how Often Do You Drain Your Viv?

If you are just misting then a lot of tanks you may never have to drain or drain every year or so.

The key here is misting doesn't not equalfull blown drenching.

Obviously a misting system would probably need more drainIng then hand misting.

i keep my hydroton layer visible and drain when the water level approaches the top. no rule to follow as far as time, on an as needed basis. not good to let your substrate become completely saturated.

If you have plants you care about in there besides aquatics, I'd remove them and the frogs and leave the viv to air out with the top off, or better yet, remove the substrate and let it dry out so the plant roots won't rot.

I drain mine before the water reaches the soil level.

no frogs, oddly enough the plants haven;t shown any rotting signs...

i never remove water from my 20, actually I add water since i have 2 small water falls and as the water level gets to low i add a little bit to top it off.

i drain my viv every once or so when the water color is more dark brown than light brown a nother way i know when to change the water is if it starts to smell it depens on if the water has contact with your substrait i tend to change the water every 3moths to clean bottled water with no chemicals

I've never needed to really unless I'm tearing down a tank with a water feature or something since I don't mist enough for it to accumulate that much.
Bryan

what tipe of viv set up do you have and what (g??) is your tank

I install drains in my tanks so I don't have to worry about it... It drains to a 5 gallon bucket which I sterilize when close to full and discard.

i use the vivarium zoomed pump it easy to use and its very nice to have

Depends on the time of year. I only had to drain once last spring/summer, but the dry winter air here sucks the moisture out of the tanks, so I mist more often.. I probably drain once a month through that part of the year.

gio said:

its $40 but its a good cleaning pump that rarely needs a justing or cleaning

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Tom's mini canister is really cheap and could easily be used for that too... IIRC it's like $20 even.... I'm now really pissed I threw mine out

Probably once every couple or few weeks. I mist by hand, and probably keep my tanks on the drier side than most. Everything is on a false bottom, so whenever the water gets close to the egg crate, I do a session of siphoning.

bsr8129 said:

i never remove water from my 20, actually I add water since i have 2 small water falls and as the water level gets to low i add a little bit to top it off.

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If you aren't using RO or distilled to top up the tank you are eventually going to have issues with salt build up as you are constantly adding salts with the water. Think of what happens in a salt lake.

Ed said:

I install drains in my tanks so I don't have to worry about it... It drains to a 5 gallon bucket which I sterilize when close to full and discard.

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What do you do to sterilize your water before discarding it?

I drain each tank once a season then start again.

When I first put java moss and riccia in my tank I misted very heavily and was draining some water out every couple weeks. Now that they're adapted and growing I don't really drain any more.

You have to drain your tank?

I've never drained any of my tanks. The air out here is so dry if I'm not religious about misting the water in my false bottoms simply evaporate. I have, however, needed to fill my tanks enough to keep my water features (those that I have, that is) running....

every few months