5 min of your time for an Aquarium Survey please!

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patryuji

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jan 2, 2004
Messages
681
Location
Erie, CO
If you could give me a five minutes of your time to fill out the following survey to support a research paper I am working on I would appreciate it. If you do not know the answer either leave it blank or give a *close* estimate if you can (mainly applies to question 10 since I don't expect anyone to be able to estimate NO3 in their tank or pH). I'll pay out 20 kudos for every responder until I run out of kudos! (sorry, I'm too poor to actually pay you for your time).

1. How often do you do partial water changes and what percent of total volume do you change?

2. What are your NH3 levels before and after the partial water change?

3. What are your NO2 levels before and after the partial water change?

4. What are your NO3 levels before and after the partial water change?

5. What is the concentration of GH before and after the partial water change?

6. What is the concentration of KH before and after the partial water change?

7. What is the pH before and after the partial water change?

8. What are the PO4 levels before and after the partial water change?

9. How often do you feed your fish?

10. Give an estimate in grams of the amount of food fed each feeding.
 
1. How often do you do partial water changes?

Once a week

2. What are your NH3 levels before and after the partial water change?

Zero and Zero

3. What are your NO2 levels before and after the partial water change?

Zero and Zero

4. What are your NO3 levels before and after the partial water change?

Above 20 and less then 10

5. What is the concentration of GH before and after the partial water change?

Don't test

6. What is the concentration of KH before and after the partial water change?

Don't test

7. What is the pH before and after the partial water change?

7.8 an 7.8

8. What are the PO4 levels before and after the partial water change?

Don't test

9. How often do you feed your fish?

Twice a day

10. Give an estimate in grams of the amount of food fed each feeding.[/quote]

No idea of what it is in grams, I feed 20 pellets total abit at a time. They get the total 20 if they ate the previous fed pellets.
 
I just realized #10 is meaningless unless I ask for aquarium size as well (and I guess I should also ask for water change volume as a percentage of total volume). But its okay...I can modify my techniques later.

Thankstmurphy171...20 kudos for you.
 
1. Once a week
2. zero and zero
3. zero and zero
4. 10 and .5
5. 100
6. 40
7. 7.5 and 7.5
8. .5 and .5
9 Two times a day
10 ?

180 gallon tank
25-30% water change.
 
1. once a week, sometimes twice

2. 0 and 0

3. 0 and 0

4. Usually 10 and 5

5. don't test

6. don't test regularly.

7. In tank? 7.2 and 7.4

8. don't test

9. Once a day with one to two day fasts once a week or so

10. good lord, i don't know grams. Between my 10 gallon and my 30 gallon, I'll often melt a shrimp or bbs cube, give 2/3 to the big tank and the rest to the small tank. When I feed live black worms, they get one, maybe two per fish, more for the cichlids. The betta gets a pellet a day, with a worm every other day. Then every one gets a a few peas once a week. HTH
 
Heh, lucky that this is the bi weekly test and I did more than usual because a activity by the water dept and suspicious pH.
Christmasfish readings on May 16...using LaMotte SCL-05 and Rainbow lifeguard spa saver
all readings in ppm unless noted..... Extras that may effect GH so I tested today:
My DO was 7.6 today\\\\\\\\\\My Ca was 42\\\\\\\\\\My Magnese was10.7\\\Iron at 1ug\\\\chlorides at .09ug
Kh from the tap was 251. Chlorine will be added soon according to a flyer this week. Abnormal hardness this month..suspect? Water line scouring in area. All other readings from Sunday

1. How often do you do partial water changes and what percent of total volume do you change?
ALL tanks: 50% per week with vacuuuming
Dutch Tanks: Additional 10/20 % midweek (no vacuum)
overstock40: Additional 50% midweek and a 15% as needed
minitanks (under 5): 100% each week (these are heated and areated betta grow outs and are barebottomed with java and a couch)

2. What are your NH3 levels before and after the partial water change?
.5 or less. this is the target
AFTER: .0023-.040


3. What are your NO2 levels before and after the partial water change?
.5 or less in most tanks
Dutch tank #3 and 4 crept to 1 (and do on a continual basis) and the polypterus tank also crept to 1.
AFTER:all are around .0020 except dutch #3 it is .082

4. What are your NO3 levels before and after the partial water change?
Highest typical reading approaches 20. Target is 15
2 tanks read over 15 (my sheet doesn't have reading, just says to watch)
AFTER: most tanks read around .078 to .110

5. What is the concentration of GH before and after the partial water change?
Most tanks running around150...dutch tank number 4 has 280.
Treated tanks GH 75(choc) 150(liq) and 100(discus)

AFTER most dropped by about 40-60 each..
The special tanks I forgot to test

6. What is the concentration of KH before and after the partial water change?
211 before
237 after in most tanks...
The treated aged water tanks are 40(liq) 97(discus) 84(chocos)
AFTER in specials was 50(liq) 75(dic) 73(choc)
btw:aged water last check has a ph of 6.6 and a kh of 60



7. What is the pH before and after the partial water change?
Tank pH is7.5 in most, 5 tanks are much lower..(AFTER: 7.8)
Dicus:7(artificial assist)....................................(AFTER 7)
Chocolates:6.6 (artificial assist)........................(AFTER 7)
Liqourice: 5.8 (luck).........................................(AFTER 6.3)
Dutch #3: 7 (luck)............................................(AFTer 7)

8. What are the PO4 levels before and after the partial water change?
before 0.60 about... dutch number#3 was 55
after 0.51
tap is 0.42


9. How often do you feed your fish?
Daily pellets with supplemental treat feedings every other day (except BKG and Polypeterys..twice daily. Fish learning tricks get an currently unmeasured amount.. would guess more than a gram)

10. Give an estimate in grams of the amount of food fed each feeding.
Measuring todays usage with my jewelers scale and dividing by fish inches:
5 grams of micropellets is used in a days feeding to all fish except the betta pugnax and the polypeterus.
The 40 gallon tank gets an entire 3 grams on its own because the BKG and 3 clowns also relish the micropellets
The remaining 2 grams is split among the rest (80 inches of fish presently). It works out to 25 mg /inch.
It works out to 18 mg p of soft moist krill, about centigram or so of bloodworms, tubifex or a fly. And the a tiny scrap of meat runs a each heavier for the sardine bits at 6 mg..

And you better take #10!!!!! Weighing that stuff was a pain! :p
I'll edit any typos now that the body is safely here...
 
I honestly have no idea since I have not felt the need to test my water params for some time now.
However, I'll be happy to test before and after when I do my weekly water changes on Fri AM.
 
Gee now that i read what was posted after Murphy..I think I may indulge my fish too much..^_^
No wonder my Alpha clown loach is already near 10 inches!
One cube? yikes! I go through most a tray! I started getting sheets and breaking them up instead...
But counting tails as far as feeding time we have a total of 80 that are not the overstock or the large animals. That adds another 29 plusthe 3 betta Pi and the polypeterus makes the total:113 fishies live here.
Hmm..maybe I am underfeeding after all
 
1. Depends on the tank.
55g (display, grow-out): 50-75% once a week w/gravel cleaning.
20g hex (display): 25% one week, 50% w/gravel cleaning the next.
10g (goldfish): 75% every week- no gravel cleaning (it only has river rocks so any detritus is easy to get out)
5g (guppy fry, amphibians): 50-75% every other day, vigorous gravel stirring at that time to get out any accumulated detritus
2g (QT): 75% every day as I only recently set it back up, normally 50% every day to every other day

The saltwater 20g gets 25% every week (though my Mum left it alone for a month before I came back), but I'm assuming it isn't included on this survey.

2. 0 before and after on all of them.

3. 0 before and after on all of them (or if you prefer, <0.5).

4.
55g: 15 and 10
20g hex: 10 and 5
10g: 10 and 5
5g: nothing detectable before or after (I imagine that since this is the only tank with extensive live planting that they just suck up everything the frequent changes don't get)
2g: .5 and nothing detectable

5. Don't have anything recent. It's...high.

6. I should probably test for this again...someday...

7. 7.8 and 7.8. Yay for tap.

8. Don't test.

9. Twice a day on fry tank, QT, and goldfish tank. Sometimes 3x daily on fry and QT tank, but not usually. The other tanks get 2x every other day, and then on the "off" days get 1x daily or greatly reduced feedings. There's also one fasting day every two weeks (I have found that this does not stop any fish that can get fat [clown loaches, anyone?] from doing so :p).

10. This is very difficult to say because of the variety of different things I feed them (I alternate between foods often unless there's a fish that has a favorite-- for example, almost everyone loves bloodworms, so if I feed anything regularly it's them in one form or another. However, some fish have no bloodworms, some eat other things, etc., etc., so I can't really say. :/

Come back and ask this when I've set up my new tank in September and I will give you much more scientific results. =P
 
Thanks for your time and effort so far from everybody! I hope I didn't forget to give anyone their kudos. (Great level of detail Christmasfish...I did not expect that and I will definitely make an effort to determine "generic" weights of various pellets to incorporate appropriate numbers. I do have a wide variety of fish foods here to use as a basic guideline and a decent 1/10 gram precision scale.)
 
I just happened to have a scale sensetive enough. My dietary scale only reads to a 1/2 gram before everything is a half/gram.

It was hard looking at my schedule sheet..with so many tanks I didn't want to list every reading..so I just grouped em and only mentioned radical differences or the "special" tanks

the food thing, it's sounds like they eat nothing at all now to me......poor things... I felt better with pinches and dashes..^_^
 
Ah, is this a freshwater survey only? I assumed so because it's in the freshwater section...
 
Yes, due to the limited scope of my research area and personal knowledge I decided it would be best to concentrate on freshwater aquariums only.
 
1. How often do you do partial water changes and what percent of total volume do you change? 2x's a month. 25% each x.

2. What are your NH3 levels before and after the partial water change?
0 and 0

3. What are your NO2 levels before and after the partial water change?
0 and 0

4. What are your NO3 levels before and after the partial water change?
0 and 0

5. What is the concentration of GH before and after the partial water change?
11 degrees and 10 degrees

6. What is the concentration of KH before and after the partial water change?
11 degrees and 10 degrees

7. What is the pH before and after the partial water change?
8.0 and 7.7

8. What are the PO4 levels before and after the partial water change?
don't test

9. How often do you feed your fish?
5-6 times a week once a day

10. Give an estimate in grams of the amount of food fed each feeding.
?
 
I have two 5.5 gallon betta tanks. I tested each tank. They were slightly different; I was a little surprised! Each tank's actual water volume is 4.5 gallons.

Tank #1

1. How often do you do partial water changes and what percent of total volume do you change?
Once a week; I change 1 gallon of water so that works out to 22%.

2. What are your NH3 levels before and after the partial water change?
0 and 0

3. What are your NO2 levels before and after the partial water change?
0 and 0

4. What are your NO3 levels before and after the partial water change?
20 and 20ppm (sorry, my nitrate test is a crappy strip test. It always reads 20).

5. What is the concentration of GH before and after the partial water change?
6 dGH and 5 dGH

6. What is the concentration of KH before and after the partial water change?
3 dKH and 3 dKH

7. What is the pH before and after the partial water change?
7.4 and 7.4

8. What are the PO4 levels before and after the partial water change?
don't test

9. How often do you feed your fish?
M-W-F, once a day; T-Th-Sat, twice a day; Sun - skip feeding

10. Give an estimate in grams of the amount of food fed each feeding.
don't know; morning feeding is 3 pellets OR 4-5 small bloodworms, evening feeding is 2 daphnia


Tank #2

1. How often do you do partial water changes and what percent of total volume do you change?
Once a week; I change 1 gallon of water so that works out to 22%.

2. What are your NH3 levels before and after the partial water change?
0 and 0

3. What are your NO2 levels before and after the partial water change?
0 and 0

4. What are your NO3 levels before and after the partial water change?
20 and 20ppm (sorry, my nitrate test is a crappy strip test. It always reads 20).

5. What is the concentration of GH before and after the partial water change?
5 dGH and 4 d GH

6. What is the concentration of KH before and after the partial water change?
2 dKH and 2 dKH

7. What is the pH before and after the partial water change?
7.2 and 7.2

8. What are the PO4 levels before and after the partial water change?
don't test

9. How often do you feed your fish?
M-W-F, once a day; T-Th-Sat, twice a day; Sun - skip feeding

10. Give an estimate in grams of the amount of food fed each feeding.
don't know; morning feeding is 4 pellets OR 4-5 small bloodworms, evening feeding is 2 daphnia
 
1. How often do you do partial water changes and what percent of total volume do you change?
55-gal heavily planted, 50% weekly. 5.5gal heavily planted, thrice weekly 25%, 12-gal lightly planted 20% twice weekly, 44gal unplanted 25% once or twice weekly.

2. What are your NH3 levels before and after the partial water change? Established tanks so no ammonia in any, before or after.

3. What are your NO2 levels before and after the partial water change? Ditto #2.

4. What are your NO3 levels before and after the partial water change? Heavily planted 55 maintains itself at zero NO3, but I dose twice weekly to try to keep 5ppm., other tanks ~20ppm before, 10ppm after.

5. What is the concentration of GH before and after the partial water change? Don't test this regularly.

6. What is the concentration of KH before and after the partial water change? KH stays solid at 5.

7. What is the pH before and after the partial water change? pH maintained at 7.4 in all tanks but 55 heavily planted, which stays about 6.8, and might bump up to 7 after water change.

8. What are the PO4 levels before and after the partial water change? PO4 is 4-5 out of the tap so I use a phosphate removing pillow in the planted tank to keep it to 2.

9. How often do you feed your fish? Every day, sometimes twice a day for the adult fish but always twice a day for fry. Known to skip a day now and then.

10. Give an estimate in grams of the amount of food fed each feeding. Could not begin to tell you!
 
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