Water treatment for tropical fish?

Flynn

Hey

Was just wondering does everybody here treat their water before doing partial water changes in a tank? I've known fish keepers to put tap water in and everything seems fine but recently i've been doing 25% PWC to try and get my nitrate levels down.. It wasnt working so i tested my tap water and found it was high in nitrate itself.... now is this possible? or is my test kit fooked? Since it's a bi-product of ammonia i can't see how the tap water tested positive for it...

Also does everyone here let their water warm to room temp before adding?
De-chlorinate.... ? I'm just asking all this here instead of reading up on it as americans tap water is alot worse than ours.... so i maybe we can get away without de-chlorinating??

cheers.

flynn

Flynn

Anybody ? surely somebody keeps fish!

dark_jedi_ire

Hiya

Keeping Tropicals a few years now.

Have you tested the PH of your water? What is it ? Do you use stress coat to Remove clorines etc for the water, ?

Is this a new tank ,? how long has it been running?

R

myjugsarehuge

Hi Flynn

I've been keeping tropical fish for 2 years nearly. I have a 3ft Juwel tank and I do a 25% water change every 10 days - 2 weeks, with a complete gravel syphon to get the muck out, not just the water.

I always use Fresh Start 1 to neutralise the tap water although not as much as the instructions say. I don't warm the water, the hosepipe goes in and thats it. The cold water usually stimulates my corydoras to lay eggs but the other fish always eat them. I only run the tank at about 24 degrees normally.

My plants aren't flourishing at the moment unfortunately but they are putting roots down so hopefully they will soon. I used to have an excess of Amazon Frogbit floating plants, they sent down long roots which soaked up the nitrates. I had so many I sold literally 1000s on Ebay but I made the mistake of putting a nitrate removal sponge in a while back and the plants stopped producing. The fish ate the last few recently

I've just uploaded a video of my tank to Youtube if you're interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yyww_ywyKO0

Flynn

myjugsarehuge wrote:

Hi Flynn

I've been keeping tropical fish for 2 years nearly. I have a 3ft Juwel tank and I do a 25% water change every 10 days - 2 weeks, with a complete gravel syphon to get the muck out, not just the water.

I always use Fresh Start 1 to neutralise the tap water although not as much as the instructions say. I don't warm the water, the hosepipe goes in and thats it. The cold water usually stimulates my corydoras to lay eggs but the other fish always eat them. I only run the tank at about 24 degrees normally.

My plants aren't flourishing at the moment unfortunately but they are putting roots down so hopefully they will soon. I used to have an excess of Amazon Frogbit floating plants, they sent down long roots which soaked up the nitrates. I had so many I sold literally 1000s on Ebay but I made the mistake of putting a nitrate removal sponge in a while back and the plants stopped producing. The fish ate the last few recently

I've just uploaded a video of my tank to Youtube if you're interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yyww_ywyKO0

My tank is running 6 months now... The first time i got fish they all died from new tank syndrome.. then i started really reading up on it and when i got my next batch of fish (one by one) they lasted alot longer and i did 25%pwc every week... since i only had one tank i couldnt quarintine new fish so it seemed everytime i put a new fish in the other died.. dunno why.. then recently all but one fish got wiped out from white spot diesease.... I got treatment for that and fixed it and now i have 7 neon tetras and a siamese fighting fish... i have them maybe 2 months now... but havnt being doing any water changes becuz i reckon the tap water is sh!t...so i'll have to get some of Fresh start stuff (i had the gravel vaccum too.. handy)

nice tank btw i'll try get some pics of mine up ..it's a 13g bowl...

myjugsarehuge

Hi Flynn

The neon tetras available now don't seem to be very hardy, the shops tell me as much. I buy some periodically but they don't survive long I've got one left. Same with guppies and dalmation mollies, even though I added maldon sea salt to the water as recommended.

Our tap water is really hard, goes off the scale on the test strips. Head & tail light tetras and glowlight tetras seem to do well, as do swordtail platies and marbled hatchet fish, I still have my original ones from 2 years ago. I recently got 2 kribensis but one died, I've got a lonely female now. I've posted a question on the forum about finding a male for her. there's a video on there too.

Also I've got 2 gold gouramis and 4 scissortail rasboras, they are nice, might get some more when I go to Mallow next. Plus a huge plec that hides under the rocks, a couple of corydoras and the redtailed black shark. Also have a couple of silver fish that I don't know what they are, but they seem to be thriving.

I don't quarantine either, for the same reason. I keep whitespot treatment in the cupboard now, just in case. Easier to nip it in the bud. Plus if there are any dead or dodgy looking fish in the display tank at the shop I walk away, not worth the risk.