maintenance basics

[Vorpal]

Hi everyone,

We have a relatively new (Christmas), cycled 125 L tank with 3 swordtails, 2 coreys, plants, and a few snails (a couple of hitchhikers came with the plants).

I looked at http://www.fishforums.net/threads/beginners-resource-center.277264/
But most of the links seem to go nowhere.

My questions:
How often should I clean a cycled tank?
How much water should I change when I do it?
How often should I test the water in a cycled tank?

I am also going to post another thread on numbers of fish, but I think that is better as a separate topic.

TIA

 

[Ch4rlie]

Thanks for bringing that to our attention, we will look into the links on the Beginners Resource Centre.

Basic maintenence is something we all fall into a routine of, but for new members it can be a bit to take on but really, its more common sense than anything else.

So as to answer your questions -

How often should I clean a cycled tank?
Cleaning a tank once cycled and has live stocking should be done once a week, some folks do twice a week though this depends on their set up, stocking numbers and if have heavy bioloads. But for the most part, once a week is good.

How much water should I change when I do it?
The normal amount of water to be changed once a week is 30% to 50% of the tank water volume

How often should I test the water in a cycled tank?
For the new tank or a new fishkeeper, checking the tank water on a routine basis of maybe twice a week to start with is good practice.

You will soon learn to know what to look out for in terms of if anything is amiss with your water parameters, your fish will give symptoms such as gasping, red gills, lethargy or swimming erractically. This is the time to test the water first before doing anything else.

There is more to this but to start with, this is a good basis to stick with for the new keeper

 

[Ch4rlie]

That's the links on the beginners section re-instated by the admins.

Hope it all works now and you can find out information without too much trouble from now.

Thanks for pointing that out

 

[NickAu]

Im a lazy fish keeper.

An established well planted and balanced tank that has snails in it don't need much work.

How often should I clean a cycled tank?

Cleaning a tank, Whats that? I cant remember the last time I had to clean the glass.

How much water should I change when I do it?

I do 50% once a week.

I do not vacuum the substrate thats what Malaysian trumpet snails are for.

 

[Gruntle]

I'm not trying to be a smarty pants here. But every tank is different, and it really depends on where the tank is (does it get a natural light source from a window, does it heat up with sunlight), what's in the tank (substrate, plants, fish), the light source on the tank (is it too weak, too strong, or just right, asked Goldilocks), and your feeding regime.

One of my tanks doesn't grow plants very well, I suspect the light is not strong enough (cobbled together from a cheap eBay purchase and whatever else I has lying around). But the fish are happy.

Another tank grows plants really well, but I was having issues with green algae, so I reduced the time the lights were on (it's also near a window so it gets ambient light along with the tank lights) and the amount I was feeding.

My advice is it's going to be trial and error. Check your water parameters a couple of times a week. If you're consistently getting high nitrates (even after a weekly 50% water change), you might want to feed less. If your plants are growing well and your fish are happy, and there's no algae growth, and your nitrates don't go too high, you're probably in the ball park. It won't be too long before you're confident that everything is hunky-dory, and then it's just a matter of regular water changes and keeping an eye on your fish.