New Aquarium Water Quality ?

Question
QUESTION: Hello Nicole,
I have a recently started a 10 gallon aquarium (this is my first aquarium also).  I have been to this site before when I first set up the aquarium (about 1 - 2 months ago) and it was recommended (after fish loss) that I cycle my tank fishlessly.  I have done this and on Sunday my nitrite and ammonia levels were finally at 0, nitrates were at 40 ppm (I thought this was an acceptable number, but upon further research this evening, it appears this should be at 20 ppm or less?) so I was excited that I could add fish now, which I did on Sunday.  So, after 3 days, since I am new to aquariums, I took a water sample to the pet store today just to make sure everything was ok with the water.  The pet store uses the strips, I use the liquid drop test kit - the pet store confirms my testing of 0 nitrites and 0 ammonia, but says my nitrates are at 80 ppm.  I came home this evening and checked the water quality again with my test kit, and got 40 ppm.  At any rate, I guess both of these levels are still too high.  The pet store recommended I add BioBoost, and the label reads that this product will quickly boost my nitrogen cycle.  As I thought I had already pretty much completed my nitrogen cycle, I am kind of wondering if I should add this product to my aquarium?  Or would some type of water change be more appropriate?  Or do nothing for a few more days to see if things stabilize?  Also, sorry, I have added 2 black swordtails and 2 zebra danios to the tank, it has a Cascade 80 filter and a bubbler in it.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Tracy

ANSWER: Hi Tracy,

Kudos to you for doing your research! I love to see that.

In all honesty, the only additive you need is dechlorinator that neutralizes chlorine and chloramine, if your tap water has chlorine in it. Bacterial additives might be useful for some things, in some instances (my only real faith is in those that are refrigerated...) but in your case, you have *zero* need for these since your cycle is complete!

Remember, nitrates are the end product of the nitrogen cycle. Whatever you used to fishless cycle - be it some flake, or a piece of cocktail shrimp - deteriorated quickly into ammonia, and then slowly became nitrite, only to eventually morph into nitrate. The only thing that can remove nitrates is a) a water change or b) plants! They use nitrates as fertilizers, so a planted tank doesn't need water changes as frequently to remove nitrates. It does need water changes for other reasons - to add back trace elements, and restore the minerals responsible for buffering the aquarium. A tank with infrequent water changes becomes acidic over time, this is called "old tank syndrome".

Anyhow, the point is - you don't need to do anything except a water change. 50% won't hurt, but you can do half that much. It should drop your nitrates right away! Another thing you can do is add plants such as hornwort or water sprite. Be sure to dip all plants, unless you're OK with a snail take over! More here:
http://www.aquariaplants.com/plantdipsbaths.htm

Enjoy your new tank, and don't be afraid to do 50% water changes weekly. The bacteria are colonized on your filter media and gravel bed - not your water, really. Just take it easy on gravel vacuuming, you shouldn't need to do it for a couple of months. If you find lots of detritus at the bottom, you're probably overfeeding. These fish will probably only need a smidgen of flakes or pellets!

Neale Monks is the certified expert in breeding as far as I'm concerned, do read his article on wetwebmedia.com:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwbrdgmonks.htm

Of course you may have no interest in breeding, but both the species you chose are easy to breed!

I hope that helps. Take care,
Nicole

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Nicole,
Thanks so much for your advice, it was great.  I just had a few more questions then regarding changing the water.  I have read that I should possibly get a bucket (clean, never used) to put new water in and treat it with the dechlorinator, but I guess I am uncertain as to how I would get the water temp to match, or is that not a great concern, as long as it feels close to the touch?

Also, I was wondering how often I should change my filter cartridge, and how I should go about changing it (I have read I should change the cartridge every 30 days)?  The filter cartridge I have is an insert with like a floss exterior and carbon inside (description of the filter and cartridges if you want to check them out http://store.worldpetstore.com/ca80pofi.html, http://www.amazon.com/Cascade-Filter-Cartridges-CASCADE-CARTRIDGES/dp/B0002DJC8Q). I have read a lot of different things and was uncertain if I should just rinse it (or a new one if appropriate) in the water I am removing from the aquarium for my water changes?  

Also, FYI, I do not have a gravel bed in the tank.  Again, there are so many different pieces of advice on the net I had read that it wasn't necessary if I wasn't going to have live plants.  The only other thing in the tank are rock (fake) with some fake plants attached to the rock.

Thanks again for your help and advice!

Tracy

ANSWER: Hi again Tracy!

I don't use a bucket because my upper body strength is not the best - hee! Instead I fill up empty gallon sized Zephyrhills water bottles for my water changes. That's just the brand of bottled water I drink - I buy them by the gallon, drink them, and then use them for water changes. However if you can manage a bucket, that's fine. Dechlorinator does take a minute or two to work, it helps to "spray" the water in with your sink sprayer, or if you don't do that, just shake the water or stir it with a spoon. I used to always shake my water bottles to mix the dechlorinator up. And I absolutely just always match the tap water's temperature by touch. I bet I always do it a little on the warm side, but that's no cause for concern.

You should probably change those disposable filter cartridges weekly for the best results. I compromised and changed them twice a month, but now that I don't use disposable media, life is much simpler. I have AquaClear filters, mostly, but even the ones that are not AquaClear are full of AquaClear media! I use the foam sponges and the Biomax, because these are rinseable and reusable. AC filters come in many different sizes, so surely there is a size that fits your Cascade filter. If you decide you tire of having to buy replacement filter cartridges, then that's the media I recommend instead. I believe it is healthier for the tank, because the biological bacteria never gets "wiped out" by an all-out filter change. Those cartridge filters inevitably need to be changed sometime, so that does (in my mind, at least) cause an interruption, however brief, of the beneficial bacteria. Carbon is icing on the cake in a freshwater tank, and your stocking level is so low you probably don't even need it. It makes the water crisper, removing the yellow tinge, and it also eliminates any odor. But it only last about a week, after which it just becomes another biological host - so I figure, why not just get something engineered specifically for biological filtration, if I'm not replacing the cartridges weekly?

If you are going to replace the cartridges just once a month, I recommend you rinse them weekly using the tank's own water - that's right! Tap water is detrimental to the bacteria, although if it's treated with dechlorinator it ought to be all right. Still though, in the long run, I would recommend for your own sake you switch to reusable media, such as the kind that AquaClear has to offer.

The gravel isn't going to be too terribly missed, but it is useful, in my opinion. Besides just making the tank look more natural and aesthetically pleasing, it does harbor beneficial bacteria to some extent. Not nearly as much as the filter, but it counts for something. If you don't have gravel, and you don't plan to, and you have the tank on a stand that's open in the middle, reach under there and tape some dark (black, dark green/blue) construction paper to the bottom. Fish don't like light coming out from the bottom of the tank - it's unnatural! Their colors deepen and they relax more, if the bottom is dark, the way it is intended to be. Other than that, you seem like you're doing just fine.

Keep reading, and you will be all set. It looks like you've done a great deal of reading already! It's what makes you "sink or swim" in this hobby (no pun intended) and it's what usually determines whether someone is a keeper for this hobby or a short timer - people who refuse to read end up with fish that are sick and die. Fish are hard creatures to take care of, if you haven't read up on it at all. As I always say, everyone knows a litter box needs to be changed, and if you overfeed a dog it's not much of a big deal. In the fishkeeping world, no water changes means a deadly accumulation of waste, and overfeeding is probably the most common ways people accidentally kill their fish.

Let me share with you a few websites I know and trust:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com
http://freshaquarium.about.com

Those should give you consistent information. If you can take the reader input with a grain of salt, there's:
http://badmanstropicalfish.com
http://www.aquahobby.com

I hope that helps, take care!
Nicole

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Nicole,
Sorry to bother you again, but I did my partial water change on Saturday.  I waited until Sunday to check my water, and my nitrates are still at 40 ppm.  I guess I didn't remove enough water..  So I am wondering if I should go ahead and do a part water change again now?  Or wait until next weekened to do it again as I have read that the water changes stress my fishies...  
Also, I have now noticed a lot of white foamy type bubbles across the surface of my aquarium?  Any guesses as to what that might be?  And what, if anything, I should do about it?
I also did check the ammonia and the nitrites again when I checked my nitrates, and they are both still at 0, : ).
Thanks again!
Tracy

Answer
Hi there Tracy,

No bother at all! Sorry I didn't respond yesterday.

Depending on where you live, you can have a few nitrates in your tap water. Not usually a lot, but 10 ppm is not that uncommon. Most tanks always register nitrate. The lowest I can ever get mine is 10 ppm (in my planted 15 gallon tank) but I routinely have 40 ppm nitrates in my cichlid tank. This tank is full of an accidental breeding between a blue P. socolofi and an electric yellow - both African cichlids. While the tank is full of neat looking fish, with blue fins and yellow bodies, I don't intend to give them to a pet store because there's enough African cichlid crossbreeding in the world already. So while these 21 fish need a bigger tank, 55 gallons is as much tank as I can afford, space and money wise. I do weekly water changes, but my nitrates are still usually 40 ppm. C'est la vie! The moral of this story is that nitrates matter a lot to certain species (mollies and marine fish, also Tanganyikan cichlids such as Tropheus) but most freshwater species are OK with nitrates as high as 50 ppm. However the "gold standard" is20 ppm, you're right, and it's even what I recommend to folks, and what I strive for...not always successfully, and it's basically OK.

Most importantly, you ought to know that water changes are not stressful to fish unless the water is of a vastly different temperature or you change 100% at a time. Many fish don't like it when the water dips down below a certain level, because the filter will make an incredible splash - this does seem to terrify some fish. Also, scooping water out seems to stress them more than siphoning it out. I use a gravel vacuum to start the siphon, then close the hood to keep it in place, and just let it dangle there. With my tank in the corner, near the window, it's easy as pie because I just feed the siphon out the window and let the water dribble out. As the tank empties itself, I carry pitcher-fulls of water and pour them in gently.

Once I've temperature-matched the water, I let a gallon jug catch the tap water as I walk to the other room to fill up the tank. This way no water goes to waste and I don't have to keep feeling for the temperature! I usually change about 10 gallons this way, it only takes about half an hour.

Water changes can't always be executed in this way, but should you be lucky enough to have your tank near enough to a window, that's one way to do it. You can wait until this weekend, but you can also do two water changes weekly, of up to 50%, without hurting your fish at all. In fact, a water change of 50% every other day would be fine too, but in a cycled tank without fry, there's no need to change so much.

As far as the foamy bubbles go, I bet this has to do with what you're feeding and the hardness of your water. I've noticed more foaminess since I moved onto well water and have very alkaline (>300 ppm) water. I also notice this foam will appear if I fed something messy the night before, or if I accidentally dropped in too many flakes or pellets. Once in a while I will give my fish bloodworms, or a few chopped bits of canned mussels. They love this stuff, but it's highly polluting! Any residual uneaten particles (and inevitably, there are some) will degrade and may cause foaminess. You can wick it off with a white, unscented paper towel, but a water change will probably clear it up.

It sounds like you are taking really good care of your tank! When your tank is new, it does need a little extra care and attention. A few extra water changes wouldn't hurt. And all of my tanks have more than one filter on them - over the years, I've collected lots of filters. In the future, you may want to invest in a $10 extra filter from Walmart and stuff it with either cheap disposable filter material (I use PolyFill from the craft dept., it's polyester batting) which will polish your water, removing any unsightly particles... OR you can use re-usable media like the sponges and ceramic media I mentioned before. You may notice that the filters themselves are pretty cheap...it's the filter replacements that get expensive. The companies know this. It's like giving away the razor, hoping you'll buy the razor blades!

Phew! OK, sorry for my long-winded reply...I had too much coffee this morning. :)

Until later,
Nicole