What do I do with the fish when I clean the tank?

[CandyHouze]

Sometimes my tank gets so dirty I have to take my goldfish out to replace most of the water.
Up until two days ago I thought it was fine to put the fish in our largest cooking pot with water from their own tank while the water gets to a safe temperature. Last time I did this, however, I found one of my goldfish just exhausted after a few hours in the pot (I've left them in for a long time before and there's never been a problem @_@). I seriously thought he was going to die, frozen in a bent position with nothing but his fins moving and letting the current bump him around once I put him back in the tank.

He's totally fine now, as if nothing happened, but it scared the heck out of me and I realized I need to change my ways. What do I do with the fish when I clean the tank?

 

[dkpate]

How often do you do a pwc?

 

[CandyHouze]

How often do you do a pwc?

Up until recently I've been leaving the light on too long and having to change the foggy water about once every 2 weeks.

 

[mellawson]

What size tank do you have and how exactly are you cleaning your tank?

 

[dkpate]

Goldfish are really dirty, and depending on the size of the tank, you should be changing out between 25-50% of the water once a week, with a vacuum.

 

[Crepe]

Also, what type of pot was it? It could have been metal poisoning.

 

[CandyHouze]

What size tank do you have and how exactly are you cleaning your tank?

I have a 10 gallon with 5 goldfish, when I clean the tank I dump out like 95% of the water, rinse out the gravel and decorations, and scrape the crud off the glass with a rubber spatula. Once I put everything back in place I add all the water conditioners, ph balance, and other stuff until the test stick says my water's all good then I add some aquarium salt and eventually add the fish after an hour or two.

 

[CandyHouze]

Also, what type of pot was it? It could have been metal poisoning.

@_@ Could be, it's a really old stainless steel pot I think.

 

[Crepe]

You are doing wayyyy too much. A quick pass over the gravel, a 30% water change at the most is what you should be doing. You're killing all your bacteria. and also 5 goldfish is too many for a 10gal i'm afraid.

 

[dkpate]

Yikes! Well first off, your first goldfish will need 15g's to itself, and each one after that will need 10g's.
With that many goldfish in there, you will need to do at least 2, 50% pwc's a week with a good vacuum. And don't rinse off all the decor and stuff, because that's where your good bacteria live. You can use the search bar on here to check out the nitrogen cycle, which will help you understand what your tank needs to go through for your fish to be happy and healthy.
Throw out the pH balance, because that is more stressful for fish. You shouldn't need to put anything but dechlorinator in when you clean the tank.

 

[mellawson]

A 10 gallon is really too small even for 1 gold fish you should really consider getting a bigger tank. There probably isn't a need to dump out all the water if you can vacuum the tank out regularly like dk said. what kind of filtration are you running and are you testing the water with strips or a liquid kit?

 

[mellawson]

Spend a good day trolling around here reading old post and you'll be amazed at what you didn't know you didn't know.

 

[CandyHouze]

I know my poor fishie's are crowded, I'm going to upgrade to a much larger tank in the next couple of weeks, I'm just waiting until I get out of school and I have the time.
I use a BioBag carbon filter currently and these test strips that test 5 things at once, chlorine, nitrate, ph and all that junk.

Don't rinse out the decoration, got it! Change half one a week @u@

I'm so thankful for everybody's advice! Just one thing.. How do I keep the fish safe while I'm doing all this -u-;; I don't have any other tank to put them in currently.

 

[Crepe]

No need to move them. They are perfectly safe. Goldfish are like bulls, they can take anything for a brief period at least.

 

[dkpate]

I never take my fish out. If you only change 50% of the water, they will be fine. Just do a vacuum and get the water out that way. Make sure you go all the way to the bottom of the gravel when vacuuming, as you would be suprised at how much junk gets down there!

 

[CandyHouze]

Should I worry about making sure the water is the right tempurature? I'm afraid of pouring water without it being perfectly room tempurature because I have one oranda and I've heard they are particularly sensitive to colder water.

 

[Regen311]

The water temperature should be close - but I really wouldn't worry about it being exact. I don't think one or two degrees is going to be that big of a deal. If you're really worried though, you can get a large plastic bucket to "hold" the water in for a few hours before you change the water in the tank. That will allow it to get up to temperature. If you do though make sure you rinse the bucket really really well before you use it. Some pet stores even have fish only buckets you can use.

 

[Crepe]

I never match my faucet temps with my tank temps. A dose of cool water is sometimes good, it can even trigger breeding in tropical fishes.

 

[mellawson]

As long as your not getting the water out of the freezer I think you'll be fine.

 

[dkpate]

I always always always make sure the water is as close to the same temp as the tank, because changing the water in the tank is stressful enough to the fish, without adding more. Just use water out of the bathtub faucet.