VISITOR'S QUESTIONS
15... Dirty Water
The filtration system you have is fine, this is the
system I use myself, and provided you clean the gravel regularly there
is no problems with undergravel filtration. The problem you have with
your aquarium is water quality, and is precisely what I suspected, as
I explained in my reply to your last query, this is why your platy and
guppy died.
First of all, as I mentioned before, you must bear
in mind that you are running a minimum sized aquarium, and I don't know
how much stock you have in it. Secondly, it is vital that you maintain
this aquarium to the full, partial water changes, filter cleaning, and
gravel cleaning are extremely important and must be carried out at least
every two weeks on an aquarium of this size, weekly if it is well stocked.
An aquarium of the size you indicate cannot accommodate more than about
24 inches or 60 centimetres of fish. i.e. 12 fishes of 2 inches or 5
centimetres, or 8 fishes of 3 inches or 7.5 centimetres and so on.
Thirdly, the air pump does not supply oxygen to the
aquarium water; it is an aid to dispersing unwanted gases from the water.
The amount of oxygen in your aquarium water is dependant on the surface
area of water in the tank, oxygen is absorbed from the atmosphere via
the waters surface. That is why it is important that the surface area
be greater than the depth of an aquarium.
Lastly, to address the question you ask, and added
to what I have said above, I would suggest that you are feeding to often.
I consider feeding just once a day to be quite adequate. It is very
likely that most of the food that you put into the aquarium is not being
eaten, and is falling to the bottom where it will decay. Besides this,
the fishes will be producing more waste, and this combination is affecting
your water quality. Try feeding a small quantity of flake, instead of
pellet, just once a day, just enough for the fishes to consume in two
or three minutes. Also if you are to feed bloodworm, only feed this
once or twice a week, don't feed the flake and bloodworm together, i.e.
feed bloodworm instead of flake.
All that I have explained here can be found within
the web site, and would be of benefit to you if you studied each chapter
carefully, especially the pages on
Setting Up,
Water Quality,
Feeding
, and Maintenance.
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