change of water

[mamie]

ok so today is day 3 of having the fish tank, it's still pretty cloudy...anyhow I was told by the store to do a partial water change every 3 days for the first week. I will take about 20% of the water out as what they said but what do i put in there just tap water? then put some stabiliser? and fresh water salt?

 

[mfdrookie516]

what are your water parameters? did you cycle the tank first? You need to make sure you add dechlorinator to the water. Why are you adding salt?

 

[mamie]

that's the salt for freshwater fish...this is a tank that I just purchased but was already up and running with fish in it. I'm not sure what your asking about parameter if your asking how big the tank is it's a 55g

 

[mfdrookie516]

what are the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate readings? no need for salt unless youre treating a disease..

 

[Blueiz]

You dont need salt in your tank . Your water parameters are ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. You will need a test kit to test for these.

What kind of fish do you have?

 

[mamie]

ok here's the thing I got the tank set up saturday night, I had the water tested on Sunday and everything was fine the guy said it would be fine because it's new. they told me to do a 20% change of water every 3 days for the first week. now what I need to know is do I just take tap water to replace the 20% I've taken out?
I'm not sure what the fish are called there is 2 sord tails and a pleco that are the only ones I know

 

[Blueiz]

It wont be fine because it is new. And you need to have your water tested to see what the parameters are to determine when/if you need to do a water change. To change the water, you take out X amount and replace it with X amount of dechlorinated water with matching temperature.

Don't trust what the LFS tells you, they would never stay in buisness if your fish lived, or be able to sale you stuff that you don't need.

 

[mamie]

no the water wasn't new it was the old water from the tank

 

[mamie]

the water is not new it is the old water from the tank when i purchased it. I transported almost all of it and what I didn't transport I got from my old tank. Also the guy did test my water on Sunday and said it was fine

 

[dkpate]

The bacteria you need is not in the water, it was in the filter, substrate and decor. You need to get yourself a liquid test kit. You can order one online at www.drsfostersmith.com for about $20. API Master Freshwater kit is the one most people use. If you have high ammonia or nitrites in your tank (because it wasn't cycled) then you are killing your fish. When I put fish in before I knew you had to cycle, I did 50%-70% pwc's every day to keep the ammonia below .25. Sometimes I had to do more. I really hope you are doing more than 20% every 3 days until your tank is cycled! I wish you good luck and I hope you don't lose any fish!

 

[mamie]

the substrate and fiter are also the same I did exactly what the other people had because exactly I didn't want to have to start new or I would have purchased a brand new tank. I wanted to make sure that I had a tank that was already cycled I am not working tomorrow I will go get a test kit but I have no ideal what to do if things are high or low

 

[dkpate]

Good! You still have the old stuff! Make everything MUCH faster cycling-wise! Hopefully they stayed wet when you moved the tank?
Like Rookie said in his post, you should pick up some Seachem's Prime water conditioner. It is like $12 for a bottle, but treates something like 1,200 gallons, so in the long run it's a better deal. And after you get the test kit, check ammonia, nitrIte and nitrAte. Ammonia and nitrite should be 0, and nitrAte should be between 5 and 20ish. If your ammonia and nitrIte are showing, you need to do partial water changes every day until you get them down to 0. I did pwc's every day for 4 weeks straight lol. I would recommend getting something like a Python to siphon the water out of that tank too, you will be thankful in the long run! No more "bucket brigade"!

 

[mamie]

as in water conditioner would stability be the same? I was told to put two capfulls every day until my bottle is finished it cost 10$ I beleive. I was looking for a python but none at Petsmart I will have to go look somewhere else.
Now the fact that my tank is still cloudy could that have to do with the filters wow they are dirty the inserts I mean it's still cloudy from when I put the sand in. See I kept their "rocks" and put my sand on it you still see some of the "stupid" blue rocks that I will eventually take out little by little. But I added sand that I did clean rinse, swooch around and all that as I was told. at the store they had told me 2-3 days that the tank would be cloudy

 

[Blueiz]

When you get your test kit, post up the readings here and we will help you through it Your tank is probably cloudy right now because of the addition of sand. Read the bottle of stability and see if it says that it detoxifies or removes chlorine and chloraminem if it does, you can use this as your conditioner. I believe it is a product that is supposed to help you cycle your tank though, and IMO those products are crap.

 

[dkpate]

Well I used Biozyme to cycle my betta tank, and it was done in a week. Other than that I have no experience with "cycle starters".

Mamie: Instead of paying $60 for a Pyton, I got a little T "inline" valve at PetSmart, and then went to Home Depot and got 25' of clear tubing. I paid $19 instead lol. Also, I would get the Prime water conditioner and use that instead of what you have. As said before, it binds the ammonia and nitrites and makes them not so toxic to your fish. And with that, you would use one capful and just a smidge more to do the 55G. (Each thread inside the cap treats 10G.) If you are using buckets, I space my Prime out between buckets. As in, 10G worth (fill to one thread in cap) in the 5G bucket, dump it in, repeat until you have used enough Prime to treat the whole 55G, (which would be about 5 buckets treated) and then just fill the rest of the tank with water. When I use my siphon, I put the Prime in the tank, (enough for the ENTIRE amount of the water in the tank, i.e 55G worth of Prime) and then start filling it up. I hope this helps you!

Sand: Make sure you don't have any floating around that will get sucked into your filter intake! I made that mistake and had to take apart the whole filter to get all of the sand out....lol. When I put my sand in, I would dump some in a mixing bowl, put it in the sink and run water into it, (but just enough to where it doesn't push all the sand out), and then I got a big mixing spoon and would just kind of stir the sand around until I didn't get any more free floating sand in the bowl, all the while running some water into the bowl. I really hope that makes sense lol. When I do my pwc's, I turn all heaters, filters and bubbles off, and I don't turn them back on until I get it all the way filled back up.

Feel free to ask me any more questions! I was in the same boat as you about 4 weeks ago lol, so I understand how frustrating it can be! Keep doing pwc's every day though, and if I was you, I would do 40%-50% each time until you get that test kit and get the "free floating" sand out.