Clown Loach Rehomed

[Kaidonni]

Just thought I'd post that my Clown Loach has now been rehomed, and I'd like to thank the people who've answered my questions and provided whatever assistance they could.
 
I'm left with five White Cloud Mountain Minnows in what is between 45-50 litres, although it's currently less because quite a bit of water was needed for the transport of the Clown Loach. I'll be topping it up further tomorrow when I clean the filter floss. It'll probably be at around the 45 litre mark in the end, and I'll probably have to add further water in when I remove the castle that the Clown Loach hid in (don't want to be too hasty since there will be beneficial bacteria all over it, I don't want to cause any issues for my tank's biological cycle). My heater is at the 24C mark (need a proper thermometer in the tank since the one on the outside says 26C...), I'll probably dial it down gradually over the next few weeks or months - how soon should I lower it, and by how much? Also, is the tank too small for these fish? You know I have to ask... I could always get a new heater, but again, with the bacteria on the old heater, I don't want to make too many changes too quickly.
 
I'll be keeping an eye on their gills and looking out for any problems. I need to feed some pea as I think at least one is suffering from constipation (long trail of poo). I don't generally blanch peas, I just thaw them out, de-shell one and cut it into very tiny pieces and feed a bit at a time - must they be blanched?
 
I also got some mulch or other muck off the glass behind the filter housing...and it settled on the gravel. Tried to use some kitchen towel, but it was no use. Couldn't remove it because I'd already topped the tank up, and removing any further water wasn't really an option. I guess I'll have to get it off when the water level is low enough during a water change.
 
And one final thing - is an airstone over-kill in my tank at the moment? I don't want to cause the problem of too much oxygen and what that can do to fish...

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You would be very hard pressed to get too much O into a tank with any number of air stones. It is not easy to supersaturate water with oxygen. I am not sure it is even possible to have this occur naturally in the typical aquarium becuase I doubt the level of turbulence needed is possible to achieve and not have most of the water come out of the tank.
 
I would bet you could search the internet for a lot of hours before you can find a single documented cases of oxygen supersaturation occurring in a home aquarium.
 
As for the bacteria. Compare the body mass of the cpds that remain to that of the clown which you let go. Figure there is a direct correspondence between body mass and the amount of bacteria involved with handling the waste it produces. I would bet the clown loach produced more waste adn ammonia than all the CPDs combined. the result here is not that you don't have enough bacteria, but that you now have more than the tank needs. If you do not add any more fish in the next week or two, that will cause a reduction in bacteria such that the colonies resize to the bioload which remained in your tank.

 

[Munroco]

Don't worry about things like the ornament and heater, I'm sure your filter will have enough bacteria to cope. I'd adjust your heater over 2-3 days, you could probably do it in one go without repercussions, but no need to hurry it.

 

[Kaidonni]

I was thinking of removing the castle on Wednesday. Today it's a filter clean/water top-up, might need to add additional water tomorrow, then I'm mainly leaving it till next weekend before I do any further water changes. I hope Wednesday isn't too late, I want to avoid causing a mini-cycle - I'll gravel vac where the castle was, removing 4-5 litres, then top-up and also make up the difference caused by the castle having previously displaced a certain volume. The heater will be on a day when nothing else is being done, so the water will simply cool down by 2C gradually (I won't be doing it around a water change).
 
As for my nitrates issue (40-80ppm at least), I'm going to have to hold fire on that one - now that the bioload is less and I have more room for plants, I'm wondering if the demand will outstrip the production? If that happens, the nitrates will gradually decrease without much having to be done.
 
I also have to figure out my lighting, because I've never used the light itself due to the Clown Loach - now he's gone, I'm concerned about it being too bright. Plants at the top are only a partial solution. Is daylight sufficient? The guy who has rehomed my Clown Loach did remark on some of the plants browning because there wasn't enough light in the living room. The only light I really use is a lamp in the corner of the room when it gets dark outside, it isn't particularly bright and doesn't cast too much on the tank - is that sufficient during the darker hours? It is turned off at night (once that goes off, the whole room is in darkness).

 

[Kaidonni]

Conducted a Nutrafin nitrite test last night and tonight, it's still detecting minute amounts; less than before the Clown Loach was rehomed, and this is also comparing it against a test tube of untested (and also tested) tap water, otherwise, it'd probably look virtually clear...but still reading it. I'm under the impression there should not even be the faintest of differences between untested water and tested water (or it means nitrite). Perhaps I haven't left it long enough, or perhaps my filter isn't strong enough to move the water around the tank effectively and that's causing issues?