What water treatments do i need for aquarium fish?
Hi I've bought a 5 foot Fish tank with 6 large Goldfish in it off eBay about 2 weeks, ive only ever had one tiny goldfish before who ive successfully put into the tank, but with him ive never treated the water, he was just in an old fashioned bowl (which im told now is a big fishkeeping faux pas!!)
Obviously as its been two weeks its time for a partial water exchange but ive been told to treat my tap water and test it, im pretty dumb and have no idea what to use or what im testing for can anyone tell me more, and where i can buy some treatments (preferably lower end of the budget though i have a teensy budget)
Wow, there are some pretty windy opinions here. This is what I think: You need to purchase a siphon. Have the store manager give you a lesson on how to use it, or IM/email me and I'll walk you through it. Use the siphon to vacuum out all the crap out of the gravel. It sounds like your tank is already established. Were the goldfish living in this same tank when you purchased the tank or are the fish new? If the tank has only been running since you purchased it, then your tank is still cycling. You might want to purchase a master test kit. This will allow you to monitor ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Keeping yourself informed of your tank's water qualtiy will help prevent any major problems down the road. When it comes time to fill your tank back up, use a dechlorinator. Most are in liquid form. Follow the instructions on the bottle. You can also leave the water sitting out for the chlorine to evaporate, but if your local water treatment plant uses chloramine, you will have to wait much longer. Magicman taught me that chloramines have a half life of about 72 hrs, at 7.5pH and 80 degrees. This means that if you set your water out to age for 24 hrs and the city puts chloramines in your water, it will NOT be safe to add to the tank without water conditioner. The cheapest way to dechlorinate your tank is to purchase Sodium Thiosulfate crystals. This is the main ingredient of dechlorinator, and for a few dollars, you can dechlorinate thousands of gallons. It is pretty hard to find, but you could probably order some off the internet. Email me if you have any questions.
You need to treat your tap water to remove the chlorine they water companies stick in it.
tap water conditioner is quite cheap, but if you can't afford it simply pour out a load of water into a container and leave it standing for 24 hrs and the chlorine will have dissipated.
when testing water you want to check you have a good PH not too acid or alkaline, and the Nitrate & Ammonia levels (waste products form fish) most aquatic supplies shops will offer a water testing service.
References :
keeper of tropical fish for years
I use Tetra Aquasafe, but there are other cheaper products that work just as well, best ask at a fishstore / pet shop for the different brands. You want a tapwater conditioner – this will dechlorinate the water.
It isn't really nessercery to go overboard with the test kits unless you're keeping sensitive tropical fish, etc. A useful test to have is nitrite, i've found the tablet testing ones easiest to use. Just follow the instructons in the kit. If the nitrite is high, this means the water quality in the tank is bad, meaning frequent partial water changes will be needed to dilute the problem. You don't want to change too much water at once, or it will stress the fish and kill off the healthy bacteria (which you need to break down the fish waste, eg ammonia and nitrite, to harmless levels)
References :
Firstly you won't need to change the water as often in a large tank like this as you did with a small one unless you overfeed the fish.
As for testing the water. If you're getting it straight from the tap you won't need to worry too much although you could try testing the water IN THE TANK for nitrites and perhaps ammonia occasionally. If either of these start to rise you might have to change some of the water, leave it a few days and then change some more but remember that the tank needs time to settle down and these chemicals will be broken down naturally by bacteria as they develop. So, unless you're overfeeding them they shouldn't cause you a problem.
Don't make the mistake of continually adding things to the water or you're likely to end up killing the fish but a little water conditioner to destroy the chlorine in tap water and perhaps some Stress Coat to help keep the fish in condition might be added.
When you change the water try to add water of approximately the same temperature as the water in the tank. Presumably the tank is in a heated room? If so the chill will have been taken off of it and, particularly in the winter, tap water can be much colder and they won't appreciate a sudden chill any more than we do. If you have to warm the water up, heat a kettle of cold tap water up and add that to the water before putting it in the tank, don't use water out of a hot water system as it is generally stored in copper tanks and fish are a bit sensitive to even small quantities of some metals in the water.
References :
40 years experience
Wow, there are some pretty windy opinions here. This is what I think: You need to purchase a siphon. Have the store manager give you a lesson on how to use it, or IM/email me and I'll walk you through it. Use the siphon to vacuum out all the crap out of the gravel. It sounds like your tank is already established. Were the goldfish living in this same tank when you purchased the tank or are the fish new? If the tank has only been running since you purchased it, then your tank is still cycling. You might want to purchase a master test kit. This will allow you to monitor ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Keeping yourself informed of your tank's water qualtiy will help prevent any major problems down the road. When it comes time to fill your tank back up, use a dechlorinator. Most are in liquid form. Follow the instructions on the bottle. You can also leave the water sitting out for the chlorine to evaporate, but if your local water treatment plant uses chloramine, you will have to wait much longer. Magicman taught me that chloramines have a half life of about 72 hrs, at 7.5pH and 80 degrees. This means that if you set your water out to age for 24 hrs and the city puts chloramines in your water, it will NOT be safe to add to the tank without water conditioner. The cheapest way to dechlorinate your tank is to purchase Sodium Thiosulfate crystals. This is the main ingredient of dechlorinator, and for a few dollars, you can dechlorinate thousands of gallons. It is pretty hard to find, but you could probably order some off the internet. Email me if you have any questions.
References :
5.0
You can't go wrong with Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, now simply known as API.
They have small, cheap packages of their products called "starter packs" and the sell in larger, more expensive containers as well. You can buy as much or as little as you want.
http://www.aquariumpharm.com/en_us/productCategory.asp?categoryname=WaterConditioners
StressCoat is a great water conditioner. The newly improved ones also neutralize ammonia. Another product like this is SeaChem Prime. http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/Prime.html
A lot of people swear by this…
After a water change, you will need to add a bacteria supplement like StressZyme. I'd suggest the tropical starter pack if it had the newer version of StressCoat, which kinda makes AmmoLoc redundant.
The best test kits you can buy are also made by API. The dip sticks are not so accurate.
Petsmart is one of the best places to buy this stuff. They will test your water for free (but I'd still plan on getting my own test kits). They will also match their online prices in the store, so print out the pages.
It appears that their own Top Fin brand may actually be made by API as well.
References :
If you have a teensy budget you shouldn't have bought a 5ft Fish Tank. Any treatments you buy will cost a fortune due to the volume involved. Your best bet is to buy pond treatments as they are identical to aquarium treatments but are more concentrated and are better value for money. Tap water conditioners are very fancy and contain all sorts of supposed herbal anti stress agents designed to cuddle your fish back to health. They are also way overpriced and dilute. Find a sraightforward tapwater dechlorinator which neutralises dangerous chlorine/chloramine in your tap water and nothing else. It will be 20x more concentrated saving you the fortune mentioned above.
The only other treatment you will need will be the beneficial bacteria needed for your filter. Even though your tank is second hand the bacteria will have died on your filter which means you need to treat it as a new tank. The bacterial treatments are all expensive and need to be added weekly for about 4 weeks. Buy a small pond bottle it should be enough for the initial treatments on your tank. Go to your local aquatic centre and compare the bottles on the shelf, find out the volume of water in your tank it will make things a lot easier.
Most diseases are caused by poor water quality, avoid this and you should avoid disease. If you do get a disease however (normally from new additions to the tank) get to your aquatic centre ASAP with as much information on the symptoms as possible and follow their recommendations but use the pond versions instead to save money.
References :
The only chemical you need is something to remove chlorine from the water(it shouldn't be very expensive),most other stuff is junk that doesn't work and a waste of money.You also need a gravel siphon(about 5 dollars) if you don't already have one to use for you water change.Read this if you don't know about cycling your tank:
http://www.worldcichlids.com/faqs/cycling.html
References :
The only water treatment you really need is a waterconditioner to make your tapwater safe for your fish
As for testers, you will need an ammonia, nitrite and nitrate test kit
Your tank is cycling right now and you're going to see a spike in ammonia levels and at that time you will see also some readings on nitrate
When your ammonia and nitrite levels are at "0" your tank is finally cycled
As for water changes:
During the time of cycling you need to do partial waterchanges pretty much every day with a gravelsiphon of 15% to keep your fish alive
When your tank is cycled
You are suppose to do weekly partial waterchanges of 25% with a gravelsiphon and use the water conditioner on the water before you fill it into your tank
I hope that helps
good luck and happy fish keeping
EB
References :
well i use safegaurd to treat my tap water which removes all toxins. i use a testing kit but that cost alot but i think you can get a dip strip test kit for about £8 but they arn't as accurate. if you can go for a test kit that tests, PH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate and maybe oxygen and saltinity.
References :