SouthernCross
Fish Addict
Hey everyone
In a nutshell, I'm travelling overseas for a few years and I've given my 3ft fish tank to my brother while I'm gone. I've already moved it up to his house and got it all set up properly. All he has to do is maintain it. He's kept fish before (although not very successfully) and doesn't have much of an idea about proper fish care (to our standard, anyway!) and the intricacies of cycling and whatnot. I went through everything with him physically when I set the tank up at his house, but he's asked me to write out some instructions for him to follow - and be quite detailed about how to clean it, and what all those products in my 'boxes of fish stuff' are for. I think i bewildered him when explaining stuff like of cleaning filters properly,
. E.g. he never knew not to clean filter material under tapwater.
Anyway, I thought I'd run my directions by you guys. They have been written in a very colloquial format, with a few jokes and me being a bit of a smartass (e.g. 'no excuse for letting those fish die!!!' haha I don't really mean it) in the hopes its easier for my poor bro to understand and follow. Obviously, I do not expect him to keep it up to the same standard I do, and in that case I have not gone into extreme detail, used scientific names or mentioned procedures that would be over his head. Keep that in mind before you criticise these instructions too much about leaving out something that we hardcore fishkeepers would deem important. Try to think of what you would expect if you were giving your tank away to a relative newcomer and just want them to do the best you think they can. Although if theres anything important you think I should include that I haven't please let me know. By putting these up here, they might form a base for some of you to work from if you ever need to to something similar, I'm happy for others to use them. Although obviously they are tailored to my tank.
Opinions appreciated!
Cheers
Here they are, try and excuse the formatting, I copy pasted from word and it hasnt come out as nicely:
Fish Tank!
WHAT KIND OF FISH ARE IN THERE?
3 x Pearl Gourami – The big, light brown coloured spotty ones with feelers. One male, two females – the male has the orange throat and longer fins.
They eat: - Just about anything, mostly what floats on top e.g. flakes/pellets These guys can live for 8-10 years. No excuse for killing them!
4x Platies – the orange/black/yellow/red ones - all females, so you shouldn’t be getting babies anymore, although the other fish eat them anyway. Eat everything. They only have a shorter lifespan.
9 x Cardinal Tetras – The little red and blue neon fish. If they lose their red colour (when the lights are ON – they fade in the dark anyway) it means they’re not well. They eat little bits of flake that fall down – make sure you crush some small enough for them. These guys are a bit of a delicate/sensitive type of fish and only live for 2-5 years so I’ll forgive you if there’s none left when I come back.
5 x Corydoras Catfish – Two bronze, two albino and one peppered (spotted). They eat the sinking wafers, the shrimp pellets, and clean up anything else that sinks to the bottom. These guys can live for 10+ years too. No excuse for deaths!
1 x Bristlenose catfish – the big brown suckermouth catfish with spots. Will stay on the bottom and stick to the walls. He eats: the Sinking algae wafers spirulina tablets, anything else that sinks to the bottom. Really likes getting a piece of zucchini, and its funny to watch him eat it you’ll need to weigh it down with something. Makes a lot of mess though, so don’t give zucchini more than once or twice a fortnight. Also, scoop out whatevers left of it with a net after two or so days – the rotting scraps can make the water yucky. Can also live for ages, so no killing him!
So, that’s 22 fish – it doesn’t hurt to do a headcount every now and then – if one dies, you don’t want a rotting fish in there too long, it will also mess up your chemistry, not to mention might make the others ill if they try to eat it.
General Feeding
- Feed the Nutrafin Complete Tropical Flake (White container, blue label) nearly every day as the staple food. Break it up into smaller pieces for the littler fish as you put it in.
- Every second or third day or so, feed a little bit of Nutrafin Complete Tropical Flake, and some of a different kind of flake to break things up a bit. E.g. the Spirulina Flake, The Wardleys Colour Enhancing, or the Brine Shrimp Flakes. Or, give them some of the little Nutrafin pellets – theres two types in there (I think one has a white and yellow label, one has a white and purple) theyre pretty much the same.
- The jar which has the freeze dried bloodworms in it – only give that about once every 3-4 weeks – they really like it but its not very good for them to get it all the time. Makes them constipated.
- Another thing you can give occasionally (every month or so) is some peas – pop 2-3 cooked peas out of their skins, break it up a bit in your fingers and put it in. Platies in particular go nuts for it, and it’s a good way of ‘cleaning’ them out so to speak. Like a laxative. Better if you don’t feed the day before you give peas too, theyre more likely to eat it. If theyre not keen don’t overdo it, peas can make a mess.
- For the bottom fish –
Little catfish - Feed either two of the Hikari sinking wafers (orange packet) OR 2-3 of the Wardleys shrimp pellets (orange lid). Push them down into the water so they sink. If you realize you’ve put loads of flakes in don’t give them anything, they will clean up the flake. Other fish like the shrimp too.
Big catfish – Give him either one Hikari Algae Wafer (green packet) or a spirulina tablet (Nutrafin white container). He probably doesn’t need something every day though, say 2-3 nights a week don’t put in anything for him, he’ll eat the other stuff. He poops enough as it is eating the algae in the tank. Remember he LOVES zucchini, try to give him some every couple of weeks, while he’s got some don’t give him anything else.
- Having one night off feeding per week for all fish is good too. If you have to go away and leave them, they’d probably be fine for 5 days or so without food.
What to Keep an Eye on all the time…
1) Watch the temperature, make sure its heating right/the heater hasn’t stopped working etc. About 26 is good.
2) Always keep an eye on the filter to make sure its flowing. Sometimes the uptake pipes will have bits of leaves/moss/crud on it blocking the flow, you can just get around the side of the tank, push the lid forward, pull those off and clean them out (under the tap is fine) and refit them without turning the filter off at all providing the water level hasn’t gotten too low. Sometimes you may just need to give the filter a quick clean and squeeze the crud out of the sponges without doing the whole tank (or if its not flowing well and you don’t have time to do the whole tank) so it keeps flowing properly. Remember only clean the filter materials (sponges/bioballs) in water from the fishtank. If the water isn’t flowing bringing food/oxygen to the bacteria, it will die off and the tank will crash. Cleaning the sponges in tap water will also kill the bacteria.
CLEANING THE TANK
1) Turn the heater off by pulling the plug out. Because it can shock you (I’ve been shocked), and if it’s out of water while it’s on it can crack and break.
2) Pull the light out of the wooden hood – just prop it up at the side out of the way. Take the wooden hood off.
3) Take off all the glass lids – they get a bit of green crap growing on them, especially over the airstone, the will probably need a wipe off with some paper towel. The glass ‘bar’ connecting the top of the tank might get limescale growing on it, give it a wipe too if its bad. Just paper towel, no cleaning products.
4) If the glass needs cleaning, after taking out a little bit of water with the vac (so you don’t slop it everywhere) then use the black magnetic cleaner to clean the glass off. It works really well. Remember the rough Velcro side goes on the inside. I never do the back (leaves something for the suckermouth catfish to eat too), just the front and sides where you can see in.
5) Using the siphon vacuum, vacuum out the bottom of the tank, stirring the gravel round, suck up the poo but try not to uproot the plants too much. Dig the vacuum into the gravel, it will get the stuff trapped in it. Lift the big rock, the little bit of wood and the urn, they collect a lot of crap under them. Depending how dirty the tank is and when the last time it was cleaned was, take out 4-6 buckets of water – say 2-3 from one side, 2-3 from the other side. Remember to keep at least ½ bucket of tank water to clean the filter in before you throw the extra water out on the garden or wherever. Pooey fish water is good fertilizer!
6) If you’ve taken out a lot of water and there’s still a bit of poo floating around, use the battery-operated vacuum, Remember don’t submerge it further than the depth line or it will #### itself. The tank is too deep to use it when its full, but you can after you’ve taken some water out. It’s got a little white sock thing (like a pool filter sock) that goes over the little bit on the side where the water flows back out that traps the crud. I don’t use it very often, only when the tank is super dirty.
7) Rearrange the ornaments/plants if you’ve knocked them out of place. Some of the plants need a trim every now and again (every few months) – pull off deadlooking or algae covered leaves, or if they’ve grown too tall, uproot them, snip them off shorter at the base with some scissors, then replant them. Put them in deep and pack the gravel in around them so they don’t just float out again. They’ll grow new roots soon. The moss that grows on the big rock grows out quick and can get out of control and tends to float around the tank a bit, even though it looks nice, so pull a bunch of it out so its not so long.
8) Cleaning the filter – most important thing in the tank! You should have been able to leave it on and flowing this whole time, the pipes should still reach the water even after you’ve taken a heap of buckets out. If its really dirty and clogged its probably down to barely a trickle.
a) Turn it off at the power point.
b) Take off the lid and the uptake pipes. Have the ½ full bucket with your old tank water handy. Lift out the filter material using the handles on the grey ‘basket’. Put the whole basket in the bucket of water, you’ll come back to it in a minute. Empty out what remaining water there is in the plastic box in the bucket or wherever.
c) Once the box is empty twist off the black impellor box. Have a look in it, there might be some crud around the white propellor, get it out, the propellor will pull out and slide back in.
d) Clean the crud/leaves out of the uptake pipes and the U shaped pipe., use the little pipecleaner tool to get right up in them. Also if theres crud in the plastic box rinse that out. You can use tapwater to clean/rinse all these parts if you want to, but NO SOAP.
e) Come back to where you left all your filter media in the bucket. Take out the basket, rinse that off and have it ready to pack the material back into. Chuck out the ‘filter floss’ – the finest fluffy stuff, that will probably look hideously grey and brown. It ‘polishes’ your water and takes out the finest particles making it look clear. This is the only section of the filter material you should ever have to replace. The rest will last for ages.
f) Rinse the bag of bio balls in the bucketwater – Just jiggle them a bit until all the trapped crap comes loose. Set it aside. Start rinsing/rubbing the two sponges in the bucket water, loosen all the crap in them and get it out. Bottom one will be grottiest. Just rub them vigorously and squeeze them out between your hands for a few minutes. After this, the water in the bucket should be FILTHY. Once rinsed, pack them back into the basket – big sponge on the bottom, littler one on top of it. Then put in some new filter floss (in the plastic bag in one of the boxes of fish stuff – A bag lasts for ages as you don’t need much, costs a few bucks from Big W – that one I’ve had for a year and still heaps left) pack that down, then put the bag of bio balls on top of it. All these layers should now fill to the top of the basket. REMEMBER NEVER CLEAN THE FILTER MATERIAL IN ANYTHING BUT A BUCKET OF TANKWATER. See diagram: (diagram wont paste in, but its a diagram showing the layering of the media)
g) Reconnect the black impellor box to the plastic filter box and hang it back onto the back of the tank, put all the pipes back in place.
h) Put the basket with the cleaned sponges/bioballs and new floss back into the filter box. Fill the box up with water from the tank with a plastic cup so the material is sitting in water again. Try to always minimize the time the filter materials are out of the water, you never want them to dry out completely. Put the lid back on, make sure the pipe lever is pushed over onto strongest flow. You can’t turn the filter back on until the tank is a bit fuller.
8)Refill the tank with tapwater – dose with the dechlorinator/water conditioner for the amount of new water going in. Take a bit of care pouring it in, or you’ll send plants flying everywhere.
9) Before its filled all the way to the top, turn the filter back on. (i.e. one or two buckets from tank being full, if you turn it on and the tank isn’t full enough it will struggle to get the water flowing up the pipes). Make sure you’ve already filled the filter with water (just scoop water into it from the tank with a plastic cup) before you turn it on again at the power point. It should start chugging and water will slowly make its way up the pipes until it starts flowing again. Remember, if it doesn’t start chugging (i.e. no noise at all), you may need to empty the water out, twist off the black impellor box and give the little propellor a spin, then put it back on fill it up and try again, and it should then work. Once it gets going (it takes a couple of minutes) there should be a nice strong flow again.
Note for BLACKOUTS: If there’s a power outage, the filter may not start flowing again automatically, so check it after blackouts/brownouts – Sometimes it won’t start up again on its own, but there will be power going to it, so it will get SUPER HOT if left too long like that. Fire hazard, obviously. If that happens, turn it off and let it cool, (keep the filter material wet though) take the impellor box off (that will be the super hot part) give the propellor a spin just like I’ve described above, refit it and then hopefully should be good to go again.
10) Finish filling the tank and add some plant food (if you haven’t already got frustrated with them and ripped the lot out!) the tank is roughly 150L so work it out from the instructions on the back, I think its about 15 drops. It’s ‘Wardley Plant Food’ in the red and green bottle.
NOTE ABOUT SNAILS – When you are cleaning and you see snails (they are small and brown – will mostly be hanging out on the walls) – pick the little bastards out and squash/kill them OUTSIDE the tank. I usually do it in the sink. You will probably notice you’ll suck some up into the buckets as you’re cleaning too. Squashing them inside the tank will just release more eggs everywhere. Also, they lay eggs at the top of the waterline, they look like clear jelly, if you notice them while cleaning wipe them off with paper towel too. Actually it doesn’t hurt to run around the top and the ledges with paper towel, the eggs are actually really hard to see. Also, if you’re noticing a snail population explosion, it DEFINITELY means you are feeding too much food. Same goes for algae – there will always be a little bit present, but if its going nuts it means theres too much nutrients in the water – cut down on how much you feed.
10) Put the glass lids back on, then the hood. Be careful not to push the glass lid on the filter side back so far that the flow ends up going out onto the glass rather than in the tank. Sounds obvious but I did it once, made a mess.
11) Put the light back into the hood. Plug the heater back in.
12) If you want to clean the outside of the glass (fingerprints and catpaws!) spray some glass cleaner onto some paper towel (spray AWAY from the tank, and not directly onto it – it will end up in the water) and clean the glass off. Try to avoid all kind of aerosol sprays/cleaners near the tank.
12) Voila. Clean tank. Happy fish. Well, maybe not, they’ll probably look a bit stressed after all that, but they’ll get over it shortly. Should take about an hour to do all up. Will probably be cloudy for an hour or two after you’ve done it.
IF THINGS ARE LOOKING BAD – SICK FISH
If a fishy is looking crook…
First thing you should do is test the water. The only tests you should worry about are Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate. PH really doesn’t tell you all that much, so don’t worry about it. They’re all in the testing kit in the blue box. Just follow the instructions in the pamphlet.
In a cycled tank with healthy bacteria, the readings should be as follows
Ammonia – 0. Anything but 0 means you have a problem with your good bacteria. Fish are probably sick cos of ammonia poisoning. Best thing to do is change a heap of water, and keep up with regular changes until it goes back to 0.
Nitrite – 0. Virtually same reason as above.
Nitrate – anywhere from 10-200 is ok. You should never get a 0 Nitrate reading, the presence of nitrate indicates your tank is cycled properly. Only at very high concentrations (say over 400) is it bad for the fish. Having nitrate is good!
The bacteria cycle in a nutshell is – the bacteria turns dangerous ammonia into dangerous nitrite which is turned into safe nitrate. Hence, you want none of the first two once the cycle is established, and the presence of nitrate all the time. If you want more detail google ‘fish tank nitrogen cycle’.
If you detect ammonia/nitrite, its probably whats making the fish unwell, and the best treatment is water changes (to keep levels of the nasty stuff down) until the cycle re-establishes itself.
The most common illness you’re most likely to get is whitespot, it looks like tiny grains of salt on the fish. I’ve had it come up twice, but not in the last 6 months. It is always present in tanks, but actually comes out when the fish are stressed (e.g. living in a dirty dirty tank or one whose bacteria cycle is messed up for whatever reason). So it usually wont appear on ALL the fish, usually weaker ones first. The med to treat this that works well is Waterlife Protozin. Not sure how much is left in the bottle. It’s a nasty colour so don’t get it on yourself or spill it, it will stain everything. Something else that also helps whitespot is turning the temp up a few degrees, it will speed up the lifecycle of the whitespot bug, meaning you’ll kill it faster.
I’ll tell you what other treatments are in the boxes of fish stuff but I wouldn’t recommend using them unless you look up stuff about them and be sure whats wrong with the fish. I actually picked up lots of things ‘just in case’ and haven’t used most of them so you shouldn’t have to worry.
Other meds –
Sterazin/Tablets are for parasites/worms. If you get those you probably won’t have much luck saving them anyway so forget these meds. If a fish goes super skinny, like concave belly, that’s probably a parasite. Had it happen twice, the fish died despite me trying these out.
Pimafix/Myxazin - For bacterial infections (like a sore) or fungus (white fuzz). Hadn’t had either problem in over a year. Pimafix is pretty mild, use it if you need to. Wouldn’t recommend the Myxazin.
Melafix – is like a general stress reliever/antibiotic/promotes healing of damaged fins and whatnot. It actually smells REALLY good too (eucalyptus like) so if you ever let the tank get stinky (not that you should – its never stunk for me!) a bit of this in it is nice. Make sure you only dose very mildly though or you might make things worse with sick stressed fish!
If you don’t know what you’re doing with the medicines its probably best not to use them, if you stuff dosing up they can tend to do more harm then good. Most of the time changing in fresh water is the best thing for sick fish. However if a fish looks REALLY sick and beyond all help, might be best to isolate it (e.g. your timeout bowl) or put it out of its misery.
Finally, I bought heaps of food and other stuff from *an online store*- heaps cheaper then local shops, if you get enough to offset the postage. Though you shouldn’t need anything for a long time. If you ever need new filter sponges for whatever reason, the filter type is the Aquaclear 50 or 200 (one is old name number, one is new name, can’t remember which way around) and they are made to fit the filter.
If you think of anything else you want to know let me know!
Remember the golden rule – never clean the filter material in anything other than water from the fishtank and you should be sweet. J
So what do you all think? Keep in mind my audience (hence my title 'fishkeeping for dummies!' before you jump on me about all the 'necessities' of fishkeeping I may have left out...
P.S. It's been lovely the last couple of years talking fish with you all, but I'm off to see the world. I may be back sometime in the future!
In a nutshell, I'm travelling overseas for a few years and I've given my 3ft fish tank to my brother while I'm gone. I've already moved it up to his house and got it all set up properly. All he has to do is maintain it. He's kept fish before (although not very successfully) and doesn't have much of an idea about proper fish care (to our standard, anyway!) and the intricacies of cycling and whatnot. I went through everything with him physically when I set the tank up at his house, but he's asked me to write out some instructions for him to follow - and be quite detailed about how to clean it, and what all those products in my 'boxes of fish stuff' are for. I think i bewildered him when explaining stuff like of cleaning filters properly,
. E.g. he never knew not to clean filter material under tapwater.Anyway, I thought I'd run my directions by you guys. They have been written in a very colloquial format, with a few jokes and me being a bit of a smartass (e.g. 'no excuse for letting those fish die!!!' haha I don't really mean it) in the hopes its easier for my poor bro to understand and follow. Obviously, I do not expect him to keep it up to the same standard I do, and in that case I have not gone into extreme detail, used scientific names or mentioned procedures that would be over his head. Keep that in mind before you criticise these instructions too much about leaving out something that we hardcore fishkeepers would deem important. Try to think of what you would expect if you were giving your tank away to a relative newcomer and just want them to do the best you think they can. Although if theres anything important you think I should include that I haven't please let me know. By putting these up here, they might form a base for some of you to work from if you ever need to to something similar, I'm happy for others to use them. Although obviously they are tailored to my tank.
Opinions appreciated!
Cheers
Here they are, try and excuse the formatting, I copy pasted from word and it hasnt come out as nicely:
Fish Tank!
WHAT KIND OF FISH ARE IN THERE?
3 x Pearl Gourami – The big, light brown coloured spotty ones with feelers. One male, two females – the male has the orange throat and longer fins.
They eat: - Just about anything, mostly what floats on top e.g. flakes/pellets These guys can live for 8-10 years. No excuse for killing them!
4x Platies – the orange/black/yellow/red ones - all females, so you shouldn’t be getting babies anymore, although the other fish eat them anyway. Eat everything. They only have a shorter lifespan.
9 x Cardinal Tetras – The little red and blue neon fish. If they lose their red colour (when the lights are ON – they fade in the dark anyway) it means they’re not well. They eat little bits of flake that fall down – make sure you crush some small enough for them. These guys are a bit of a delicate/sensitive type of fish and only live for 2-5 years so I’ll forgive you if there’s none left when I come back.
5 x Corydoras Catfish – Two bronze, two albino and one peppered (spotted). They eat the sinking wafers, the shrimp pellets, and clean up anything else that sinks to the bottom. These guys can live for 10+ years too. No excuse for deaths!
1 x Bristlenose catfish – the big brown suckermouth catfish with spots. Will stay on the bottom and stick to the walls. He eats: the Sinking algae wafers spirulina tablets, anything else that sinks to the bottom. Really likes getting a piece of zucchini, and its funny to watch him eat it you’ll need to weigh it down with something. Makes a lot of mess though, so don’t give zucchini more than once or twice a fortnight. Also, scoop out whatevers left of it with a net after two or so days – the rotting scraps can make the water yucky. Can also live for ages, so no killing him!
So, that’s 22 fish – it doesn’t hurt to do a headcount every now and then – if one dies, you don’t want a rotting fish in there too long, it will also mess up your chemistry, not to mention might make the others ill if they try to eat it.
General Feeding
- Feed the Nutrafin Complete Tropical Flake (White container, blue label) nearly every day as the staple food. Break it up into smaller pieces for the littler fish as you put it in.
- Every second or third day or so, feed a little bit of Nutrafin Complete Tropical Flake, and some of a different kind of flake to break things up a bit. E.g. the Spirulina Flake, The Wardleys Colour Enhancing, or the Brine Shrimp Flakes. Or, give them some of the little Nutrafin pellets – theres two types in there (I think one has a white and yellow label, one has a white and purple) theyre pretty much the same.
- The jar which has the freeze dried bloodworms in it – only give that about once every 3-4 weeks – they really like it but its not very good for them to get it all the time. Makes them constipated.
- Another thing you can give occasionally (every month or so) is some peas – pop 2-3 cooked peas out of their skins, break it up a bit in your fingers and put it in. Platies in particular go nuts for it, and it’s a good way of ‘cleaning’ them out so to speak. Like a laxative. Better if you don’t feed the day before you give peas too, theyre more likely to eat it. If theyre not keen don’t overdo it, peas can make a mess.
- For the bottom fish –
Little catfish - Feed either two of the Hikari sinking wafers (orange packet) OR 2-3 of the Wardleys shrimp pellets (orange lid). Push them down into the water so they sink. If you realize you’ve put loads of flakes in don’t give them anything, they will clean up the flake. Other fish like the shrimp too.
Big catfish – Give him either one Hikari Algae Wafer (green packet) or a spirulina tablet (Nutrafin white container). He probably doesn’t need something every day though, say 2-3 nights a week don’t put in anything for him, he’ll eat the other stuff. He poops enough as it is eating the algae in the tank. Remember he LOVES zucchini, try to give him some every couple of weeks, while he’s got some don’t give him anything else.
- Having one night off feeding per week for all fish is good too. If you have to go away and leave them, they’d probably be fine for 5 days or so without food.
What to Keep an Eye on all the time…
1) Watch the temperature, make sure its heating right/the heater hasn’t stopped working etc. About 26 is good.
2) Always keep an eye on the filter to make sure its flowing. Sometimes the uptake pipes will have bits of leaves/moss/crud on it blocking the flow, you can just get around the side of the tank, push the lid forward, pull those off and clean them out (under the tap is fine) and refit them without turning the filter off at all providing the water level hasn’t gotten too low. Sometimes you may just need to give the filter a quick clean and squeeze the crud out of the sponges without doing the whole tank (or if its not flowing well and you don’t have time to do the whole tank) so it keeps flowing properly. Remember only clean the filter materials (sponges/bioballs) in water from the fishtank. If the water isn’t flowing bringing food/oxygen to the bacteria, it will die off and the tank will crash. Cleaning the sponges in tap water will also kill the bacteria.
CLEANING THE TANK
1) Turn the heater off by pulling the plug out. Because it can shock you (I’ve been shocked), and if it’s out of water while it’s on it can crack and break.
2) Pull the light out of the wooden hood – just prop it up at the side out of the way. Take the wooden hood off.
3) Take off all the glass lids – they get a bit of green crap growing on them, especially over the airstone, the will probably need a wipe off with some paper towel. The glass ‘bar’ connecting the top of the tank might get limescale growing on it, give it a wipe too if its bad. Just paper towel, no cleaning products.
4) If the glass needs cleaning, after taking out a little bit of water with the vac (so you don’t slop it everywhere) then use the black magnetic cleaner to clean the glass off. It works really well. Remember the rough Velcro side goes on the inside. I never do the back (leaves something for the suckermouth catfish to eat too), just the front and sides where you can see in.
5) Using the siphon vacuum, vacuum out the bottom of the tank, stirring the gravel round, suck up the poo but try not to uproot the plants too much. Dig the vacuum into the gravel, it will get the stuff trapped in it. Lift the big rock, the little bit of wood and the urn, they collect a lot of crap under them. Depending how dirty the tank is and when the last time it was cleaned was, take out 4-6 buckets of water – say 2-3 from one side, 2-3 from the other side. Remember to keep at least ½ bucket of tank water to clean the filter in before you throw the extra water out on the garden or wherever. Pooey fish water is good fertilizer!
6) If you’ve taken out a lot of water and there’s still a bit of poo floating around, use the battery-operated vacuum, Remember don’t submerge it further than the depth line or it will #### itself. The tank is too deep to use it when its full, but you can after you’ve taken some water out. It’s got a little white sock thing (like a pool filter sock) that goes over the little bit on the side where the water flows back out that traps the crud. I don’t use it very often, only when the tank is super dirty.
7) Rearrange the ornaments/plants if you’ve knocked them out of place. Some of the plants need a trim every now and again (every few months) – pull off deadlooking or algae covered leaves, or if they’ve grown too tall, uproot them, snip them off shorter at the base with some scissors, then replant them. Put them in deep and pack the gravel in around them so they don’t just float out again. They’ll grow new roots soon. The moss that grows on the big rock grows out quick and can get out of control and tends to float around the tank a bit, even though it looks nice, so pull a bunch of it out so its not so long.
8) Cleaning the filter – most important thing in the tank! You should have been able to leave it on and flowing this whole time, the pipes should still reach the water even after you’ve taken a heap of buckets out. If its really dirty and clogged its probably down to barely a trickle.
a) Turn it off at the power point.
b) Take off the lid and the uptake pipes. Have the ½ full bucket with your old tank water handy. Lift out the filter material using the handles on the grey ‘basket’. Put the whole basket in the bucket of water, you’ll come back to it in a minute. Empty out what remaining water there is in the plastic box in the bucket or wherever.
c) Once the box is empty twist off the black impellor box. Have a look in it, there might be some crud around the white propellor, get it out, the propellor will pull out and slide back in.
d) Clean the crud/leaves out of the uptake pipes and the U shaped pipe., use the little pipecleaner tool to get right up in them. Also if theres crud in the plastic box rinse that out. You can use tapwater to clean/rinse all these parts if you want to, but NO SOAP.
e) Come back to where you left all your filter media in the bucket. Take out the basket, rinse that off and have it ready to pack the material back into. Chuck out the ‘filter floss’ – the finest fluffy stuff, that will probably look hideously grey and brown. It ‘polishes’ your water and takes out the finest particles making it look clear. This is the only section of the filter material you should ever have to replace. The rest will last for ages.
f) Rinse the bag of bio balls in the bucketwater – Just jiggle them a bit until all the trapped crap comes loose. Set it aside. Start rinsing/rubbing the two sponges in the bucket water, loosen all the crap in them and get it out. Bottom one will be grottiest. Just rub them vigorously and squeeze them out between your hands for a few minutes. After this, the water in the bucket should be FILTHY. Once rinsed, pack them back into the basket – big sponge on the bottom, littler one on top of it. Then put in some new filter floss (in the plastic bag in one of the boxes of fish stuff – A bag lasts for ages as you don’t need much, costs a few bucks from Big W – that one I’ve had for a year and still heaps left) pack that down, then put the bag of bio balls on top of it. All these layers should now fill to the top of the basket. REMEMBER NEVER CLEAN THE FILTER MATERIAL IN ANYTHING BUT A BUCKET OF TANKWATER. See diagram: (diagram wont paste in, but its a diagram showing the layering of the media)
g) Reconnect the black impellor box to the plastic filter box and hang it back onto the back of the tank, put all the pipes back in place.
h) Put the basket with the cleaned sponges/bioballs and new floss back into the filter box. Fill the box up with water from the tank with a plastic cup so the material is sitting in water again. Try to always minimize the time the filter materials are out of the water, you never want them to dry out completely. Put the lid back on, make sure the pipe lever is pushed over onto strongest flow. You can’t turn the filter back on until the tank is a bit fuller.
8)Refill the tank with tapwater – dose with the dechlorinator/water conditioner for the amount of new water going in. Take a bit of care pouring it in, or you’ll send plants flying everywhere.
9) Before its filled all the way to the top, turn the filter back on. (i.e. one or two buckets from tank being full, if you turn it on and the tank isn’t full enough it will struggle to get the water flowing up the pipes). Make sure you’ve already filled the filter with water (just scoop water into it from the tank with a plastic cup) before you turn it on again at the power point. It should start chugging and water will slowly make its way up the pipes until it starts flowing again. Remember, if it doesn’t start chugging (i.e. no noise at all), you may need to empty the water out, twist off the black impellor box and give the little propellor a spin, then put it back on fill it up and try again, and it should then work. Once it gets going (it takes a couple of minutes) there should be a nice strong flow again.
Note for BLACKOUTS: If there’s a power outage, the filter may not start flowing again automatically, so check it after blackouts/brownouts – Sometimes it won’t start up again on its own, but there will be power going to it, so it will get SUPER HOT if left too long like that. Fire hazard, obviously. If that happens, turn it off and let it cool, (keep the filter material wet though) take the impellor box off (that will be the super hot part) give the propellor a spin just like I’ve described above, refit it and then hopefully should be good to go again.
10) Finish filling the tank and add some plant food (if you haven’t already got frustrated with them and ripped the lot out!) the tank is roughly 150L so work it out from the instructions on the back, I think its about 15 drops. It’s ‘Wardley Plant Food’ in the red and green bottle.
NOTE ABOUT SNAILS – When you are cleaning and you see snails (they are small and brown – will mostly be hanging out on the walls) – pick the little bastards out and squash/kill them OUTSIDE the tank. I usually do it in the sink. You will probably notice you’ll suck some up into the buckets as you’re cleaning too. Squashing them inside the tank will just release more eggs everywhere. Also, they lay eggs at the top of the waterline, they look like clear jelly, if you notice them while cleaning wipe them off with paper towel too. Actually it doesn’t hurt to run around the top and the ledges with paper towel, the eggs are actually really hard to see. Also, if you’re noticing a snail population explosion, it DEFINITELY means you are feeding too much food. Same goes for algae – there will always be a little bit present, but if its going nuts it means theres too much nutrients in the water – cut down on how much you feed.
10) Put the glass lids back on, then the hood. Be careful not to push the glass lid on the filter side back so far that the flow ends up going out onto the glass rather than in the tank. Sounds obvious but I did it once, made a mess.
11) Put the light back into the hood. Plug the heater back in.
12) If you want to clean the outside of the glass (fingerprints and catpaws!) spray some glass cleaner onto some paper towel (spray AWAY from the tank, and not directly onto it – it will end up in the water) and clean the glass off. Try to avoid all kind of aerosol sprays/cleaners near the tank.
12) Voila. Clean tank. Happy fish. Well, maybe not, they’ll probably look a bit stressed after all that, but they’ll get over it shortly. Should take about an hour to do all up. Will probably be cloudy for an hour or two after you’ve done it.
IF THINGS ARE LOOKING BAD – SICK FISH
If a fishy is looking crook…
First thing you should do is test the water. The only tests you should worry about are Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate. PH really doesn’t tell you all that much, so don’t worry about it. They’re all in the testing kit in the blue box. Just follow the instructions in the pamphlet.
In a cycled tank with healthy bacteria, the readings should be as follows
Ammonia – 0. Anything but 0 means you have a problem with your good bacteria. Fish are probably sick cos of ammonia poisoning. Best thing to do is change a heap of water, and keep up with regular changes until it goes back to 0.
Nitrite – 0. Virtually same reason as above.
Nitrate – anywhere from 10-200 is ok. You should never get a 0 Nitrate reading, the presence of nitrate indicates your tank is cycled properly. Only at very high concentrations (say over 400) is it bad for the fish. Having nitrate is good!
The bacteria cycle in a nutshell is – the bacteria turns dangerous ammonia into dangerous nitrite which is turned into safe nitrate. Hence, you want none of the first two once the cycle is established, and the presence of nitrate all the time. If you want more detail google ‘fish tank nitrogen cycle’.
If you detect ammonia/nitrite, its probably whats making the fish unwell, and the best treatment is water changes (to keep levels of the nasty stuff down) until the cycle re-establishes itself.
The most common illness you’re most likely to get is whitespot, it looks like tiny grains of salt on the fish. I’ve had it come up twice, but not in the last 6 months. It is always present in tanks, but actually comes out when the fish are stressed (e.g. living in a dirty dirty tank or one whose bacteria cycle is messed up for whatever reason). So it usually wont appear on ALL the fish, usually weaker ones first. The med to treat this that works well is Waterlife Protozin. Not sure how much is left in the bottle. It’s a nasty colour so don’t get it on yourself or spill it, it will stain everything. Something else that also helps whitespot is turning the temp up a few degrees, it will speed up the lifecycle of the whitespot bug, meaning you’ll kill it faster.
I’ll tell you what other treatments are in the boxes of fish stuff but I wouldn’t recommend using them unless you look up stuff about them and be sure whats wrong with the fish. I actually picked up lots of things ‘just in case’ and haven’t used most of them so you shouldn’t have to worry.
Other meds –
Sterazin/Tablets are for parasites/worms. If you get those you probably won’t have much luck saving them anyway so forget these meds. If a fish goes super skinny, like concave belly, that’s probably a parasite. Had it happen twice, the fish died despite me trying these out.
Pimafix/Myxazin - For bacterial infections (like a sore) or fungus (white fuzz). Hadn’t had either problem in over a year. Pimafix is pretty mild, use it if you need to. Wouldn’t recommend the Myxazin.
Melafix – is like a general stress reliever/antibiotic/promotes healing of damaged fins and whatnot. It actually smells REALLY good too (eucalyptus like) so if you ever let the tank get stinky (not that you should – its never stunk for me!) a bit of this in it is nice. Make sure you only dose very mildly though or you might make things worse with sick stressed fish!
If you don’t know what you’re doing with the medicines its probably best not to use them, if you stuff dosing up they can tend to do more harm then good. Most of the time changing in fresh water is the best thing for sick fish. However if a fish looks REALLY sick and beyond all help, might be best to isolate it (e.g. your timeout bowl) or put it out of its misery.
Finally, I bought heaps of food and other stuff from *an online store*- heaps cheaper then local shops, if you get enough to offset the postage. Though you shouldn’t need anything for a long time. If you ever need new filter sponges for whatever reason, the filter type is the Aquaclear 50 or 200 (one is old name number, one is new name, can’t remember which way around) and they are made to fit the filter.
If you think of anything else you want to know let me know!
Remember the golden rule – never clean the filter material in anything other than water from the fishtank and you should be sweet. J
So what do you all think? Keep in mind my audience (hence my title 'fishkeeping for dummies!' before you jump on me about all the 'necessities' of fishkeeping I may have left out...
P.S. It's been lovely the last couple of years talking fish with you all, but I'm off to see the world. I may be back sometime in the future!
