Introduction new member

[Evie74]

Hi I’m new to the forum. I have a 345 litre aquarium with a slightly overstocked tank of one fancy goldfish, two jellyhead orandas and two ranchu. I was intending to have just three fish in the tank but I took on two baby ranchu as they were in terrible conditions in a garden centre with fish who had ulcers and growths on them. I quarantined them for eight weeks and integrated them into the community tank a couple of weeks ago. I have a Betta 2000 filter and an Aquael ultra max 2000 external filter all pimped as per Richard’s advice from FilterPro pond guru with a total of 11kg of Biohome ultimate media which keep all my water within 0 parameters. I have black sand as substrate and mainly cabomba growing in the tank I’m still new to the hobby really though I’ve always had goldfish my first being won at the fair when I was 12 and who was 21 when he died. They get various blanched vegetables every day fruit twice a week as well as Hikari Oranda Gold and Repashy gel food I’m looking forwards to learning as much as I can about the hobby so I can give them all the best life ever.

 

[MaloK]

Welcome

That's quite the biofilter. 25 pounds of Biohome Ultimate can support approximately 650-800 gallons of water.

When you say "keep all my water within 0 parameters." do you include nitrate in there ?

 

[Evie74]

My nitrate is usually below 20ppm occasionally it’s 20-40ppm I do a monthly water change of about 100-150 litres my Betta filter has been set up for nearly two years and my aquael for just 8 months. I’ve put double the filtration in because I know goldfish are really dirty so hopefully it’ll keep doing what it’s doing and keep the water clean. I have a seachem ammonia alert on the tank as well to keep an eye on the ammonia levels too. Do you think I should do more frequent water changes?

 

[Fishfunn]

My nitrate is usually below 20ppm occasionally it’s 20-40ppm I do a monthly water change of about 100-150 litres my Betta filter has been set up for nearly two years and my aquael for just 8 months. I’ve put double the filtration in because I know goldfish are really dirty so hopefully it’ll keep doing what it’s doing and keep the water clean. I have a seachem ammonia alert on the tank as well to keep an eye on the ammonia levels too. Do you think I should do more frequent water changes?

I am running a fluval 407 canister filter on a 65 gallon(250 liter) tank that is filled with bio home media too. My nitrates are consistently in 10- 20 ppm nitrates as well. I like biohome's biomedical performance too.

 

[MaloK]

My nitrate is usually below 20ppm occasionally it’s 20-40ppm I do a monthly water change of about 100-150 litres my Betta filter has been set up for nearly two years and my aquael for just 8 months. I’ve put double the filtration in because I know goldfish are really dirty so hopefully it’ll keep doing what it’s doing and keep the water clean. I have a seachem ammonia alert on the tank as well to keep an eye on the ammonia levels too. Do you think I should do more frequent water changes?

It depends on the size of the fish, but if you decide to maintain under 40 ppm nitrate, you will probably slowly scale up water changes to be able to cope with increasing production of your growing babies.

Maybe smaller more regular water changes, If you change 25% per week, you actively change 70% per month. Then with time it's easy to raise that to 50% and change 94% per month.

You can also use your nitrate level to trigger water changes and go with the flow, if it's 10 days go for 10 days.

Once the fish becomes mature, your maintenance schedule will stabilize.