setting up my tropical fish aquarium

Question
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Followup To
Question -
Ma'am -
Thank you for your advice on saving my fish.  Since your advice I have managed to keep most the fish alive.  By most I mean one got stuck in the filter safety suction device in the tank and died, and the other, well that is what I'm writing about.  I have followed your instructions maintaining 30% water changes throughout the week, and last night marked their first weekly water change of 100%, in this I cleaned the gravel out thouroughly and rinsed the filter lightly - not replacing it.  Ha!  Let everything adjust - temperature, etc., added the chemicals, as well as Ph tablets, cycle formula and dechlorinator and surprise surprise, the fish are doing fabulous and the water's not murky this morning.  THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ADVICE, I AM SO HAPPY.  However it brings me to my follow up question.  Before the cleaning I found my ghost shrimp literally cooked at the bottom of the tank, and the water at 84'F.  This was a surprise to me as I set the temperature gauge at 74'F.  After reading the manual that goes with my heater I couldn't find anything wrong with what I had done, yet a little research told me that some heaters are based on watts vs. gallons residing in the tank.  Any advice on this would be helpful, as I do not want to cook my fish.  Thank you for your time Ma'am.

David.

Answer
Hi David, you're very, very welcome!
Keep up the maintance of the weekly or twice weekly water changes of 30%. You may still have ammonia spikes as your aquariums attempts to cycle the beneficial bacteria. You would do best with testing the water daily with ammonia and nitrite test kits and if any of the levels are above safe bounds, do a 50% water change to save the fish which will be severely affected from the toxins. I wouldn't worry about the pH tablets. Fish are very adaptable are can easily thrive at less than ideal pH ranges. Constantly trying to adjust Ph can cause rapid flucuations and very sick fish so just remember, fish thrive at a stable and not specific chemistry.

~84 is quite warm. Make sure you're heater isn't too highly rated for your aquarium. Typically you'll need 5 watts of power per gallon of water. So a 10 gallon would need  50 WATT heater. A very scary thought is your heater might have problems with getting stuck. I've heard horrible stories of heaters becoming stuck and cooking all the fish. I've never had this problem but just make sure your heater is of a good reliable brand--((visatherm has done excellent for me)) Watts per gallon recomendations all vary and it depends on the brand of the heater and how chilly the room is kept however.

And if the room is kept warm enough, some aquariums don't need heaters at all.

Well, I hope this answered your questions! If you have anymore questions or concerns, feel free to email me..

Best wishes and good luck with your aquarium!!
Happy fishkeeping!
Karen~