A little advice

[RedDevil83]

To everyone that rinses their decor with tap water just remember that your rinsing it with chlorinated water. Always condition first, wait ten minutes or so if not more depending on the way your doing it and than put beneficial bacteria in. I know a lot know this, but cleaning your tank too well can be harmful to your fish

Thank you, this has been a public service announcement by red devil.

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[SpaceFish42]

Thank you!

 

[RedDevil83]

Or treat the water that same way in a large bucket and clean it with that water, or with your tank water when your doing the water change.

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[RedDevil83]

Oh and your welcome. Lol

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[LayzorBeams]

... The tap water will mostly drip off the decor, and only small drops will be left. Those few tiny drops shouldn't hurt your tank unless it is a Betta bowl...

Ive done it on all my tanks.


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[RedDevil83]

Depending on your decor some water can get trapped...

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[Mebbid]

Chlorine is dangerous to fish at around 0.1ppm. Considering that tap water maxes out at 4ppm in the us that would require a quart of water being transferred over to a 10g tank. The miniscule amount transferred over through cleaning of decor isnt even enough to make a fish blink

 

[RedDevil83]

Well I play it safe and this is for the beginners mainly, I'm sure you know what to do but some dont. Alot make a mistake of putting conditioning after bacteria.

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[trennamw]

Why are you recommending the addition of bacteria?

I know you mean well but this sounds like mistaken information.

1- that's not enough chlorinated water to do harm and 2-there's no reason to be adding bottled bacteria on a routine basis. None. And could be reasons not to.


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[LayzorBeams]

Agreed with above. Especially about the fact that the small amounts of chlorine to nothin'.

Its good that you mean to help though. And i can see how you would want to safe over sorry. But in all honesty it doesn't really matter...


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[RedDevil83]

Only if you go that route, if you use tap water you want it comfortable for the fish if your throwing them right in right away and alot do this, don't know how you do it but I put beneficial bacteria after a vigorous cleaning.

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[LayzorBeams]

Waaaaaait a minute sir. Please click that rewind button a few times.

So it seems you could be talking about either adding BB after water changes or when starting a new tank.

If its starting a new tank you're talking about, then sure. The BB can actually live out of water for some time, and can go into a sort of "hibernation" state. So I've heard, not sure of the statements accuracy. So sure, add a bit to jumpstart the cycling.

But if you're doing WC, no. Nearly all of the BB is NOT free-floating. 95% or more would be my guess as to how much is NOT just swimmin' round in the water. So when you take out water, you arent really removing any BB. So if you add some, you're just adding extra that dies and then decomposes, eventually becoming more of those dreaded nitrates. You are harming not helping the fish here. Its not a huge deal but it isn't helping

So if you're talking about regular old WC, you shouldn't be added more BB, just dechlorinator. I use the stuff that helps the slime coat as well, because it reduces a bit a stress, apparently.

Im sure a more experienced member like PoppaRhno or MikeM or TMRC or someone like that can help clear it up...


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[RedDevil83]

Well no fish have ever died and the bottle itself says to add daily or weekly, so I don't know where you get your info from but doing water changes removes the decomposition of the bacteria (5% you speak of) then if you go further with cleaning the media if it's getting nasty, really isn't any harm in it if your keeping up on your tank.

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[RedDevil83]

I was initially speaking of introducing it is all

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[RedDevil83]

I think you blew this out of proportion lol

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[LayzorBeams]

Huh. I can see it being helpful if you're cleaning out the filters.

But if you add it after siphoning out water from your tank, then the extra is decomposing until next WC.

I agree, after a filter change it would be helpful i think. Maybe not needed , but helpful.


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[RedDevil83]

Bb lives and dies all the time btw, and I don't follow the bottle directions anyway I just give it one go after a 75 or less wc

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[LayzorBeams]

I think you blew this out of proportion lol

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That could be true, but I'm a sucker for details.

Ever notice how I capitalize all fish names, and use commas and apostrophes and rarely spell stuff wrong? I take longer to manually spellcheck everything than to type it in the first place!!



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[Sk3lly]

The bottled BB is just another gimmick of the hobby. Of course it says daily use, that way you buy more.

I can see no point in this thread tbh. Washing decor in chlorinated water may kill off any BB on it, but thats all. Your filter holds the main stay of your BB so dont ever wash that in tap


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[Beej1254]

I feel like this is great advice with a great thought behind it for beginners..your beneficial bacteria lives on the surfaces in your tank and isn't free floating in your water. That's why it's important to have a high surface area on your filter media or in live rock/sand.

Where I think this advice makes more sense to the beginners is that many think when they do a water change they are supposed to tear down the tank completely and wash EVERYthing and add new water. It's surprising to me how many people believe this and give it as a main reason why they don't want a tank bigger then a couple of gallons. If you do this then it makes complete sense to add BB back into the tank. But that's because it gets wiped out or takes a huge hit. After you start better WC habits and your tank fully cycles you shouldn't need to add anymore BB but if you are concerned about your fish you could use something like a stress coat.