General Aquarium Talk NO SELLING Swaps go in the Fish/Plant Swap Sticky

how's it all going 426 ??

 

so naturally the one I want isn't in stock, but thinking around October sometime ? dunno ?
right now it's all good, gives me time to plan a bit more.
loading on the floor will be "ok" but it's a little on the

side of things

 

Not terribly great.
Since the last update, 3 of my remaining clowns have become 1, with the latest one shuffling off a couple nights ago.

I can't really tell what I'm doing wrong. Took the body to the shop I got it at, but wasn't in great condition to tell anything.
I removed it from tank before anything could get at it, and other than being dead, it "looked" good to me.

Guy at shop is puzzled, but thinks it might be ammonia that gets stirred up when I do water change due to sand being easily disturbed, I dunno, its a theory I guess.
I have noticed when returning water that I have to revac the sand as a lot of detritus gets resettled after its pushed out of inaccessible areas that I can't see.

My 2 plecos DO kick up a lot of sand every now and then, sometimes to the point of clearing it down to the base glass, so they could be disturbing ammonia in the substrate if that is true.

Usually my testing shows good levels before I do the water changes, but I haven't tested the water after a change.

I feel sorry for the clown and the cory, as they are lonely, but I don't want to add any without knowing why they expire so quickly (compared to the 10+ years they ideally live to)

The new algae wafers don't seem too popular compared to the last lot either. With the previous lot, the bottom feeders pounced on them and the loaches would be pecking the hell out of them, with the new lot, they sit there for a little while and get a few nibbles from whoever feels like it, but I end up removing them after 15 mins mostly intact.
The Hikari algae wafers get eaten a bit more than the Tetra Pro pleco wafers, but none are popular. I can't even remember the last lot that they loved, as I thought it would be stocked everywhere, it was in a charcoal coloured plastic bottle type container, and a bit smaller than the roughly 5c sized pieces I have currently.

If ammonia is the problem, it could also be the reason they aren't eating heartily as previously.

 

Weird

Maybe something (filter/tank) is leeching toxins or other nasty into the water ??

 

Seems like an easy fix, move the spray bar down 5cm at a time so that the sand is almost moving, this way any debris gets sent upwards and caught by the filters inlet.

Also make sure you treat the water in a bucket rather than putting the hose in the tank and then adding the api.

I'm assuming the api stuff is okay, I used to just let the water sit in a 200 litre barrel with an air stone for a day or so before I put it in tank which removes the chlorine etc by itself.

Prior to that I used prime to treat the water and never had an issue.

Tap water can also fluctuate a fair bit especially after there has been alot of rain etc. They add a boatload of chlorine etc to make sure it's safe to drink. Not so good for the fishes.

 

Doesn't remove/bind to any heavy metals leaching in and there's more and more chloramine going into our water. That shit never bubbles out and you're stuck using a good ager like prime or going RO and then remineralising the water ....

 

All depends on the fish, if they were locally aquarium bred, it normally wouldn't be an issue (species specific), also the volume of water is also a key factor.

I had no issue running tap water directly from the main water line on a constant drip (roughly 200 litres a day) into a 10, 000 litre system.

In my experience, stable water parameters are key. Adding buffers and other chemicals etc etc normally ends in tears. Once your tank is cycled and stabled you don't need to do much to keep the fish happy.

 

I refill the tank with a 9L watering bucket (only ever used for this purpose) that I add the API stuff to.
With the spray bar, I can add an extension I guess to the U bend coming back into the tank and get it lower to the sand, it may help keep the particulates moving and hopefully through the filter quicker.

Been about a week now, and water seems OK (like usual) and remaining fish seem happy enough, even saw the lonely loach nibbling at one of the wafers too, but I still end up removing the left over wafers (I drop 4 in to go between the 2 plecos, 1 cory, 1 clown and 4 reticulated loaches).

 

Loaches, particuarly reticulated loaches are pretty messy at the best of times. But they are pretty hardy, i'd say they are hardier than clown loaches. Plecos also do biig poo poos.

From memory they can be a bit ficale to nitrates which the plants should help with but generally speaking 20% water changes per week for a medium to well stocked aquarium, the less stocked and more over filtered means you can take longer between water changes (aquarium is more stable then as well if it has as a low bacteria load). Lots of bacteria can ramp up quickly, not much bacteria takes longer to ramp up.

The only things i can think of is when is the last time you cleaned the filter?

How many 9 litre buckets do you change per week. Evaporation shouldnt be included in the water change as that isn't removing nitrates from the tank so exclude that in your 20%

Vaccuming the gravel twice is also sucking up alot of bacteria. Definately dont do that, poor the water slower or put the bucket lid in the tank and poor the water onto that should not stir up the sand then.

The sand should get stirred up by the plecos and loaches, with adequate flow in the tank most of the stirred up stuff should get caught by your filter and then just do a spot gravel clean on the bits with poo.

It is horrifying cleaning some filters when it has been 6+ months and the sponges appear to be just a black sludge.

Cleaning the sponges from the filter even with used tank water (not a hose) kills alot of bacteria, i wouldnt do a gravel clean and a filter clean in the same week.

Lastly, running a tank without lids greatly increases the heating loss in winter, in winter were you using similar water temps when doing your water changes ?

Anyway thats all i can think of at the moment. It is always good to have multiple filters, all of my tanks used to have an air filter box hidden away behind some plants or rocks, they used to have a couple of little sponge and some gravel im them.

Very effective and cheap

 

I have an open top (mesh) so lose maybe 10% volume (30-35L) to evaporation. I vacuum roughly another 30% of water out on a bigger clean, but usually 15-20% (by looking at the amount of water above the sand line).

Anywhere from 6-12 of the 9L buckets per change at 7-10 days depending on my schedule.
The filter I have been cleaning every 3-4 weeks, and it hasn't been a complete mess. Usually I do the filter a day or so after water change.
I have a few sponges (coarse/not coarse) a bunch of ceramic media and some charcoal in a filter bag)

I'll pick up an air filter and hide it in there too which does sound like a good idea, thanks.

Heater is set at 26* (Hydor 300w inline) and definitely seems to heat the tank uniformly, compared at least to the old standard intank heater I ran for ages.

On water changes I add some warm water to the bucket so its not tap freezing when I add it in there. Just some extra from the kettle to break the chill.

 

i regularly go over 6 months between clean outs on my filter. not ideal i'll admit, but its OK as my tank stock is very low.

do you wash the filter media in used tank water or with "clean" water ? ideally you'd basically only give it a rinse in used tank water. i wonder if you're tank/filter has ever cycled properly ??

 

The past 4 cleans I rinsed with tank water, but before that I did wash the pads off with clean water.
Now I just shake out the bulk of the heavy stuff and refill with tank water when I plug it back in.

What does a proper cycle look like?

 

0 Ammonia
0 Nitrites
Xx Nitrates

 

yeah, what fredhoon said but also adding that the tank starts with some ammonia (by adding it manually) a beneficial bacteria consumes ammonia and produces nitrites
then a week or so after that bacteria gets going, a second kind of bacteria consumes those nitrites and produces nitrates (a low(ish) toxicity compound)
so a week or so after that the ammonia reading should be zero, as the bacteria consuming it as it enters the water column, and also the second bacteria is consuming the nitrite as it forms.
so the readings will spike one after another and then drop to zero as the bacteria populations get established.

weekly water changes are because the amount of nitrate builds up and is toxic to the fish

so i'm kinda wondering if the cycle ever fully kicked off ?

 

see this search for something more coherent than my dribble above
https://www.google.com/search?q=new+aquarium+nitrogen+cycle

can you get some cycled media from someone else locally ?

alternatively this stuff can kick start a tank with fish already in it
https://www.google.com/search?q=seachem+stability

dose each day for a week or two and after each water change

 

If its cycle related, I'd get some test strips and test twice a week or so. Constantly having high ammonia/nitrites and no/little nitrates means the bacteria hasn't established appropriately. Ideally should be close to 0 for ammonia/nitrites and some nitrates in a standard tank.

Essentially your fish produce ammonia, there's naturally occurring bacteria around that will convert that to nitrites and another set of bacteria that will convert the nitrites into nitrates. They're all toxic to fish but fish are much more tolerant of higher levels of nitrates than they are the other two. Just need to also remember that these bacteria are living things, so it isn't a set up once situation and you'll be good. The bacteria colonies need to be looked after (i.e. no dumping straight tap water in) and they need time to adjust to changes in bioload.

To me it sounds like a case of doing a little too much but see how you go with the test strips and try not to think too much 'fixing' for now. You are trying to maintain a whole ass ecosystem in a glass box full of water after all. Too many changes means even more things in flux and a potential worsening of the situation.

 

It will have plenty of bacteria in it, so he doesn't need to add anything to start to cycle it. But every time your cleaning your filter and gravel cleaning twice your just killing to many and they need to rebuild there numbers so essentially cycling the tank again but from the 3/4 stage Mark.

Double the time between cleans, you can still top up the water though.

Go easy on feeding for a week as well. Remember fish like stable conditions, by over cleaning your hurting the echo system by killing to many good bacteria. A well balanced tank can go months or even years without one. You can do pools like that without chemicals to.

 

sweet. that sounds like a good place to start.
I've taken the water to the local and they say it looks good (about 6 different vials of testing), and I think they want to sell me fish, and their advice lines up with what you guys are saying (no overstock, add few at a time etc) so if it was just $ they wanted, they wouldn't steer me away from buying more I would imagine.

I did adjust the spray bar to aim straight down for now, I need a coupler to extend it lower into the tank to get it closer to the sand, but the fish seemed curious enough and I did see the clown swimming up and down the column during the evening, other than its usual placid position sitting under the wooden arch.

Even the reticulated loaches seemed to be a bit more active with the lights on than usual, which I'm hoping isn't because they were stressed rather than stimulated to move around a bit.