Fish Keeping5

It would probably be a good idea at this point to introduce you to the FILTER, of which there are a miriad of types and sizes. The filter we are looking for has to do a few specific jobs. Firstly it has to remove debris and detritus (fish muck!) from the water. Second, it has to remove the toxic chemicals or substances that the fish produce whilst in the process of living. Without going into details, in the process of eating and excreting, fish produce chemicals such as ammonia, which even in small quantities is very lethal to fish. Mind you , its not very nice for us either!. This and other toxic substances can be removed or converted to less toxic substances by BACTERIA. We all know about bacteria, dont we ?. Probably you think of bacteria as something nasty that infects you and makes you ill !. Well there are many millions of types and some of them we cant live without. The ones we are interested in grow and thrive in water. The problem is, when you fill your tank with fresh water from the tap, these bacteria have been removed by the water board for your protection. To get them back patience is needed.
The type of filter we are interested in having is a BACTERIALOGICAL filter. All this means is the filter has either a sponge or pellets or other medium in it that has a very large surface area the water can run over, onto which these bacteria can attatch themselves and thrive on the "dirty" water flowing past them in the filter. Mind you, they need oxygen as well to live and remove this from the water flowing past. there is only one problem with this. IT TAKES TIME. As the bacteria has been removed from your fresh water, setting a tank up and putting fish straight into it is not a good idea, unless of course you want all the water changing work. It takes about six weeks for a filter to get fully operational with a good growth of bacteria, but in the mean time the bit that cleans out the larger debris will need to have been cleaned.
Point to note, DO NOT clean you filter under or in fresh tap water!, the chlorine etc in the water will kill your bacteria you want to flourish and you will be back at square one!. Clean your filter and its bits in the water you are going to change, siphoned from the tank with the odd debris from the gravel. You were going to change some of the water weekly, weren't you?. Its a good practice to change about 20% of the water about once a week, this gives you a chance to "vacuum" any dead plant or "Mulm" off the bottom of the tank. Dont forget to ensure that the water you put in is at the same temperature as the tank, normally about 76 deg. F and you have added a dechrorinator to it. As I am a radio ham as well, I have a 12volt dc supply in my fishouse/shack and I have a "Whale" 12v caravan water pump I use to pump the water up into the tanks from buckets. No more lifting water up for me!. Another point when you set your tank up to remember, you need the bucket higher than the tank to siphon it, so keep this in mind when positioning your tank. The wife wont stand for holding up 30lbs of water up in the air for ten minutes!. So, the moral of this tale is that you really need to set the tank up well in advance of getting any fish. Stock it with plants and if you want a few rocks (remember to make sure they are not calcious (containing calcium) ) which will harden the water, they are clean and not toxic. If in doubt buy some from a local aquarist shop. Pick ones without sharp edges your fish can injure themselves on, or sandpaper any sharp edges off. If you want to speed up the growth of the bacteria there are many "starter" mixtures on the market. I personally use "Establish" by T.A.P. These will kick start the growth instead of waiting for the bacteria to "drop out of the air". If you must have fish in immediatly, try about six white cloud mountain minnows, they eat very little and therefore give out little into the water, which gives the filter time to get going The main test used by most for water quality is its NITRITE level. (see FISHDOC.CO.UK). A kit for testing the level can be bought at any petshop.
I use a HAGEN nitrite test kit as I think this gives good value for 75 tests. Beginning to get some idea of the outlay now? You havent finished spending yet, not by a long chalk!. By now you should have your two tanks, hoods, lighting, gravel, plants,buckets(keep only for fish use), nets (buy the white ones the green ones are too rough on fish),piping, filter, filter mediums, water test kit, fish food, heaterstats,tank thermometer and hand water thermometer, vacuum siphoner,glass cleaner etc ,etc, etc. More later when my fingers relax. Dave.