a 20 gallon tank. When I get a bigger one, I will only be doing partial changes.

[Dillon]

I understand ty reasoning on why NOT to drain the whole thing...

I was just asking if my knowledge was correct, since ive been reading a lot here about "full water changes" and i was just like "huh?"

Didnt make sense to me.

Thanks

[thegrandpoohbah]

I've wondered that too as my background is in fishkeeping where you would never do a 100% waterchange and tank scrubdown unless there was a problem. My guess is that with turtles they are much hardier and can tolerate the resulting spike in the nitrogen cycle.

[Dillon]

my mind still wont, and will never, rationalize a full water change, for any aquatic animal. Not logical...only in SEVERE cases would i even consider it

[SpotsMama]

If the turtle tank is small and the filter isn't very powerful, then full water changes are advisable from a hygiene standpoint. In other words, an alternative to having an adequate bio filter is 100% water changes.

If the tank is big and the filter is good then it's not necessary to change 100% of the water. It's also correct that turtles aren't as sensitive to the spikes in the nitrogen cycle.