EI dosing question

[Jeff1192]

As you may or may not know I run a pressurized CO2 setup using EI dosing on my 90 gallon tank. Every Sat night I do a 50% water change. As you may also know, may farlowella recently spawned and they did it on the spray bar for one of my canister filters. Herein lies my problem. If I do a water change this week the eggs will come out of the water for about an hour (which I'm pretty sure is a bad thing).

I figure I have 2 options; either disconnect the spray bar and place it on the bottom of the tank while I do my water change, or skip my water change this week.

My concern with removing the spray bar is freaking out the father who is always guarding the eggs. They're pretty laid back fish so I'm not sure it would freak him out. The problem with skipping a water change is I'm not sure what it will do to my dosing regimen (I have never skipped one). From what I have read the eggs probably won't hatch for at least 5 more days (I'm just starting to be able to see the babies in the eggs) so I'll basically skip a water change if I do this.

Any opinions? Any EI dosers ever skip their water change?


Thanks,

Jeff

[charlie]

Jeff, i have done it several times ( skip a water change ), even Tom Barr say`s it`s not a big deal , you can reduce the dose by half for extra peace of mind.
Regards

[fischkopp]

I am a very irregular EI doser - don't worry about getting behind. In the end, the whole EI is no rocket science at all. 

[Jeff1192]

Perfect. Thanks guys. I think I'll skip the water change and lower my dosing a little bit this week. I have so much growth going on I don't want to cut things back too much. I like this idea much better than risking disturbing dad and babies. You can actually see them moving in the eggs a bit if you watch long enough.....really cool stuff.

Jeff

[zima]

I am a very irregular EI doser - don't worry about getting behind. In the end, the whole EI is no rocket science at all. 

+1. I did it a few times while traveling out of the country this summer. Once I skipped the whole 3 weeks of water changes (I got my roommie to dose 1/3 of the regular dose). A big water change when I returned and a veeeeery slow and easy start of dosing again did it all. No problem whatsoever. Would be really cool to see what comes out of those eggs!