Newcomer And A Few Questions

[jlmet]

Hello all! My name is Jessica, I decided to join after seeing lots of great advice and learning lots more. I'm a huge animal person but never really dealt with fish (mainly because I know it can be a challenge) However, my wonderful 4 yo daughter, Samantha, has been obsessed with fish (mainly sharks or anything that will tear up a person lol, she's not normal but she takes after me so what can I say) Of course there's no way we're getting a shark but she is fascinated with fish in general so for a surprise we decided to let her pick out her first fish. We went to a fish store (not a chain store), there are 3 in my area the one we went to had great reviews and the gentleman was very helpful. We already had the tank set up, just needed the fish.

Here's where I beg of you not to smack me...we went with a 1 gallon tank so it could easily be in her room and cleaned weekly. While the store we went to was very good and had healthy fish he recommended for a 1 gallon tank either 1 betta or 2 goldfish. We gave her the choice (I thought she would have asked for the betta) and she went for 2 fancy goldfish. I had to roll my eyes because while I'm not a fish expert I always read up on things before hand and I do know that goldfish can get big and 1 gallon was not going to be suitable. However we went ahead and let her pick two out. She managed to pick out a male and female (ARGH!!!) I can happily say they are doing great and have been upgraded 2 weeks ago to a 6 gallon tank. I promise they will be upgraded again but the only other tanks we have are 75 and 100 gallon and the stands for them have been destroyed due to a flood. So it's just not possible right now. They are still only about 1 1/2 inches each so we're ok right now. I found this thread when we had a problem with Roger (the male) who was constipated. My daughter is the one who pointed this out btw. I can happily say he's all good now and because of that little episode we have also made adjustments to their diet so they are MUCH happier.

Now for some questions...
1. When they were in the 1 gallon tank we would do weekly 100% water changes because the tank they were in only had an air stone/undergravel filter which I felt did nothing to help cleanliness. I don't know if 100% change was ok or not, we were told it was and they both seemed ok with it but I still am not positive about that. However now that they are in a 6 gallon tank, with an air stone and 10 gallon filter what's an appropriate % change?

2. We have well water, I was told by a few fish people that I don't have to worry to much about the levels in the water or distilling it because of it being from a well, is this true? I always do 24 hours sitting anyway but I really am not positive here and I couldn't find much information on this topic.

3. I was considering eventually adding real plants to their tank but I'm not sure how easy that is or if that makes the tank harder to care for or things of that nature. I'm also using the glass pebbles for their gravel, I like the look it gives and they seem to play with them every now and then. Roger mainly I find swimming low and making a trail through them. He's not looking for food but he looks like he's having a blast doing it. Maybe it's not good I don't know, but I'm sure fish have their own form of fun...(don't they?)

4. This is not related to the fish, but I got an email saying I had a pm and when I went to check it, I got this message

Sorry, an error occurred. If you are unsure on how to use a feature, or don't know why you got this error message, try looking through the help files for more information.
The error returned was:

You are not allowed to use the messenger feature on this board

I tried searching for an answer on the forums but I can't find anything and I get the same message when I try to send a pm to a mod/admin to ask about it.

Anyways, thanks for looking and I hope to one day be able to call myself a fish expert! I am determined to get Roger and Eagle to be at least 5 years old.

 

[fifefish]

i regret to tell you that 6 gallons is no where near enough to hold let alone 1 goldfish,

2 fancy goldfish need atleast a 40gallon tank with good filtration since they are major waste producers,
a 100% water change is just like starting the aquarium up week by week so there would be little chance of any plants surviving in the water,
..
is there any chance that you could get a bigger aquarium?

 

[fifefish]

The message informing you about the Pm Centre is a precaution that was set in place by the mods,
to enable use of the Pm Centre you will have to have made 10 posts or more..

 

[natalie265]

Live aquarium plants are a great challenge. Do some research before you add them. Some are fairly low maintenance, but many are quite demanding. The "planted tank" forum on this site is a great resource.

For an average tank, i would recommend a 25-30% weekly water change, however, as others have noted, goldfish are big waste producers and yours will soon out grow the tank. You might want to up the water change to twice weekly until you can get a bigger tank. Buy some nitrite/nitrate testing strips if you haven't already.

 

[fatheadminnow]

Live aquarium plants are a great challenge. Do some research before you add them. Some are fairly low maintenance, but many are quite demanding. The "planted tank" forum on this site is a great resource.

For an average tank, i would recommend a 25-30% weekly water change, however, as others have noted, goldfish are big waste producers and yours will soon out grow the tank. You might want to up the water change to twice weekly until you can get a bigger tank. Buy some nitrite/nitrate testing strips if you haven't already.

Test STRIPS are no good and inaccurate.

You want a liquid test kit.

The API Freshwater Master Test Kit , is a good test kit that a lot of us on here use and trust!

If this test kit is not avaliable for you, just try to get one that uses liquid to test for the water parameters, not strips.

-FHM

 

[fatheadminnow]

2. We have well water, I was told by a few fish people that I don't have to worry to much about the levels in the water or distilling it because of it being from a well, is this true? I always do 24 hours sitting anyway but I really am not positive here and I couldn't find much information on this topic.

Sorry for the double post.

I have well water too.

You do not have to let it sit for 24 hours.

You should however add a water conditioner, this will help clear any heavy metals out of the water, but being well water you should not have to worry about chlorine.

Also, a water conditioner is going to have trace minerals that are good for the fish.

So, you should use a water conditioner every time you do your weekly water change.

Anywhere from a 10%-25% water change a week will be okay, but this will be determined by how much NitrAte you have in your water over the course of a week. As the water change is done to take out NitrAte since there are no bacteria in the filter that process NitrAte.

-FHM

 

[Lady_Mari]

Everyone here has given great advice to Jessica.

I would just like to add that when she does her 10% weekly water changes that she uses a gravel cleaner which will remove some of the waste from the bottom of the tank where the "heavy" water is, rather than removing the top cleaner water.

 

[fatheadminnow]

Everyone here has given great advice to Jessica.

I would just like to add that when she does her 10% weekly water changes that she uses a gravel cleaner which will remove some of the waste from the bottom of the tank where the "heavy" water is, rather than removing the top cleaner water.

Thats a good addition to this thread on advice.

Using a gravel vac is going to suck up poo and left over food in your tank.

Left over food and poo are going to produce excess ammonia, and therefore should be removed.

So when doing your weekly water change, like stated above, use a gravel vac.

-FHM

 

[jlmet]

Everyone here has given great advice to Jessica.

I would just like to add that when she does her 10% weekly water changes that she uses a gravel cleaner which will remove some of the waste from the bottom of the tank where the "heavy" water is, rather than removing the top cleaner water.

Thats a good addition to this thread on advice.

Using a gravel vac is going to suck up poo and left over food in your tank.

Left over food and poo are going to produce excess ammonia, and therefore should be removed.

So when doing your weekly water change, like stated above, use a gravel vac.

-FHM

Whoops, guess I could have included that I did have all of the proper cleaning materials. My husbands ex left behind...well, let's just say that anything that needed to be taken care of was left behind including her millions of disgusting fish tanks and supplies. Since then we stored everything but have a nice new smaller and easier to handle siphon/gravel cleaner. As promised before I will be moving them up to either the 75 or 100 gallon tank just as soon as we can find a stand or make one and find a spot to place it that won't attract attention from the clumsy and inquisitive cats and dogs. Thanks for all of the wonderful advice, I'll make sure to pick up some conditioner and a nitrite testing kit. Right now we have their feeding schedule pretty good I think (took some time to figure it out), there's next to no food waste so anything else in the water is their wonderful doing but we'll continue to do weekly or twice weekly changes depending on how the water looks. Right now with only the 6 gallon tank, we're going to wait on the live plants until we have one of the larger ones set up, and then I'll be back to beg for advice on that as well. We do have a thermometer in there as well, I know their water doesn't need to be heated but I like to keep track of the temp anyway. (It's my own obsessive thing and it was only 1.00) So I know with the 6 gallon tank, I'm not too concerned with the 10 gallon filter doing the job, but any thoughts on what kind of filter for either 75 or 100 gallons?

And thanks so much for all of the quick and wonderful feedback, I look forward to learning more and hopefully keeping these two around for years to come!