Water Changes

[timbruun]

i've had my fish for over 3 weeks now. doing at least weekly water changes of 40% and sometimes middle of the week of 25% depending on water condition. and i'm just wondering how long should it take for the fish to get used to the water change and not get too stressed. they get quite stressed lately. and another question. i've had a few with nipped fins so i've added aquarium salt but should i add salt if my water is already high in sodium?
thanks in advance.

 

[glolite]

Which fish do you have what size is the tank. how long have you been cycling?

What are the water stats?

 

[timbruun]

at the moment i have 4 red belly piranhas, 1 red tail black shark, 3 albino plecs, 2 common plecs and a few khulie loaches not sure how many.. never seem them.the tank is 55 gallon. all fish are small so not overstocked. had the tank for 4 weeks. started with a mature filter and tank so i was getting nitrates after a week. didn't read up enough so i had fish in a couple days after, except the shark and loaches. they came with the tank. i just did a water change as well as one last night. my readings were before last nights change 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and 60 nitrates - a bit high, they today before water change 0,0, and 30 or so nitrates - hence the water change again. and now everything is at 0 reading. my ph is quite high 8.5 or so and my water is quite hard also.

 

[timbruun]

bump

 

[ZoddyZod]

if you have a few with nipped fins then one of the tankmates is clearly the culprit. Adding salt will not remove the problem, only removing the offending fish will.

 

[timbruun]

they stopped now. fins are pretty much healed. but that didn't answer the question?

 

[waterdrop]

Well, fish exhibiting symptoms of stress is a quite general thing. New tanks (less than 6 months old) are stressful to fish. Fish-in cycling is stressful to fish. Environments that are "slightly off" on a species basis can be stressful to fish. Grouping numbers that are off ideal can be stressful. Community interactions can be stressful.

So you've potenially got a question there that might not have some of the easy answers we can usually respond with. If you give it some time there are those here that have experience (such as with your types of fish) with the different parts of your question and do drop in occasionally and can add some ideas.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[timbruun]

the only reason i'm asking the question is because they are acting quite different from a few days ago. when i bought them they would just hide. after they got somewhat accustomed to the tank they were swimming everywhere happily. but not lately.

 

[waterdrop]

The closest thing to the piranhas that I've had experience with were silver dollars, which I had a number of years ago. I remember them as being potentially pretty skittish and easily frightened at times. Don't know what could be causing the behaviour change you are seeing but sympathize with you as its just a difficult time at the beginning when there not only all the possibilities mentioned but you are also trying to get used to the behaviours of the particular fish without kind of knowing them as individuals yet.

~~waterdrop~~