Hi Everyone, Firstly thank you all for the help we received on our ich! all sorted and gone away now! without the use of anything apart from salt as well!
But more knowledge wanted from those in the know...
OK our set up is as follows
40US Gallon Tank
2215 Ehiem Classic Canister external (All Sponge media)
Fluval 4+ Internal filter
Vectron 200 UV filter
0.3% salinity
Amonnia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 30 to 40ppm
Four Goldies
(All measurements tip to tail including)
2 x 5” Ryukins
1 x 5” butterfly moor
1 x 3” Pearlscale
1 x apple snail
I’m Looking for some advice from the Goldie guru’s out there if possible,
I can’t believe how much there is to learn about keeping fancies! I learn something absolutely everyday! I love it though! Wouldn’t have it any other way!
Can someone please answer my questions?
• Is 40ppm an acceptable level of nitrate in my set up? I perform regular water changes but it never seems to drop below 20ppm, will I ever get it to 0?
• Do my water changes need to be larger % but less frequent? Say 50% once a week or 100% every two weeks?
• If not what can I do to reduce it naturally?
• By doing 50 to 100% water changes but not touching the filters do I loose good bacteria or is this un phased by my water changes?
• My canister is running sponge rings throughout, will I benefit from adding media substrate? And if I layer my canister what is the best combo in which order from bottom to top?
• If I am to change the sponges when is a good time to do so and should I do the layers change bit by bit and in which order?
• Should I also replace cleaner of the sponges further up the canister with dirtier ones from the bottom, therefore keeping more of the friendly bacteria? Or is that not the case?
• If I plant some real plants rather than just keep buying real plants and changing them every 3 weeks will I see a nitrate reduction?
• Is my set up OK running at 0.3% salinity constantly? (IE keeping the parasites at bay all the time?) or should I only run 0.3% for a period of time? Then come back down to 0.1% or even zero salt for most of the time?
• Can someone please give me a fail safe way of adding aquarium salt at a rate that I can understand how much it will go up. I seem to find so many ways UK/US/ water measurements UK/US Tablespoons and teaspoons, what a minefield! My tank measures 120cm L x 45cm H x 30 cm wide. How many teaspoons of aquarium salt would I need to achieve 0.1% and then do I times that figure to go up the % scale. And then when I water change how much have I taken out? aarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrh please help me I have seen the link directly below on the salt front but for me I find the salt I currently use (http://aquariumpharm.com/Products/Product.aspx?ProductID=49)
If I use the salt above 3UK teaspoons added to my 40 US gallon tank gives me an increment increase of 0.01, therefore 30 tsp should give me a 0.1% salinity……..is that correct? If so 90UK tsp should give me 0.3%.......is that right? IT JUST SOUNDS SO MUCH SALT!?!?
AND SHOULD I NOT BE RUNNING THIS AS A CONSISTENT SALINITY LEVEL?
• Can someone point me in the direction of a link as to how to safely clean canisters and internals without disturbing the good bacteria too much?
I think they should keep me going for a while, thank you to anyone indeed whos helps us out
I hope one day I can make a newbies life easier!
Thanks
Sculley and Fee
I do not know if I fall into the named categories that you have in your title, but I will give it a go on your questions, OK? Ask away if I do not help on something....
1. 40ppm is deemed "acceptable" for a tank. That said, ZERO nitrate would be better - and the closer you can get to zero, the better. In general, I am assuming that the 40ppm is achieved by the end of your "week" and the majority of the "week" the nitrates are lower - but slowly rise. I run my tanks at about 5-10ppm on the majority. Some fish, I believe, that have been injured by high nitrItes and ammonia in the past can be ultra sensitive to higher nitrates - and can become unstable in the water. Some fish - after exposure to higher nitrates for a time - become unstable. Keeping them low is just good sense - but can be work. Have you tested your tap water? Could there be nitrates in the tap? If you have 40ppm and change 50%, it stands to reason that you would only reduce it to 20ppm. It is simple math. I usually let the tank tell me what volume I need to change. Some tanks get only 30-40% changed each time. Others get 70-80% each change - depending on what I am doing in that tank. The only way to get to zero is to have a tank heavily planted such that the plants use all the nitrate as food (fertilizer). This is not easy to do - it requires a huge amount of plants and very few fish. You can approach zero but many water changes - or 100% change, but that is a bit ridiculous. You can run a tank on something other than the nitrogen cycle - and never create nitrates in your tank. But that opens several other cans of worms that you may not be willing to deal with at this time.
2. Water changes should be done at least once a week-ish. Fish release more than just ammonia into the water. They release hormones and pheramones and such..... reducing growth and such. It is always a good idea to reduce these. I let a tank tell me what it needs. If, during the week, the tank produces 20ppm nitrates, you will need to change enough water out to reduce by at least 20ppm nitrate. So, for example, your tank reads 20ppm after a change and 40ppm at the end of a "week". This means you need to change out at least 50% of the water each time. If your tank is only creating 5ppm per week, you would only have to change out 20% to keep the reading at 20ppm. IT is FAR better to change more often than it is to change every other week. Change it at least every 7 days and your fish will be healthier.
3. To reduce the amount of nitrate you have in a tank you can add real plants (but if the fish tear them up - and eat them, they add more waste making more nitrates - it can be viscious circle!), you can up the amount of water you change or shorten the time between changes, you can reduce the number of waste makers in your tank - (you have 5, by the way - the snail counts!) or you can feed less. I my experience, many people feed too much anyway. I certainly do. I have to continually catch myself and stop from dumping too much food in!
4. There are so little beneficial bacteria in the water that it is not a concern when changing water. Dump 100% of the water and you will not disturb your cycle if it is built in the filter(s) in the media.
5. Sponges are a fine media for a cannister. Smaller sponges can be divided and used to seed other things. My biggest concern with sponges is that, while long lived, they are not immortal much as the harder sintered glass or ceramic rings are. You can boil the latter to sterlize them and reuse them. It is difficult to sterilize sponges throughly - and then get the chemical sterilizers reliably back out of the sponges. In general, you need to just dump them. That is....sad - to lose all your cycle and all AND the media. IT does not happen often, but can happen.
6. Generally, in a cannister, open media like open cyclindars of ceramic are placed at the bottom. These work like rocks in a stream - they break up the current and cause it to slow down in places. A slower stream drops the large debris out of solution - down into the bottom of your cannister. The next layer up is best a coarse sponge piece to take out still more larger particles of waste. The next layers up can be the main biological media - sponge or whatever you wish - followed by a fine pad of floss or such that will "polish" the water - removeing any fine particulate that is left.
7. There should never be a reason to replace the media until or unless it breaks down into unusable pieces or becomes compromised in a fashion you cannot sterilize. If you were to replace any of the sponges, it is best to mix the new media in with the old such that they are all touching. The waste at the bottom of the cannister should be emptied out and discarded at least every other week - I do it at every water change. The coarse foam is rinsed and the top polishing foam is blasted clean. All your sponge media can be squeezed out into used, cleaner fish water. The less waste in them the better. That large waste or mulm is NOT the beneficial bacteria - it is simply blocking the flow of waste laden water and oxygen - reducing the efficiancy of your filter. So squeeze out the yucky ones.
8.Live plants are live plants. They process nitrates when they are growing. The fish will eat them, making more waste - or tear them up and play hockey with the stems all over the tank - making a BIG mess. IF you plant them they may grow - or the fish may tear them up anyway. If you enjoy the real plants - GREAT! go for it. Plant them. IF they make it an grow - that is super. If they do not - replace them.
9. Salt - more and more parasites and such are becoming resistant to salt. There are those who believe that a tank should be run at 0.1% salt at all times. But goldfish are FRESHWATER fish. This means they do not need salt... they do just fine without it. Since salt can be so useful against parasites and some other problems, I tend to reserve it for when it is needed - having more impact that way. Goldfish are so tolerant of salt that it does not hurt to run a tank for a fairly long period on 0.3% salt if you have reason to do so. But when you no longer do, eliminate it. It will work better for you in the future if you do.
10. Measuring salt. Wow. I weigh it.
11. When I remove water for a water change I do it by the bucket - and my bucket is marked on the interior with a big black indelible marker in one gallon increments. I know exactly how much water I take out and only treat with salt for that amount. Never calculate in what you put back - for that involves evaporated water - only calculate for what you removed.
12. Cannisters..... I open mine up and pull out the interanl workins. The coarse sponges are squeezed out in used fish water - or blasted clean under my tap - (I have well water with no additives). The finer polishing floss is treated the same. The media is rinsed in used fish water that I syphon out of the tank right over it. The main cannister box is rinsed and wiped out. The media is replaced and the cannister is refilled with used tank water syphoned from the tank and restarted. I do this first - and when I restart it, the yellow algae from the inside of the hoses squirts back out into the tank where I vacumn it up as I clean the tank the rest of the way. If sponges are your main media, you can syphon out a bucket of "cleaner" used water and squeeze them clean in it - changing it as needed.
Perhaps this helps.....
1. 40ppm is deemed "acceptable" for a tank. That said, ZERO nitrate would be better - and the closer you can get to zero, the better. In general, I am assuming that the 40ppm is achieved by the end of your "week" and the majority of the "week" the nitrates are lower - but slowly rise. I run my tanks at about 5-10ppm on the majority. Some fish, I believe, that have been injured by high nitrItes and ammonia in the past can be ultra sensitive to higher nitrates - and can become unstable in the water. Some fish - after exposure to higher nitrates for a time - become unstable. Keeping them low is just good sense - but can be work. Have you tested your tap water? Could there be nitrates in the tap? If you have 40ppm and change 50%, it stands to reason that you would only reduce it to 20ppm. It is simple math. I usually let the tank tell me what volume I need to change. Some tanks get only 30-40% changed each time. Others get 70-80% each change - depending on what I am doing in that tank. The only way to get to zero is to have a tank heavily planted such that the plants use all the nitrate as food (fertilizer). This is not easy to do - it requires a huge amount of plants and very few fish. You can approach zero but many water changes - or 100% change, but that is a bit ridiculous. You can run a tank on something other than the nitrogen cycle - and never create nitrates in your tank. But that opens several other cans of worms that you may not be willing to deal with at this time.
2. Water changes should be done at least once a week-ish. Fish release more than just ammonia into the water. They release hormones and pheramones and such..... reducing growth and such. It is always a good idea to reduce these. I let a tank tell me what it needs. If, during the week, the tank produces 20ppm nitrates, you will need to change enough water out to reduce by at least 20ppm nitrate. So, for example, your tank reads 20ppm after a change and 40ppm at the end of a "week". This means you need to change out at least 50% of the water each time. If your tank is only creating 5ppm per week, you would only have to change out 20% to keep the reading at 20ppm. IT is FAR better to change more often than it is to change every other week. Change it at least every 7 days and your fish will be healthier.
3. To reduce the amount of nitrate you have in a tank you can add real plants (but if the fish tear them up - and eat them, they add more waste making more nitrates - it can be viscious circle!), you can up the amount of water you change or shorten the time between changes, you can reduce the number of waste makers in your tank - (you have 5, by the way - the snail counts!) or you can feed less. I my experience, many people feed too much anyway. I certainly do. I have to continually catch myself and stop from dumping too much food in!
4. There are so little beneficial bacteria in the water that it is not a concern when changing water. Dump 100% of the water and you will not disturb your cycle if it is built in the filter(s) in the media.
5. Sponges are a fine media for a cannister. Smaller sponges can be divided and used to seed other things. My biggest concern with sponges is that, while long lived, they are not immortal much as the harder sintered glass or ceramic rings are. You can boil the latter to sterlize them and reuse them. It is difficult to sterilize sponges throughly - and then get the chemical sterilizers reliably back out of the sponges. In general, you need to just dump them. That is....sad - to lose all your cycle and all AND the media. IT does not happen often, but can happen.
6. Generally, in a cannister, open media like open cyclindars of ceramic are placed at the bottom. These work like rocks in a stream - they break up the current and cause it to slow down in places. A slower stream drops the large debris out of solution - down into the bottom of your cannister. The next layer up is best a coarse sponge piece to take out still more larger particles of waste. The next layers up can be the main biological media - sponge or whatever you wish - followed by a fine pad of floss or such that will "polish" the water - removeing any fine particulate that is left.
7. There should never be a reason to replace the media until or unless it breaks down into unusable pieces or becomes compromised in a fashion you cannot sterilize. If you were to replace any of the sponges, it is best to mix the new media in with the old such that they are all touching. The waste at the bottom of the cannister should be emptied out and discarded at least every other week - I do it at every water change. The coarse foam is rinsed and the top polishing foam is blasted clean. All your sponge media can be squeezed out into used, cleaner fish water. The less waste in them the better. That large waste or mulm is NOT the beneficial bacteria - it is simply blocking the flow of waste laden water and oxygen - reducing the efficiancy of your filter. So squeeze out the yucky ones.
8.Live plants are live plants. They process nitrates when they are growing. The fish will eat them, making more waste - or tear them up and play hockey with the stems all over the tank - making a BIG mess. IF you plant them they may grow - or the fish may tear them up anyway. If you enjoy the real plants - GREAT! go for it. Plant them. IF they make it an grow - that is super. If they do not - replace them.
9. Salt - more and more parasites and such are becoming resistant to salt. There are those who believe that a tank should be run at 0.1% salt at all times. But goldfish are FRESHWATER fish. This means they do not need salt... they do just fine without it. Since salt can be so useful against parasites and some other problems, I tend to reserve it for when it is needed - having more impact that way. Goldfish are so tolerant of salt that it does not hurt to run a tank for a fairly long period on 0.3% salt if you have reason to do so. But when you no longer do, eliminate it. It will work better for you in the future if you do.
10. Measuring salt. Wow. I weigh it.
11. When I remove water for a water change I do it by the bucket - and my bucket is marked on the interior with a big black indelible marker in one gallon increments. I know exactly how much water I take out and only treat with salt for that amount. Never calculate in what you put back - for that involves evaporated water - only calculate for what you removed.
12. Cannisters..... I open mine up and pull out the interanl workins. The coarse sponges are squeezed out in used fish water - or blasted clean under my tap - (I have well water with no additives). The finer polishing floss is treated the same. The media is rinsed in used fish water that I syphon out of the tank right over it. The main cannister box is rinsed and wiped out. The media is replaced and the cannister is refilled with used tank water syphoned from the tank and restarted. I do this first - and when I restart it, the yellow algae from the inside of the hoses squirts back out into the tank where I vacumn it up as I clean the tank the rest of the way. If sponges are your main media, you can syphon out a bucket of "cleaner" used water and squeeze them clean in it - changing it as needed.
Perhaps this helps.....
Can someone please answer my questions? I will try
• Is 40ppm an acceptable level of nitrate in my set up? I perform regular water changes but it never seems to drop below 20ppm, will I ever get it to 0?
The only way to get nitrate down to 0 is to perform 100% water change. Don't be afraid to do it as long as you acclimatise them slowly to the new water.
• If not what can I do to reduce it naturally?
By setting up a greenwater culture, but that's a whole other matter and best not discussed now.
• By doing 50 to 100% water changes but not touching the filters do I loose good bacteria or is this un phased by my water changes?
As long as you don't wash the filter media with tap water then the bacteria will still be there.
• My canister is running sponge rings throughout, will I benefit from adding media substrate? And if I layer my canister what is the best combo in which order from bottom to top?
My personal preference is having coarser media (like ceramic rings or bio balls) first then gradually to finer stuff.
• If I am to change the sponges when is a good time to do so and should I do the layers change bit by bit and in which order?
Sponges or any filter media shouldn't be changed at all if it's still of sound structure. Only change if it's falling apart.
• Should I also replace cleaner of the sponges further up the canister with dirtier ones from the bottom, therefore keeping more of the friendly bacteria? Or is that not the case?
I would think that all sponges will be equally dirty anyway.
• If I plant some real plants rather than just keep buying real plants and changing them every 3 weeks will I see a nitrate reduction?
Real plants rarely work in a goldfish tank. They'll decimate them.
• Is my set up OK running at 0.3% salinity constantly? (IE keeping the parasites at bay all the time?) or should I only run 0.3% for a period of time? Then come back down to 0.1% or even zero salt for most of the time?
I'm a strong believer of not using salt. Why? Because the parasites will eventually get used to the salt and therefore rendering the salt useless. Only use salt when u need them.
• Can someone please give me a fail safe way of adding aquarium salt at a rate that I can understand how much it will go up. I seem to find so many ways UK/US/ water measurements UK/US Tablespoons and teaspoons, what a minefield! My tank measures 120cm L x 45cm H x 30 cm wide. How many teaspoons of aquarium salt would I need to achieve 0.1% and then do I times that figure to go up the % scale. And then when I water change how much have I taken out? aarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrh please help me I have seen the link directly below on the salt front but for me I find the salt I currently use (http://aquariumpharm.com/Products/Product.aspx?ProductID=49)
If I use the salt above 3UK teaspoons added to my 40 US gallon tank gives me an increment increase of 0.01, therefore 30 tsp should give me a 0.1% salinity……..is that correct? If so 90UK tsp should give me 0.3%.......is that right? IT JUST SOUNDS SO MUCH SALT!?!?
AND SHOULD I NOT BE RUNNING THIS AS A CONSISTENT SALINITY LEVEL?
You're from the UK so you'd be more familiar with the metric system, as am I. The easy way of measuring is 1 gram of salt per 1 litre of water will give 0.1% salinity. 1 teaspoon is roughly 5 grams. 1 tablespoon is roughly 3 teaspoons. Should be easy to do the math
edit: Ah....daryl's answers have rendered mine useless.....
• Is 40ppm an acceptable level of nitrate in my set up? I perform regular water changes but it never seems to drop below 20ppm, will I ever get it to 0?
The only way to get nitrate down to 0 is to perform 100% water change. Don't be afraid to do it as long as you acclimatise them slowly to the new water.
• If not what can I do to reduce it naturally?
By setting up a greenwater culture, but that's a whole other matter and best not discussed now.
• By doing 50 to 100% water changes but not touching the filters do I loose good bacteria or is this un phased by my water changes?
As long as you don't wash the filter media with tap water then the bacteria will still be there.
• My canister is running sponge rings throughout, will I benefit from adding media substrate? And if I layer my canister what is the best combo in which order from bottom to top?
My personal preference is having coarser media (like ceramic rings or bio balls) first then gradually to finer stuff.
• If I am to change the sponges when is a good time to do so and should I do the layers change bit by bit and in which order?
Sponges or any filter media shouldn't be changed at all if it's still of sound structure. Only change if it's falling apart.
• Should I also replace cleaner of the sponges further up the canister with dirtier ones from the bottom, therefore keeping more of the friendly bacteria? Or is that not the case?
I would think that all sponges will be equally dirty anyway.
• If I plant some real plants rather than just keep buying real plants and changing them every 3 weeks will I see a nitrate reduction?
Real plants rarely work in a goldfish tank. They'll decimate them.
• Is my set up OK running at 0.3% salinity constantly? (IE keeping the parasites at bay all the time?) or should I only run 0.3% for a period of time? Then come back down to 0.1% or even zero salt for most of the time?
I'm a strong believer of not using salt. Why? Because the parasites will eventually get used to the salt and therefore rendering the salt useless. Only use salt when u need them.
• Can someone please give me a fail safe way of adding aquarium salt at a rate that I can understand how much it will go up. I seem to find so many ways UK/US/ water measurements UK/US Tablespoons and teaspoons, what a minefield! My tank measures 120cm L x 45cm H x 30 cm wide. How many teaspoons of aquarium salt would I need to achieve 0.1% and then do I times that figure to go up the % scale. And then when I water change how much have I taken out? aarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrh please help me I have seen the link directly below on the salt front but for me I find the salt I currently use (http://aquariumpharm.com/Products/Product.aspx?ProductID=49)
If I use the salt above 3UK teaspoons added to my 40 US gallon tank gives me an increment increase of 0.01, therefore 30 tsp should give me a 0.1% salinity……..is that correct? If so 90UK tsp should give me 0.3%.......is that right? IT JUST SOUNDS SO MUCH SALT!?!?
AND SHOULD I NOT BE RUNNING THIS AS A CONSISTENT SALINITY LEVEL?
You're from the UK so you'd be more familiar with the metric system, as am I. The easy way of measuring is 1 gram of salt per 1 litre of water will give 0.1% salinity. 1 teaspoon is roughly 5 grams. 1 tablespoon is roughly 3 teaspoons. Should be easy to do the math
edit: Ah....daryl's answers have rendered mine useless.....
QUOTE(d_golem @ Apr 9 2008, 11:07 PM) 
edit: Ah....daryl's answers have rendered mine useless.....
I don't think so. When I was starting out I could never be told enough times or in enough detail. Repetition was crucial to my understanding anything.
QUOTE
You're from the UK so you'd be more familiar with the metric system, as am I. The easy way of measuring is 1 gram of salt per 1 litre of water will give 0.1% salinity. 1 teaspoon is roughly 5 grams. 1 tablespoon is roughly 3 teaspoons. Should be easy to do the math
You UK people have to make your numbers so easy, don't you? What's wrong with 3.79 grams per US gallon? Or 0.1337 ounces per US gallon? or 0.08355 lbs per 10 US gallons?
You Brits... always taking the easy way out
See - that is why Riz is SO valuable. I cannot do math like that..... 10s and all. I need the "tough" stuff - 0.1337 ounces per US gallon sounds good to me!
I am glad we have the guys that "swing both ways" out here on the board. I am just a dumb American, oblivious of the metric system.....
I am glad we have the guys that "swing both ways" out here on the board. I am just a dumb American, oblivious of the metric system.....
Hey Guys! Thank you very much for all your assistance! I'm off to action some of your advice and no, you can never be told too much! I feel like i learn every day! We may however take up keeping wine corks or something, this Goldie lark is hard!...........good fun though! we are 110.337% hooked!
we are going to get some photos on here too so you can see our babies!
Thank you kindly
Sculley and Fee
we are going to get some photos on here too so you can see our babies!
Thank you kindly
Sculley and Fee
Wine corks breed rather prolifically around here..... it sounds like a good plan.
good thread!
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