old tank syndrome?

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matthewvl

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
May 25, 2006
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I have recently procured a 50g tank from a neighbor. He has told me that the tank hasn't had the water changed in 3-4 months and the filter (fluval 405) has not been maintained in that time period either. The tank actually looks in pretty good condition, the decorations have some moderate algae but came off easily with a 5% cholrine solution. The glass is in fairly good shape as well as water color/odor and. Upon taking apart the filter, the sponges looked terrible (there are 4) and the media looked pretty poor too. ( the media is: 1 pre filter, 2 bio-max bio rings, 1 zeo-carb)

My question is, how should I go about getting this tank back into proper condition. Theres about 25 inches of fish in the tank currently. I have refrained from taking any action because I know drastic changes can do more harm than leaving it as is.

What I want to know is basically what is the amount and rate of water changes, and how should I go about staggering the cleaning of my filter components.
 
If the water has a bioload buildup, you want to do an immediate water change. Cleaner water isn't going to shock the fish as long as dechlor is added and the temperature of water you're adding matches pretty closely with the tank's water.

I just thought of something else. When you remove the water, you might was well gravel vac the heck out of the tank and remove the junk on the bottom.
 
2 steps at least 1 week apart -
cleaning filter & decs are 1 step,
PWC w/ thorough gravel vac is 2d step.
 
thanks for the good info. how much water to change out at a time? And is there anything else to properly stabalizing?
 
I'm not sure why squawkbert said to do it in two steps. If anyone else could interject to help matthewvl out, that would help.

I was under the impression that when you are gravel vacuuming a tank that hasn't been touched in a long time, you're going to have to take out a huge amount of water with it anyway during the cleaning process. I'd bet 50% of the water could come out to clean up most of the junk in there.

Maybe he said that so you don't kick up all the junk on the bottom, but I while that looks horrible, I don't think it's much worse for them than just having all that junk in the tank. Refilling the tank after the vacuuming is bound to kick up some junk, so running a spare filter if you have one might be useful.
 
A problem with OTS is the possibility of an insanely low ph level. You should start by finding what the ph level is and then perform several partial water changes over a couple of weeks.

Doing a major PWC without balancing the ph could spell trouble. The canister should be cleaned immediately since that will be your workhorse in removing any accumulated TDS.
 
I agree with JC, doing a large water change may cause a lot of problems. Test for ph first, also test for nitrates. Clean the filter, and do a small water change. No more than 25%. You want to slowly increase the ph if needed by water changes and reduce the nitrate slowly as well.
 
Jchillin said:
The canister should be cleaned immediately since that will be your workhorse in removing any accumulated TDS.

Could you explain how a filter can possibly lower TDS? By definition, TDS are dissolved, so you can't filter it with other than an RO unit. I would think that a tank that has gone a long time between changes has had multiple top ups. This would tend to raise TDS. Water with a high TDS, in my experience doesn't usually have low pH. However, low pH is a point worth considering. I have never had a pH drop in a tank that has been neglected, although I did expecct it. Regardless, the only way to reduce TDS is to change, with water of lower TDS. The filter will not remove what is in solution.
 
Keep in mind that doing too much at one time (ie. gravel vac, cleaning decor and replacing filter media) will very likely disrupt the population of beneficial bacteria.
Personally, I'd clear out the filter as much as possible (in old tank water), check the water parameters, and do a water change appropriately (if the ph is not too crazy do a 50%; if you cant reproduce it in clean water do 15-20%).
The algae on the decor won't really hurt anything, save cleaning it for once the filter and water conditions are in order.
 
BillD said:
Jchillin said:
The canister should be cleaned immediately since that will be your workhorse in removing any accumulated TDS.

Could you explain how a filter can possibly lower TDS? By definition, TDS are dissolved, so you can't filter it with other than an RO unit. I would think that a tank that has gone a long time between changes has had multiple top ups. This would tend to raise TDS. Water with a high TDS, in my experience doesn't usually have low pH. However, low pH is a point worth considering. I have never had a pH drop in a tank that has been neglected, although I did expecct it. Regardless, the only way to reduce TDS is to change, with water of lower TDS. The filter will not remove what is in solution.

I think Jchillin meant that the TDS will INCREASE when you begin to kick up a lot of gunk on the substrate. Lower layers of this detritus probably don't have contact with the water column and you keep your dissolved solids lower than if you had these particles in suspension. Now suddenly you do a large gravel vac and kick up this stuff and you can see an increase of TDS quickly. You can also clog the filter which will cause even more problems.

Cleaning the filter first will prevent more TDS from material rotting currently IN the filter, and should also help to prevent additional TDS when the substrate is cleaned. Obviously the filter should be cleaned again after a short time since you will now have rotting material in the filter (that was previously on the substrate), but that's self explainatory.

HTH, and Jchillin if I misinterpreted your post please correct me.


As for my recommendation, I agree with the other posters that suggested small frequent PWC's. You need to slowly decrease the TDS, even moreso IMO then the pH. The osmotic pressure of the fish right now is in equilibrium with the surrounding water. To suddenly replace a large portion with fresh water will have a net ballooning effect as the FW tries to rush into the fish to equilibrate. I have no clue how quick or devastating this could be, but frankly if I was the fish I would prefer a slower acclimation to give time for the fish to adapt to its surroundings. ;)
 
Fish adapt to their enviroment, a sudden change like the one you say will most likely kill the fish. (like a frog with boiling water)

I agree with JChillin, except I would do it in smaller stages, 25% PWC and replace the filter media/sponges (except for BIO),25%PWC w/ 1/2 gravel vac, then 50%PWC with the other half gravel vacced.. This should prevent any losses due to excessive change.


theotheragentm said:
If the water has a bioload buildup, you want to do an immediate water change. Cleaner water isn't going to shock the fish as long as dechlor is added and the temperature of water you're adding matches pretty closely with the tank's water.

I just thought of something else. When you remove the water, you might was well gravel vac the heck out of the tank and remove the junk on the bottom.
 
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