Nub Freshwater Maintenance

iboG

iboG

AC Members
Apr 21, 2012
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Medicine hat, AB
Real Name
Kyle
As I stated in my intro topic, I just got a 33g tank and have been having fun researching all the intricacies of running such a cool life source.

My questions are, what are some of the basic and not so basic areas that I need to look at in providing healthy bacteria for my fish, cleaning of my tank sides, gravel or substrate, and my fluval filter, and caring for my fish (feeding, water changes etc etc)? I have a few basics down but I've been getting a lot of different answers pertaining to water changes, feeding, and the nitrogen cycle.

Currently I'm using a C2 fluval and I know that's the bare minimum I can have with this tank. I have a small piece of drift wood, a small rock and 3 plastic plants (1 small 2 medium). I think they have ample hiding spots. I get my local pet store, Petland, to do water checks for ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites so I only have readings of pink or not pink or within normal levels. My ammonia levels have started to sink and my nitrates and nitrites are starting to rise which leads me to believe my cycle is nearing it's end. I'm hoping so because I have some cloudy water.

It's not VERY cloudy, but enough to be noticeable. I'm using Nutrafin Cycle that's supposed to offer healthy bacteria growth. I'm also using Nutrafin BioClear. However, it's still cloudy.

Is there anything else I should be doing?

My fish I have is a Sailfin Molly, a few bright red platys, 2 neon tetras, 2 blackskirt tetras, a pleco, 3 loho loaches (to replace my crabs that started eating my **** fish), and 2 dalmation mollys. I took the crabs back and got the loho's.

So, help a brother out!

And thanks :D
 
Hello,
Quite a few questions, so I'm sorry if I miss anything. As far as water changes go, it really depends on your stocking/feeding situation. I would change no less than 25% a week. Normal tank maintenance it pretty much easy, just do your weekly water changes, and clean out your filters once a month or so. With a canister as big as I have, I just wait until the flow has been blocked a little to clean it. Just be sure to keep the sides of the tank clean of algae etc. If you have growing fish, I would feed twice a day, if not I would just put it down to once a day. Make sure not to overfeed.

As far as the bacteria suppliments go, I just think they are useless for how expensive they are. I just do a 50% water change every other day if I'm doing a fish in cycle.(I check water parameters before and after)

I would look into getting a liquid freshwater test kit. The strip tests that your local pet store uses are known to be inaccurate.

For your cloudiness, I would just do a few water changes.

By pleco do you mean a common pleco? If so you might want to rehome him. They can get well over a foot when grown. The myth that fish grow to the size of their tank is horse hockey. If in a tank too small, The skeleton of the fish will stop growing, but its insides will not, which eventually leads to stunted growth, and their organs will slowly crush eachother as they grow, leading to a slow and painful death. If you like plecos though, I would suggest one that stays small like a bristlenose pleco or a clown pleco.
 
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Appreciate the reply Manafel.

As for feeding, the back of the food package says 2-3 times a day. My pet store ranges from 2-3 times a day as well to once every 2 days... What is considered overfeeding for something like this? What's a good bearing for it?

I've done a water change (20L) once every 2-3 days and for some reason or another, my tank is not getting any clearer than it is now. It's been at about the same level for a week. FYI, I have a neat little trick that I figured out. Probably lots of people have figured this out before me but I'll post it anyways... I use a 20L culligan jug, one of the big jugs you can buy for reversed osmosis water or whatever. I stuck a thermometer to the side of it and spray water from the tab straight onto the strip. Allows me to pretty much get the exact same temperature as the tank. Also, I'm using a Nutrafin tap water conditioner every jug.

And by Pleco I meant a common pleco yes. I do have a home for him once he gets to a bigger size, but for right now, he's about 2 inches.
 
Ok great glad to hear you have the pleco situation undefined control.

That's a pretty neat trick if you have smaller tanks, bigger tanks are a bit more of a challenge ;)

Overfeeding can cause a few things:
1. Any left over food will decompose
2. The more you feed your fish, the more waste they will produce.
Both of these will cause nitrates, its not detrimental to your fish, just potentially to your water quality.

I'm assuming that the cloudiness you are getting is what's called an algae bloom. While you are cycling your tank, I would only feed your fish about once every 2-3 days. Fish in the wild normally go even longer without food.
 
Can the algae bloom last for a month? I've had the tank for over a month now, and it's the same stuff. It's quite cloudy and is barely any better over the last few days. Normal?
 
Put a bunch of nerite snails in there; they'll destroy your algae and won't reproduce and overpopulate your tank.
 
The tank is in our living room beside a large window that is always open during the day. So yea, it pretty much has daylight all day.

I'm using a cheap substrate as for now... I have a some garbage blue purple gravel and wanted to switch to something like pool filter sand. I heard that stuffs good. Any opinions? I really like the looks of sand or something very close to it. Any other options I could have?

I thought the pleco's job was to get rid of algae on my glass?
 
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