New Member With First Weekly Water Change Experience

[Dukhani]

Hi All,
Am new freshwater tank owner, I have been reading alot before I setup my current aquarium, as I made all the new tank steps and my fish are happily swimming with a good looking environment (As I think), but I wonder about the weekly water change and maintenance, I did these steps once so far and after it everything looked great and felt that my fish are happy, just want to make sure that am doing the write thing.

I have 80*30*40 cm tank with 20W*3 florescent lights, as I have 30 liter tank to store changing water, I want to make sure that am doing the right thing with the 30 liter tank, the steps as the following below

1- On Friday I fill the 30 tank with tap water and add Dechlorinator as the bottle instructions says.
2- On Sunday I add 2 tea spoons of Bactria starter kit to the 30 litter tank.
3- On Thursday I add 2 tea spoons of Black water (I do have Discuss).
4- On Friday I do take off about 20%-25% of the tank water and do the cleaning then pour my 30 Liter tank to the aquarium.

So what you guys think! am I on the right track or what? I did this once and my aquarium seems to look healthy with happy fish

Thanks in advance for your help and support

/Dukhani

 

[abih2005]

Hi there...... How long has your tank been set up for? It takes about 6-8 weeks for a tank to mature and for the necessary ammonia/nitrite processing bacteria to build up in response to the regular introduction of ammonia. Take a look at the beginners area, it's in the top bar - there's lot of information on fishless cycling, a process through which a tank is dosed regularly with ammonia in order to bring about its maturation.

 

[toshapetriji]

I think the water change is OK but I wonder have you cycled your tank before adding fish.

That is did you prepare the filter? You should not just plug everything in and add fish.

 

[Dukhani]

Sure I did the cycle, but I couldn't wait for 8 weeks, I started the tank with a mix between tap water with dechlorinator and water from a healthy aquarium (got the water from the pet store that I deal with) then I added Bactria starter kit, and filtered it for around 2 weeks, then I added the fish.
So what you think guys?? 2 weeks was enough with the water mix?

Other thing to ask, is there freshwater seahorse?? or just salty in salty water?

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Dukhani and Welcome to TFF!

This is very good, that you have searched and read about the skill of the "weekly water change" as it is perhaps one of the most important maintenance skills in the hobby and important to understand. Once your tank is "cycled" (which means it has a working "biofilter") you will want to put that skill into practice.

Unfortunately, your tank is most likely *not* "cycled" yet! You have not put your fish in to an environment with a working biofilter and instead, they are going to need to rely on you to be a "manual" filter for some weeks to come, probably.

We often see dozens of new members come in with this problem each month. The Bactria (a bottled bacteria product I believe) will not actually have live bacteria in it (they can not live long without fresh oxygen and ammonia.) The water from a mature aquarium also does not really have the bacteria we need (or very, very little of it.) The beneficial bacteria you need grows tightly fixed to surfaces and is a very, very slow grower, so while its likely that you have a few of these started in your new filter, there will not be nearly enough yet to support fish correctly.

What to do? This is where its good that you've asked about water changing! In my opinion, you will need urgent water changes (perhaps less urgent once you get a good testing kit) on a daily (not weekly) basis for a while. You are in what we call a "Fish-In Cycling Situation" and without sufficient water changes, the gills may get burned by ammonia and the nerves damaged by an ion called nitrite(NO2).

You have about a 25G (US gallon) tank, it sounds like. How many fish and what sizes are currently in the tank? Without knowing this, I recommend that you perform a 75% or larger water change (it can be down as far as possible, barely leaving the fish covered with water.) The return water should be treated with conditioner (as you've indicated you have) at about 1.5x whatever the instructions tell you. You should roughly temperature match the water (your hand is good enough for this.) The ammonia and nitrite poisons are not visible and at the lower levels that are still damaging, the fish may not show distress signs.

Next, you should attempt to find a good liquid-reagent based test kit if you don't already have one (let us know the make and type if you have one.) Many of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit but there are other good liquid kits too. These will help you measure ammonia, nitrite(NO2), pH and nitrate(NO3).

As mentioned, it would be good to read in the Beginners Resource Center. Start with The Nitrogen Cycle, then the Fish-In Cycle and the Fishless Cycle is also good background, but is not your situation. If you are lucky, you will have bought few enough fish that the Fish-In Cycling can proceed without too much disruption to your day. A Fish-In cycle takes somewhat over a month on average. The members can help along the way!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

There are no freshwater seahorses.
Usually people do far more water changes on a discus tank than 30% each week. Discus people tend to do large water changes every other day or there about. It is one reason that I have so far avoided getting any discus.
When it comes to the fish-in cycle, WD is a great guide to help you get through it with success.

 

[Dukhani]

Thanks guys for your help

I have returned the Discuss to the pet store in a safe tank till am ready with my tank, but I kept my 5 silver dollars, and am going to get ammonia testing kit.

I will start changing 25% water daily, adding Dechlorinator and Bactria starter kit to the new water everyday.

Another thing, is Dechlorinator safe to be added to the water that is going to the tank in the same day?? dose it need time to mix and will it harm my fish?

Sorry for asking too much noob questions

EDIT: Sorry I mean to change 50% water daily
PLUS: that tank used to have 2 Discuss , and 5 Silver Dollars, but noe only 5 Silver dollars, and will get back my Discuss as soon as my tank is safe again.

 

[Shaman]

Thanks guys for your help

I have returned the Discuss to the pet store in a safe tank till am ready with my tank, but I kept my 5 silver dollars, and am going to get ammonia testing kit.

I will start changing 25% water daily, adding Dechlorinator and Bactria starter kit to the new water everyday.

Another thing, is Dechlorinator safe to be added to the water that is going to the tank in the same day?? dose it need time to mix and will it harm my fish?

Sorry for asking too much noob questions

EDIT: Sorry I mean to change 50% water daily
PLUS: that tank used to have 2 Discuss , and 5 Silver Dollars, but noe only 5 Silver dollars, and will get back my Discuss as soon as my tank is safe again.

I add my dechlorinator straight to the first bucket of new tap water going into the tank. I pour it in and then give it a bit of a stir with an old spoon.

 

[Dukhani]

Last night I changed the water, and got Tetra Nitrate Test Kit, that what I could find so far, and i did the test, I did as the instructions, it asks to take 5cc of water and test it, and the result was 1.6mg and its seems to be high level of NO2, so my tank still need to be cycled

Any other advice???

 

[toshapetriji]

You really need to get an ammonia test kit as soon as possible. ebay is a good place to look. Most of us here use the API fresh water master test kit and this will provide tests for all the main parameters.

Your aim is to keep you ammonia and nitrite reading at zero and this will require frequent and very large(90%) water changes probably on a daily basis.

As soon as you can measure ammonia and nitrite post the results here and members will guide you through the cycling process.

Good Luck

 

[Dukhani]

The problem is that am living far from USA, am from the middle east, and such test kits here seems to cost alot, a simple NO2 testing kit cost me around 40$ last night, and still didn't find ammonia testing kit!! as the pet shop owner told me that if I got high NO2 readings that means I got high ammonia as well, and currently am working on a daily water change, and I will do as Waterdrop said (barely leaving the fish covered with water) and do the test daily, and hope it gets better soon

 

[Dukhani]

Am into amazon to order things that i might find here with high price, or might not find them at all, as i read about these products and would be great for the cycle and even for the long run protection and keeping my aquarium healthy:

1- API Stress Coat 16 oz.
2- Accu-Clear, 8 oz.
3- Freshwater Master Test Kit.
4- Stress Zyme - 16 oz.
5- Liquid Super Ick - 4 oz. (in case needed in the future)

These all are API products, anything else I might need?

 

[Timmy_Bee]

do you know the volume of your tank? my mental arithmatic [sp] isn't too good on your dimensions, but i would hazard a guess that 5 silver dollars might be over-stocking your tank. Let alone adding discus.

 

[kelvinrankin767]

Yea 5 siver dollars in a tank that size? and you mentioned discus forget it just go for simple community tank will be easier on you as a begginer and easier on the fish

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there Dukhani, save your money - you don't need to buy any of the things you have mentioned. the only thing you should try to track down if at all possible is the API freshwater master test kit which enables you to test for pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. if this isn't available in the middle east then any liquid based test kit should broadly do the job but you do need to test for ammonia and nitrite as the two most important levels.

the nitrate reading is less important and I'm afraid the advice that this level reflects the level of ammonia is simply not correct.

the silver dollars will eventually grow too big for your tank anyway and being in there right now without a cycled filter will damage them so I would recommend you try to return these too the shop. Then if it all possible do a fishless cycle - there is a link in my signature to explain this process to you.

If you can't do that then the next best thing is to get some mature media from someone else's fish tank. If you have any friends or family with fish tanks that have been running for a while then ask them if you can take some media from their filter. What this media is depends on the type of filter that they have but is likely to be a sponge or some plastic or ceramic shapes. Don't take all their media or they will have problems with their tank but you can safely take one third of their filter media and not damage their tank, it is polite to buy them some new media to replace this. Take the media from their filter, put it in a sealed container with some of their tank water to keep it wet and then get it into your filter within about 12 hours.

This will import you some of this beneficial bacteria needed into your filter and should significantly speed up the cycling process. In some cases the tank will become cycled instantly, in others it may take a week or so more, but if you don't do this then you are looking at maybe 6 weeks of daily water changes so it's a big improvement.

If you can't find either a test kit or some mature media from a friends tank then you will need to do large daily water changes, at least 50% to be on the safe side and I would keep this up for about 6 weeks. Without accurate test readings it's impossible to tell when the tank is safe and you can stop doing the water changes every day but 6 weeks should do it.