Fresh-Water Newbie

[KittyKat]

my tank is going from like 72* to 75* during different parts of the day, will this bother the fish?

To some minor extent, but there's nothing you can do about it, if it is because of air temperature. I have had my water go up to 30-32 C when the air temperature was 36 C, but the heater was set to 23 C.

 

[This Old Spouse]

thanks. unfortunately this is the 2nd time i have had this happen. 2 different pipes, 2 different walls, same downstairs area. great part of owning a home lolol..

Do you have a really old home, or really new one? I know this is all off topic, but I'm curious why this would happen during a mild time of the year!

 

[King]

theres an air vent right by the tank. but its the only place i can put my tank. i didnt know if it would matter with it changing temp slightly. my house is fairly new and has great insulation but during the summer the AC runs alot (i dont have any shade) and i guess cools the water down a little bit. my thermo is also on that side, but the heater is on the opposite side and i didnt want to get false temp reading with the thermo right by it. might swap them and see if it makes any difference. just got my water back on, downstairs still ripped apart but i HAVE WATER again lol.

 

[Rynofasho]

You could also get some sort of insulated sheet material to put on the back of the tank behind your backdrop. Every little bit helps. For what it's worth though, I don't think your fish will mind changes like that. It is fast changes and big swings to hot and cold that will make more of a difference.

 

[King]

yeah its not a big or fast change, just during the day the air stays on obviously alot more so it cools the tank off slightly, its usually no more than 2*F up and down. once it gets too low the heater kicks on in the tank. i didnt think it was a big deal but just dont want to stress the fish out, figured id ask.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I honestly doubt that a 2F change per day would be stressful for the fish. I would think in the wild that the fish would see much wider temp changes on a much faster time scale. Granted, most of our fish haven't ever been in the wild, but just the same, I think that they will acclimatize to it and it won't matter to them at all.

 

[King]

hey how well does live plant-life help keep the water clean and in the right levels? someone said i should put a bunch of live stuff in there to help absorb some of the bad stuff in the water. how true is this???

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I'm not an expert, but here's what I've gathered. Plants require Nitrogen. The plants don't really care if the nitrogen is in the form of nitrate (which is normal for a cycled tank) or ammonia. As far as the plant is concerned, nitrogen is nitrogen.


There is a method of cycling a tank with a small number of fish "instantly" by using a large number of stem (quick growing) plants. For this to work, approximately 75% of the substrate must be planted with stem plants and the number of fish must be small.


Let me put it to you this way: Plants certainly won't hurt your efforts to keep the water parameters in line for the fish. One word of caution though, do not leave the light on the tank for a lot of time - usually no more than 6 hours a day. Light + ammonia = algae.


I added plants to my tank, because I thought the plants look better than fake ones and they add the benefit of using a bit of nitrate and help in processing any ammonia, in case it starts to rise without my knowledge. It isn't a bad idea. Go for the easiest to grow varieties and you can't go wrong. Go with anubias, java fern, cryptocorynes, and amazon swords (these can get HUGE though!).

 

[King]

i might start mingling in some live plants. i didnt figure it was a "cure" but someone else also said it "helps".

back to "the mature media", do i need to NOT ever change my filters or what?

 

[This Old Spouse]

It depends on the media you end up using. If you end up using ceramic noodles and sponges, you just need to replace anything that completely deteriorates, which in the case of the noodles is just about never. I plan on switching all my media over to noodles and sponges within the next month or so.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

You merely rinse the filters in old tank water during a water change, but that isn't necessary for several months. And you never replace your media, UNLESS it's falling apart. And then you only replace no more than 1/3 of the total media at one time. Also, depending on your filter, you can place the old media just in front of the new media before totally removing it. This gives the new media a chance to be colonized a bit before the old media is replaced.


For example, on my 56 gallon tank, I have two Penguin 200s. That includes two biowheels (which never need to be replaced), I also have some ceramic media in one of the Penguins as extra biological media. This also traps a bit of detritus but it can be easily rinsed out. And in the other filter I have the standard cartridge. This would be the only part that needs to ever be replaced, and it won't need it for quite some time. It is also where the carbon would be in the filter (if I need to remove meds - which I will need to do in a week, since I am dosing Melafix to hopefully help a fish with a potential bacterial infection). Normally I don't use carbon though, it just isn't needed.

 

[King]

noodles and sponges? ceramic? what do i need to do basically? i still dont fully understand.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

What do you have in your filter?

 

[This Old Spouse]

Here's what are called ceramic noodles:

And here's a selection of sponges:

Both can be found at your LFS or ebay, etc.

My plan, anyway, is to put some of the ceramic noodles into a nylon bag and drop them into my filter. I'll cut a sponge to fit precisely where the current BioBag fits and also put that into the filter, along with the current BioBag which has all my nice robust bacteria. I'll leave the noodles and sponges in there for a good month or two so they can acquire all that good bacteria. Then I'll toss the BioBags.

I think it's going to cost quite a bit initially, but in the long run I'll be saving tons by not having to replace the expensive BioBags.

Also, I discovered that when the BioBags start to disintegrate, the fibers will get caught in my impeller. Bad news.

Does that make sense to change things out as I've described eagleaquarium?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

It makes sense to me, but we will have to see what King says...