AVOIDING DEATHS IN NEW TANKS
Starting a new aquarium is an exciting venture, but for many amateur aquarists, the joy can be cut short by the mysterious premature death of their new fish. The secret to success, often overlooked, lies not in the fish or the plants, but in an invisible, living foundation: The colony of beneficial bacteria in your filter.
Source: kb.rspca.org.au
Here are some essential steps to avoid deaths in your new tank;
1) The Critical First Week and the "Bacteria Boost"
Many people do not realize that the best aquarium they can buy is one that has been set up to operate for over seven days! The reason has to do with the amount of breakdown bacteria present in the filter bed. These bacteria are essential for converting fish excrement, urine, and waste food into harmless by-products that plants use as fertilizer.
To prevent premature fish death, any aquarium should have a fairly large quantity of these bacterial colonies. Experienced fish keepers with aged tanks know that bacterial colonies are highly concentrated on the gravel bed of their under-gravel filter (UG) and that the build-up is gradual over time.
Source: aquariumscience.org
Therefore, a young aquarist buying a newly set-up tank with a UG filter should ideally:
1. Request a filter that has already been in use.
2. Demand part of the gravel bed from an old operative filter to be used in the new tank.
Source: Nature Magnified
Where these two options are not possible, you can add a tablespoonful of flower pot earth or borrow a little "mulm" (the decomposed waste and bacteria-rich sludge) from a fellow aquarist. This kick-starts the vital bacterial colony.
Source: Tannin Aquatics
2) Feeding and Maintenance - Don't Kill with Kindness!
Once your tank is set up, another thing to watch out for is the quantity of food. Very little should be given during the first three weeks. This doesn't mean you should starve your fish—without food, no bacterial flora forms. The food supply for the bacteria should be increased only very gradually.
Proper maintenance is equally crucial. Fish keepers with old functional aquariums should avoid "General Cleaning"; that is, washing of sand/gravel, scrubbing of tank walls, and complete water changes, so as not to disturb the bacterial flora.
When you have to ‘service’ your tank, it should just be the removal of the mulm and dead leaves sufficient to ensure adequate flow through the filter, and no more. The bad habit of replacing the entire filter material or the soiled part with fresh material is detrimental to fish life. Most bacteria live in the sludge at the bottom of the tank, so don’t throw them away!
Many maintenance services indulge in complete overhauls, which invariably lead to fish death. Some even make the unforgivable mistake of washing the aquarium with detergents.
Think about it: in a natural river bed, no one experiences a complete overhaul. Heavy rains may cause a partial or complete change of the water, cleaning the bed, but the foundation remains. This is nature’s method of ‘servicing’ the fish’s environment. So why don’t we all adopt nature’s method?
Professional aquatic pet dealers who know their trade ‘service’ aquariums in this gentle, natural way. For the committed aquarist, the best advice is to learn this method and maintain your tank yourself. Your fish will thank you for it with their long, healthy lives.
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