Avoiding And Treating New Tank Syndrome

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Yes, you're just at the very beginning of learning about filter media. This is an area that experienced aquarists focus on quite a bit. Many experienced ones pride themselves on even keeping the same media going for many, many -years-!

The whole thing of removing and replacing various "pads" is entirely a marketing invention, using a bit of "convenience factor" to try to promote regular trips and spending at the LFS.

A good way to organize your mind about media is to divide your thinking between the three common functions of a modern freshwater filter: mechanical filtration, chemical filtration and biofiltration.

Keeping that organization in the back of your mind, if you do some searches and reading on TFF, you'll gradually learn a lot about filtration media. Maybe you'll stumble across some of my or others long blurbs about this, as they are repeated a lot out there.

~~waterdrop~~
 
Incidently, if the PF3 is anything like the PF2 that I run, you do have more filtration than that :good:

As WD says there are 3 parts to good filtration, mechanical, chemical, and biological.

The mechanical part is basically performed by the large white sponge in your filter and is there to filter out the main crud :)
The chemical part is performed by the charcoal sponge in the filter. These become 'saturated' with chemical after a few weeks and need replacing (or not). Most people here it would seem do not actually use the charcoal in their filters anyway. Charcoal must ALWAYS be removed when using medications, (otherwise it will try to absorb it out of the water!), and therefore most people don't put it in unless they are deliberately trying to remove chemicals from teh water, (such as after a course of medication), or I believe it's also useful for absorbing some of the tannins that bogwood can release if you have that in your tank. In my PF2 I've actually recently taken a charcoal sponge out, and replaced it with another one of the course white sponges.
As for biological, some of the 'friendly bacteria' in filtration will live on the sponges in the filter, (hence why you should only rinse them out in old tank water, not tap water), but I'm also fairly sure that if you look at the top section of your filter once you've unclipped it from the canister, you will see an area that contains white ceramic pieces. This is the biomedia and where the majority of the friendly bacteria will live. Whenever I take the sponges etc away to clean during a water change, I always make sure THIS part of the filter is still sat in the water in the tank, (the bacteria will die if they dry out).

InterpetPFseries.jpg


:good:
 
Yes, nice post Schmill, especially since it goes to B13's particular filter directly.

Just a couple comments on some of the more general things: Nearly every surface inside a filter will serve as an possible anchor for the beneficial bacteria. The sponge is actually very competitive with the ceramic surfaces (ceramic rings in this case, but ceramic pebbles are similar) and so will serve as a biomedia just as much as the ceramic rings, doing double duty. The rings, likewise will actually play a mild mechanical role, as well as a biomedia role. The rings serve to "randomize" the direction of small streams of water, slowing them down and allowing debris to settle and have a greater chance of being trapped, and they will trap some of the debris themselves.

Carbon is indeed normally left out, only to be put in for those special circumstances when chemical filtration is needed. Medicine removal, yellow tannin removal and organic odor removal are the three most common uses. Carbon last about 3 days and then needs to be removed and tossed. Carbon, when its in, will also play a bio and mechanical role but is not as good at either of those functions as the media types that are commonly used for them.

In the retail LFS trade, I believe carbon is popular in the same way as salt, in that it is easily packaged in nice rectangular cartons, not wasting shelf space, and can be sold at a large profit and beginners can be convinced that it needs to be used constantly and that they need to buy it on a regular basis. In truth, one container of either of these should serve an aquarist an exceptionally long time, needing only to be left on the shelf for rare, occassional use (with the exception of the rare brackish-water tank.)

~~waterdrop~~
 
scribbles this all down, cursing the LFS and marketing departments using words not suitable for daytime*

I've never been on so steep a learning curve for a LONG time!!

:)
 
scribbles this all down, cursing the LFS and marketing departments using words not suitable for daytime*

I've never been on so steep a learning curve for a LONG time!!

:)
The other side of the story of course, especially the independents, is that often the owner (in the independent case) started out/is a hobbyist and the overall hobby is not necessarily a big money maker (cringe, as people shout.. exception!) I like to think of any "brick and mortar" fish store as an asset for myself as a hobbyist, in that I can go there and see items, see fish, live and in person. I can rush there and get things right away when I'm in a hurry and sometimes that can be really important to me. So I try not to "burn my bridges" in the experience. I try to stay as far away from advice as possible, but I try to have empathy for the individual I'm talking to, even if I might find he/she doesn't really deserve it. As a hobbyist its probably pretty rare to be one of the few in a city so big you can choose between a lot of good fish shops. Anyway, just a comment.. and hoping this doesn't start too many comments on this.

~~waterdrop~~
 
Hi Anna,

Well written article and worthy of pinning, but we've had a few others of similar elk which haven't been pinned simply because there are already similar threads pinned.

Anyway, as i said, well done but may i point out a few errors and ommissions?

Here's what I do to give my fish the best chance:
1. Immediately do a 10-15% water change with dechlorinated water and continue to do this at least once daily until your tank is cycling (i.e. ammonia and nitrite are at zero).

Quite often a 10 - 15% water change won't be enough to bring the fish back to relative safety. You should maybe advise that a 50 - 75% water change be performed in the first instance, and then test again. I would also emphasise more that its almost impossible to change too much water so long as temp, pH and kH are closely matched. I feel that this is a very important point which newbies need to know.

You could maybe also advise a level of ammonia and nitrite to aim for whilst cycling. It is popular on TFF to suggest that if either ammonia or nitrite rise to above 0.25mg/l, a water change should be performed to bring it back down. This is a realistic level to aim for (0 wouldn't be realistic in a cycling tank), and although 0.25mg/l is still toxic, it is about as low as is realistic to achieve in a cycling tank.

5. Avoid using medications, if at all possible, as many medications kill off beneficial bacteria. Your fish may well get ick, fungus or other infections due to the stress of the ammonia and nitrite but the priority is to get that water quality as good as possible.

I feel this may be slightly misleading. If the fish have Ich etc, the damage has already been done, and although correcting water conditions is critical, treatment is also. I wouldn't rely on correcting my water parameters to kill Ich, because it probably won't. I feel that in this situation, a combination of treatment and correcting the water conditions is essential.

The LFS sold me a product that locks away ammonia. Can I use that to save my fish?

Thirdly, theoretically, "locked" ammonia can't be utilised by the beneficial bacteria and may possibly retard its growth.

This is incorrect. Locked ammonia can be used by the biological filter just the same as un-locked ammonia. It won't impair the growth of the bacteria at all.

But I tested my water when I first set my tank up and it was fine!

You won't get ammonia or nitrite unless you have fish, or an artificial source of ammonia (such as that you add during fishless cycling).

May i suggest that it would be useful to add in here that many an LFS will send you away with tank, filter etc and tell you to come back in 1 week with a water sample. You go back 1 week later, and due to no ammonia source being added to the tank, the LFS says your water is fine as theres no ammonia or nitrite to speak of. This of course is nonsense as the levels aren't 0 because the tank is cycled, but actually because the cycle hasn't started yet. In my experience this is something which seems to catch out many beginners in the hobby.

I also agree with NutMutt that it would be useful to mention that fish also produce ammonia through respiration, so although not feeding will cut down ammonia prduction, it won't halt it altogether.

Lastly, may i suggest that you could also link to RDD1952's pinned article on fishless cycling which appears on this forum. It's one of the best i've seen.

<a href="http://www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/" target="_blank">http://www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/</a>

Well done again on a good article and i hope my comments help.

Cheers :good:

BTT

Oops. Just realised you've not been online since 2004, Anna! :blush:
 
sorry, BTT, guess this is why we should encourage newbies to pull back over to their own thread when they've tacked on to a new one! (I should know better!)
 
The other side of the story of course, especially the independents, is that often the owner (in the independent case) started out/is a hobbyist and the overall hobby is not necessarily a big money maker

Good point, well made!!

I'm just p'd off with the place where I got my lot from for giving me some SERIOUSLY bad ("Put as many fish in as you like!!") and/or inaccurate ("Sailfin Plecs only grown to 6cms.") and/or downright stupid ("Put ten feed tablets in at night") advice.

But yeah, Ye Olde Locale Fishe Shoppe has to sell things to survive - this includes filter foams...

;)

This is why I love this forum: without this place, I'm in no doubt that my poor fishies would be dead fishies...

:good:
 
I can confirm this i am in the same position had my tank on a month now and thought it would be ready after i got the API test kit, i got a free interpet filter start with mine i just did an ammonia test on the actual filter start and got 0 Ammonia
 
hello there.

my friend has started a tank without cycling it and stocked it fully. now fish are dying and algae is going mad. i was gonna -
  1. I have 2 filters in my 60l running (i was overstocked) so am gonna give him one of my sponges
  2. the water changes are already happening
  3. more live plants?
  4. now here's the debatable one. ammonia reducing products? i have a spare aqua-detox pad (api) worked great when i was overfeeding by mistake and i had a spike, but should it be used in an uncycled tank?

any advice?

oh and add snails??? (i have loads) help eating the algae??
 
Ammonia products will only mask the problem, not deal with it. If it is a mini-spike, adding Prime is a lot better than An Ammo-lock type product. The ammo-lock will actually starve the bacteria you need to have in the filter to deal with ammonia/nitrite. On the contrary, Prime makes ammonia into ammonium which makes it less toxic, but still available to the bacteria for them to survive.



I would stick to large scale water changes, feeding half (or possibly even less than that - depending on how heavily they have been fed recently) of the current amount, and only turning on the light for about 4-6 hours a day max. If the light is currently on for only that much time recently, cut it down by an hour or so. Finally search high and low for some mature media. This will greatly help the cycle process - the right way!
 
Ammonia products will only mask the problem, not deal with it. If it is a mini-spike, adding Prime is a lot better than An Ammo-lock type product. The ammo-lock will actually starve the bacteria you need to have in the filter to deal with ammonia/nitrite. On the contrary, Prime makes ammonia into ammonium which makes it less toxic, but still available to the bacteria for them to survive.



I would stick to large scale water changes, feeding half (or possibly even less than that - depending on how heavily they have been fed recently) of the current amount, and only turning on the light for about 4-6 hours a day max. If the light is currently on for only that much time recently, cut it down by an hour or so. Finally search high and low for some mature media. This will greatly help the cycle process - the right way!
not sure if you read the post, it's an uncycled tank. xx i am taking media round asap. what is prime please? the aqua detox pad by api has nitra zorb (tm) in which apparently locks in the "evils" in it's tea bag style packaging xx also says it is good for rapid tank startups.

the other thing i have is kordon amquel +. says it safely removes nitrate/rite,ammonia,chlorine and chloramines
 

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