Soldato
- Joined
- 8 Sep 2003
- Posts
- 23,173
- Location
- Was 150 yds from OCUK - now 0.5 mile; they moved
How long has the tank been running with fish? Setup the tank on 27th December, added fish around 7 days later.
What fish are in there? Ermmmm, no idea what they are called lol
How much water % do you normally change per week? Been changing about 15% every 10 days or so
What dechlorinator are you using? I used a kit from Petsathome, with a day 1, day 14 and day 21 pouch.
Do you have access to Seachem Prime or Seachem Safe? I assume that is a product I can buy?
Have you checked for rotting food inside the filter? Yes, filter was run under the tap to clean it last week - since found out that is a bad move.
In your situation, I would...
Syphon some of the existing water into a fish-safe bucket (so bucket is less than ~25% full)
Net fish into bucket
Syphon rotting food from tank floor
Remove rotting food from filter with care (i.e. don't rinse media to death to lose what few beneficial bacteria it might contain) using some extracted tank water
If you normally change at least ~20% of the water weekly (in my opinion ~50% is far better, especially with small tanks <100 litres, where the tank water can turn very toxic very quickly)...
Remove all but the final ~10% water of overall tank volume
Refill tank with fresh dechlorinated water (Seachem products can be safely overdosed following their instruction to safely detoxify some ammonia and nitrite)
Use some airline to drip new tank water into the bucket containing fish until bucket is at least ~75%, or add ~150ml to the bucket using a cup every ~5mins
Net fish back into tank
Top up tank with fresh dechlorinated water
How much fresh dechlorinated water you introduce in a short space of time to fish that are used to toxic conditions can be lethal, google "old tank syndrome." In such situations, you should add no more than ~15% of the current tank water volume of fresh dechlorinated water each day, to prevent the fish dying of shock.
Did a 50% water change and I have bought these.
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