Err Bit Of A Fishy Prob

[*blacksnapemoor*]

right ive had an oranda and a blackmoor for about a month thay seem to be okim doing a full water change evry week which i no is a lil much am saving up for testers (need some1 to explain them) an a vacume thing aslso need exspaining to me lol the tank is preatty clean an i want a cleaner fish or tow preferbaly not a digger one as i have gravel an dont want them gettin injured lol also i have been gettin my fish out of my tank with a cup an thats difficut but am guessin i wont be able to do that with a cleaner should i invest in a net?

any comments welcome

thanks in advance

amanda

 

[cuticom]

What country are you from?

Okay firstly don't do full water changes, you'll shock your fish waaaay too much, do 50%-75% being careful to make sure the new water is the same temperature as the old, don't take the fish out when you do this.

Secondly the gravel syphon, okay stick the long thin end in a bucket, take the bit ground tube end and place in tank, fill with water and lift so the water drains to the bucket. Before the water finishes draining stick the big tube back into the tank making sure theres no air, and the suction will begin. Stick it in your gravel stirring the gravel up and collecting the gunk in there. Remove the big end from the tank when you finish vaccuming.

Thirdly, since you don't ahve test kits, I assume you haven't cycled? do you have a filter? You need to get test kits ASAP and do 5-% water changes everyday. Goldfish are messy creatures, and if the tanks not cycled they won't be happy. Look up cycling on the forum, theres heaps of posts.

Now how big is your tank? What sort of goldfish do you have? Thin ones with a single tail (comets, shubunkins, commons, feeders) or more egg shaped ones with a double tail (fantails, all fancy varieties). Single tails need at the very very very least about 50g/200l each, and are better off in a pond, they can get to two feet. Fancy varieties need at the very very very least 20g/75l for the first, 10g/40l for every additional goldie after that.

It is ill advised to add a cleaner fish, goldfish do best in a species only tank, no other fish. Any cleaning needs to be done by you.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Yeah i agree doing 100% water changes is a bad idea because it can starve the beneficial bacterial in your filtration of ammonia and generally cause too much shock to it by changing so much water, doing 100% water changes often results in causing the tank to cycle. This article in the below link is very good for understanding more on how the water quality in aquariums works exactly;

[URL="http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=10099"]http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=10099[/URL]

.

I think that doing a once weekly 30-60% water change is the best for goldfish tanks, any less and the water quality may start to become unstable or start going stale, anymore and you probably won't do any damage to your beneficial bacteria as long as you don't do 80% or more water changes as i have seen people doing 80% or more water changes and then causing their tanks to mini-cycle. A 70%+ water change is probably a bit too excessive to be worth doing the extra effort, it won't really be that much better than a 60% water change, so IMHO it is best to just stick to a 30-60% once weekly water change .


edit: Oh, about bottom dwelling fish, there aren't that many that can be kept in coldwater tanks, there are a few that can be kept in sub-tropical tanks, but most of these fish grow quite large and require at least a 30gallon long or larger aquarium. The best thing to do would probably be to just get a gravel vac as cuticom said or just get stronger filtration which makes more of an impact on the substrate etc .
Sand is generally a much easier substrate to keep clean than gravel, as it traps less waste than gravel does, and is also very athestically pleasing my opinion, so if you want to ever change the substrate in the tank to something more lower maintanence than gravel, sand is the way to go (goldfish also love it too) .