Good Grief ! OK this is the Last,.... Remember that salt does not evaporate and should not be applied to make up water due to evaporation. Only use the salt on the water changes, a 125 gallon tank with gravel and decorations as stated above needs about 1.5 cups, use only aquarium salt as a rule as it does not have anti caking agents and the like added to it. It doesn't cost much and you don't use much for fresh water fish keeping. Also don't use all those high dollar products for cleaning the "scale" from your fish tank glass and hood items. Good old white vinegar costs about a buck a gallon. Wet the clean wash rag (keep some rags that have never seen soap under your tank for cleaning purposes.) Heavily wet the washrag but not so much that its dripping all over the place. Clean and scrub away. The slightly acidic nature of the vinegar breaks the electro-molecular bonding of the vast majority of white water scaling (the result of evaporation) causing them to just dissolve away into the rag, then hit glass with clean wet rag and then dry. Don't be like you are diffusing a nuclear device around the canopy glass and power cords either, a little vinegar won't hurt any of these and even if you dropped the rag into the tank and and immediately retrieved it, there is not enough acid to affect the PH of a tank larger than 10 gallons in capacity. As I don't like wasting my day doing menial chores either. Here's how I do a water change... Sump pump to 100 ft garden hose, and i water all my wife's flowers, herbs, any bad spots in the grass as this fish water is like steroids for plants way better than using miracle grow. I've watered several plants over years and not watered the one's next to them with the fish tank water as an experiment. Old tank water equals yum yum for plants! They grow double in size and thickness. Then I use my water conditioner solution, I use pond chemicals and do the math to find out how much to use for my tank at 50 gallons or approximately 1/2 of my water change. Take garden hose hooked up to house and have it ready at the tank. Start blasting into corner of tank and immediately add the capful of conditioner. Fish will go to the other side of the tank. Once the tank is half full, pour you next conditioner capful for remaining 50 gallons of water into the torrent of water coming out of the hose. Fill tank to top, have a shut off adapter at the end of the hose going into the tank, please learn from my hard lessons, do not have your teenager or buddy manning the water faucet at the side of the house. That is a recipe for overfilling a tank and getting your floor wet! I don't pussyfoot around with the tanks. I've had goldfish, mollies, platys, swords, you name it and like I said I heavily load my tanks with fish. I almost never have ever had an issue with disease (only 2 times in 12 years) and those were cause by using live feeder fish. I have found that the cichlids that I keep periodically need "the hunt" to keep their overall healthy and activity levels up. It boosts inquisitiveness and alertness. Twice a year I drop about 200 rosey minnows in the tank, by the next morning 1/2 are gone and in the course of the next week the rest are gone as well. Tank stability stays steady as a rock. Since the feeder fish are not being killed indiscriminately but as food, no different than I going to steak house for dinner, i don't have a problem with it.