It's important to treat water before adding fish. Tetra® AquaSafe® Solution removes chlorine and other harmful substances from the water. You should add eight drops of Tetra® AquaSafe® Solution per one gallon of water. For example, a two-gallon aquarium will need 16 drops of Tetra® AquaSafe® Solution.
This is normal when an aquarium is first set up. It is referred to as a bacteria bloom. The cloudiness should be gone within anywhere from two days to a couple of weeks. You can do a 10 to 15 percent partial water change and gravel vacuuming after a week to speed it up.
Perform a 25% water change after 15 days. Remember to treat tap water with Aqueon Water Conditioner before adding it to your aquarium. There are different philosophies on how much and how often to change water, but 10% to 25% every 1 to 2 weeks is a good rule of thumb.
You can add in up to 50% of your old tank water to the new tank. You can add more “old” water, if you like, but no more than 50% new. This will make it a little easier to match your pH and temperature.
Good bacteria can come from a handful of populated gravel or substrate, or a used filter pad that's been rinsed in tank water, a used sponge filter, or even an external filter box. Dropping a piece of used filter pad into a new filter box helps establish a colony of good aquarium bacteria in a new tank.
Adding Fish to a Brand-New Tank
Typically, you should wait at least 24 to 48 hours and even up to a week before adding fish to a new tank. Waiting ensures that all the set conditions for the ecosystem have had time to establish themselves. This also gives your fish enough time to acclimate to their new environment.
All ingredients in water conditioners are safe for freshwater and saltwater fish, invertebrates, plants, and nitrifying bacteria. You can certainly add water conditioner to your aquarium when fish are in the tank because it's safe.
Generally speaking, most species of freshwater fish won't live long if the tap water isn't treated. Untreated tap water can quickly kill fish in just a matter of hours.
Nitrifying bacteria convert toxic ammonia into nitrite, then less toxic nitrate. Without beneficial bacteria in place inside an aquarium filter, fishkeeping as we know it is not possible as, as soon as you put fish in your tank, ammonia will be excreted and they will poison themselves and die.
You can get the nitrogen cycle going within 24 hours with the right tools. Just because you can, however, doesn't mean you should. If possible, set up your tank 10-14 days before adding fish to protect your new additions better.
“New tank syndrome” is commonly experienced in the first weeks of a new aquarium and is caused by an immature filter. New Tank Syndrome is a term used to describe problems that occur due to the build-up of invisible, toxic compounds in an aquarium.
By the way, the frequency of adding beneficial bacteria should keep pace with introducing new fish or changing water. For example, if you change the water in your tanks once every two weeks, you should add beneficial bacteria twice each month. Nevertheless, you should avoid too many bacteria in your tanks.
At higher concentrations, chlorine kills. Unfortunately, chlorine and chloramine will not only harm aquarium fish but can affect the entire aquarium system. These chemicals also kill beneficial bacteria and impair biological filtration.
If the tank is your only source of water, it can still be desludged regularly by siphoning the sludge off. If the sediment has been stirred up, the water can be treated chemically with chlorine and/or boiled before consumption.
If the aquarium is cycling properly, you will first notice a drop in ammonia and a significant spike in nitrites. Once the nitrite levels are high enough, nitrate-producing bacteria will begin populating the tank. Once these bacteria populate the tank, nitrite levels will fall.
Water changes clear the water temporarily, but in a day or two the cloudiness reappears, often even worse than before. That's because new water provides a fresh supply of nutrients, causing the cloudy water bacteria to populate even more.
Beginners need to test the most important parameters of their water every 2-3 days. This includes KH, pH, NH3/NH4 and NO2. If the (acceptable) water values stay stable for one month a monthly measurement will be sufficient. When you can clearly see problems (algae, fish gasp at the water surface etc.)
The best way, by far, to speed up the aquarium cycle is to install a filter that already contains the beneficial bacteria. Simply remove the filter from the cycled aquarium and add it to your new tank. FishLab Update: Good news! Angels Plus will ship a cycled sponge filter to your door for small price.
It usually take about 3-6 weeks for a new aquarium to go through the initial nitrogen cycle, so fish should be added only a few per week during this time.
Just give the tank time. The cycling process usually takes six to eight weeks. After about eight weeks, your ammonia and Nitrite levels should be acceptable (about trace levels), and you can add more fish.
They can survive in a bag for 7 to 9 hours as long as the oxygen levels are high and the water temperature is stable. To ensure that the fish have enough air to breathe, some pet store owners add oxygen to the water in the bags. The fish can then survive for 48 hours without issue.
Treat tap water with Bioactive Tapsafe. Use the right temperature water. Allow your water to reach room temperature for coldwater aquariums, or heat it to match the temperature of the tank for tropical set ups. Don't overfill your aquarium.