Inches Of Fish For 55gallon Water Changes

[ITHURTZ]

Did proably 40-50% water change today and few hours later did a water test. Im not the best at reading the ammonia chart but heres what I got.

PH 8.0
Ammonia .25
Nitrate 10
Nitrite 0

I did add cermaic tubes (?) to my filter box the other day for some biological filtration instead of just relying on the "sponges", so maybe I washed to much crap off the sponge and not enoug bacteria is on the ceramic tubes. Anyway its a 55 gallon with around 43 ish inches of fish in it. ( see sig for the species). I am doing these water changes every other day no less than 30% and no more than 40+-%. Based on the stats wouldnt that be enough to keep the water clean as it would eventually equal out to no less than 90% water a week and the most 120% all new water. Oh ya, I gravel vac the gravel as well during these times so is it really benefitial to be careful as to not "disturb" the bacteria in there or can I plunge the gravel vac in the gravel and get whatever, if anything is deep down in there. Some spots I will jam it all the way to the glass bottom, but most of the time I usually just dabble at the time having the gravel move maybe 1/16" of an inch or 0.

Fish are all fine, no red kills or irritation btw

 

[Gatorbait]

Are you just starting to cycle your tank?

Your ammonia levels are very high. I'm not trying to be mean but I'm surprised your fish are living at .25 ppm ammonia.

If your tank is cycling I would do daily 10% wc's to keep those fish alive. yes, you can vac your gravel and I would suggest it as you don't want any food being left over. feed sparingly to keep waste down.

The 1" per gallon isn't anything to live by. it's too inconsistant based upon what fish you have and since fish have different mass, it shouldn't be relied on.

 

[ITHURTZ]

Like I said, I am not good at reading the ammonia level. The lighting etc etc.

Tanks been up and running with the same stock of fish since last summer. I will test tap and tank water again in better light, give me a few

 

[Gatorbait]

Like I said, I am not good at reading the ammonia level. The lighting etc etc.

Tanks been up and running with the same stock of fish since last summer. I will test tap and tank water again in better light, give me a few

Ah ok. I thought you meant you had a hard time understanding what they meant, not reading them. My bad. I remember when I used to use test kits and those little buggers can be a pain to read so i know what you mean.

Doing smaller more often wc's are better than once a week with a large scale wc.

How did you wash your sponge? If in aquarium water you took out then you'll be fine but if in tap water then that ammonia level is probably correct. The ceramic needs more than 2 days to colonize with the beneficial bacteria. Your tank may be going into a mini-cycle. If so, make sure you do daily wc's until your ammonia and nitrite levels lare back to 0ppm again.

 

[ITHURTZ]

we are on a well, so no need to worry about chlorine

2weeks ago i did wash the filter pads in the aquarium water, but this week I did it in the sink.

Heres the pic, tank water on the left, well water on the right. Apparntly you need a very bright light to determine the true color or 0 and .25

 

[Gatorbait]

lol yea, they look pretty close to me also. I see what you mean.

It's been probably 15-20 years since I've used a test kit so I can't be of any help there for you. The one on the right looks more green from here but I don't know what it means.

 

[Tolak]

I would bet it has to do with cleaning the filter media too good, along with replacing some of it. I would go easy on the gravel vac for a week or so as you will have some nitrifying bacteria in the gravel. Some of those charts are hard to tell, the api nitrate chart is rough for me above 40ppm.

Two 50% water changes is not the same as a 100% water change. it's the same as a 75% water change. Look at it this way, if you had a dollar, and gave me half, you would have 50 cents. If you gave half of that to someone else, you would have 25 cents. You just gave away 75% of your money by giving half away twice.

I know there is some sort of mathmatical formula for figuring things like 30% & 40% water changes, but I suck at math formulas. With a little luck someone a little more schooled in math will come along & post that formula.

 

[ITHURTZ]

Should I just stick to gravel vacs once a week intead of 2-3?

I get carried away sometimes washing the filter pads. I was a little then go here ill get this a little more, then oops clean. I figured I would not wash the cermaic tubes, and give the pads a little bit cleaning and be ok, maybe not...

 

[Tolak]

You could vac the same, just don't dig into the gravel too deeply. I usually give sponges a few squeezes, the bio media gets a quick swish. Once the nitrifying bacteria get a little more established you can treat then a little more roughly.

 

[vinylman]

Also, if you don't already, just vac a third of the gravel every water change. That way, you vac all the gravel over a month or so. You can vac it too much.

 

[rdd1952]

I am doing these water changes every other day no less than 30% and no more than 40+-%. Based on the stats wouldnt that be enough to keep the water clean as it would eventually equal out to no less than 90% water a week and the most 120% all new water.

Since your only doing water chanegs every other day, ammonia is building back up between changes so even though you are doing 3 or 4 30% water changes a week, you can't compare that to a 90% plus water change. Just consider that if the ammonia was at .3 and you did a 33% water change, it would drop to .2. After 2 days, the fish have produced ehoungh waste to raise it back to .3 again so your next water change just reduces it to .2 again. In a cycling tank, you should do water chanes daily to make sure the ammonia level stays as close to 0 as possible.

Your ammonia levels are very high. I'm not trying to be mean but I'm surprised your fish are living at .25 ppm ammonia.

An ammonia reading of .25 isn't terribly high and that level alone wn't kill most fish except over a very long exposure time period (they may even develop a resistance to it, I don't know). What is bad though is the .25 ammonia level coupled with the fact that the pH is 8.0. Ammonia becomes more toxic as the pH level rises. So the .25 ppm that may not be a problem at all in water with a 6.5 pH will be much more toxic in the 8.0 pH water.

 

[Gatorbait]

Your ammonia levels are very high. I'm not trying to be mean but I'm surprised your fish are living at .25 ppm ammonia.

An ammonia reading of .25 isn't terribly high and that level alone wn't kill most fish except over a very long exposure time period (they may even develop a resistance to it, I don't know). What is bad though is the .25 ammonia level coupled with the fact that the pH is 8.0. Ammonia becomes more toxic as the pH level rises. So the .25 ppm that may not be a problem at all in water with a 6.5 pH will be much more toxic in the 8.0 pH water.

I agree, it's definitely worse at a higher pH but any pH over 5 and ammonia is toxic to some degree.

 

[fishlette]

we are on a well, so no need to worry about chlorine

2weeks ago i did wash the filter pads in the aquarium water, but this week I did it in the sink.

Heres the pic, tank water on the left, well water on the right. Apparntly you need a very bright light to determine the true color or 0 and .25

forgive me if im wrong but after checking on my chart (i have an API test kit as well) the one on the left looks yellowish which is good and the one on the right looks slightly green which is getting higher in the ammonia levels. are you sure the one on the left is form your tank? this would be saying that the ammonia is in your well water