Not sure if this is the right place to post.. but yea..

I was just wondering if any of you have aquarium at home. I recently bought an aquarium for my mother because she's always been wanting one. Most of the time I'm very busy and whenever I'm free, I tend to stay with my g/f, so I want her to at least have something to do at home. However, I feel it's quite complex after reading manual. Need to like clean the tank weekly, use different kinds of stuff to keep the tank clean and whole bunch of technical stuff. I currently have 10 gallon tank with 4 goldfish in it (the staff told me that's the max capacity). I'm not sure if anyone here have aquarium at home and would like to share some experiences. Thanks in advance.

 

Overkill. First off, goldfish are very hardy. Weekly cleanings are not necessary. You need to clean the walls when algea grows, but this is primarily for aesthetics. You need to change the water because it will get dirty and eventually become toxic to the fish. It's a good idea so suck it from the bottom, using one of those tubes that cleans the rocks. This will remove crap and rotten food that settles on the bottom. For four goldfish in a tank, I would swap out 25% of the water every 3 to 4 weeks. Smaller changes over smaller intervals are better than larger changes over larger intervals. If she's bored, the fish wouldn't complain about a 20% change every 2 weeks. In reality, the fish could probably go months without a change.

When you have expensive fish, you will want to keep your eye on pH, water hardness, levels of nitrate, phosphate, and ammonia. But seriously, these are gold fish.. fill a bucket with water.. let it sit for a day or two, take out 20-25% from the tank, and pour in the bucket.

Rule of thumb for fish in a tank is one inch of fish for every gallon of water. So, you could stock that tank with 10 inches of fish.

 

10 gallon tank with 4 goldies is really stretching it. goldfish are criminal when it comes to pollution and waste - plus these guys get huge. i have a 50 gallon tank with 3 oranda goldies and they pollute like a mofo. depending on what fish you want, get a decent-sized tank, nice filter (aquaclears are great, don't mess with the biowheel filters). cycle the tank (ammonia =0ppm -> nitrites=0ppm -> nitrates <=20ppm) and then you could start adding fish.

 

i currently have a 12 gallon saltwater tank. totally different ballgame so dont get into that unless you have a lot of time, money and knowledge about it.

anyway, i've keep a 20 gallon freshwater tank for the past 6 years too. once you get it established, it can be really easy to take care of and you wont have to do much. dont listen to the 1 in of fish per gallon rule. you have to consider how large the fish will grow. you can buy 10, 1 in long fish, but if they are all going to grow to 4 inches in a year or two, then you have way too much.

 

forget the gold fish and get momz some of these guys.

 

Get algae feeders and keep the tank out of direct sunlight

 

Never said the rule didn't compensate for growth. The rule pretty much holds up. If the fish become larger, then clarly they will outgrow the tank. This is common sense.

 

Wow... this place is like an encyclopedia. People are talented and experienced with various type of things .
hm... I'm kinda worried about the damn tank size now.. I guess for now 10 gallon is fine, but maybe some years later definitely need some replacement.

I'm still a bit confused when it comes to the cleaning though. Goldfish get real dirty so I guess I'll clean bi-weekly. So do I take 25% of water out from the tank and put them in a bucket, and then move all the fish into that bucket? After cleaning do I fill up with remaining 75% of the water in the tank with the new water or pour the old from the bucket?

 

the problem is a lot of people do not think of that and take it into account.

 

when you are doing a water change for a 10 gal, prepare 2-3 gallons ahead of time. for freshwater you dont really have to do anything except let the water sit for the chlorine to disperse. you can buy a thing called "Stress Coat" and squirt some of that in the water. it eliminates the chlorine almost immediately and helps the fish build up a strong slim coating to protect them.

get a syphon (just flexible tubing) and syphon out the appropriate amount of water. toss that and just dump the new water in the tank. you can leave the fish in the tank.

if you have rocks in the bottom of the tank, you might want to get a syphon that has a big opening at the one end. you'll be able to stick it in the rocks and suck up fish crap without sucking up the rocks. but for a new tank, i would let the crap settle in there for a bit. this will help the tank cycle and maintain a good nitrogen cycle.

a lot of times when you add fish to a brand new tank they die. it's because it's a shock to the system so to speak. fish need a certain amount of bacteria in the water and a brand new tank doesnt have that. leaving the crap in there for a bit will build up that bacteria. after a while you can syphon some of that out.