Post
by angelfish83 » Sun Jul 23, 2006 7:44 pm
Hi!
Everyone seems to think I'm abrasive so I'll try not to be- but here goes:
Hi! Welcome to fishkeeping! I'm a little concerned- here's why
1: Your water looks very cloudy, am I right? Its not nice and clear like say, a bottle of spring water?
2: You asked how much of the water you should change- and whether you should change all of it. That scares me. One of the first things we learn in the hobby is that you never change "all" the water. Even people breeding discus and keeping large quantities of them in one tank only change about 80% of their water when they do a "one hundred percent" water change- and usually they use water that was dechlorinated and outgassed days before.
The average aquarium only needs about 1/4 of its volume changed per week. If you want to be really friendly to your fish, 1/5 every 3 or 4 days is even better, remember you're trying to maintain a relatively stable environment.
Do you know how to syphon your gravel? Do you know about the nitrogen cycle? Can you tell us your pH/gH/kH, water temperature, type of filter, aquarium size etc?
Remember when you change to sand to rinse the sand THOROUGHLY (i mean torture yourself like rinse it for an hour) and let it sit, with no current, in the aquarium (obviously without fish or a filter) until it all settles and the water is completely clear. Dont let your fish breathe water that is dusty.
On the upshot the loaches look very healthy
.
