Fish: Re: [tropical fish club] New fish keeper/tropical fish tank

Hi Sue, congrats on your progress.
In order to answer your filter media question I have to ask, so I'm sure what you are using... is the media you have in there Polyfilter or PuraPad? If it is the Polyfilter you cannot continue to use it long term and should instead be using PuraPad. Polyfilter is great for a quick fix, but used long term it will begin to drop your pH and cause other water chemistry problems that can be quite difficult to fix safely. What color is the new pad in the package? Polyfilter is all white, PuraPad has a white side and a brown side. Once I know the media for sure, then I can advise you on how often to change it out.

In regards to the gravel vac situation, no, it is not good for the plants to be uprooted regularly, this will cause multiple problems with growth and reproduction. If the tank is not over stocked with animals and not over fed, there should be no need to uproot plants regularly. The filter media should be enough to handle the nitrates in the tap water as well as normal tank waste, now that things are "caught up" and not overwhelming the system anymore, which should bring down the need for such heavy gravel vacs so frequently.

Again, if the tank is not over populated or over fed, the average gravel vac is only needed about once/month, and removing plants should not be needed. Typically in a healthy planted tank, gravel vac'ing is done around the plants without pulling them up.

So glad to hear things have gotten better. :-)

Dawn

Dawn Moneyhan
Aquatics Specialist/Nutritionist
To learn more about me go to
http://www.helium.com/users/449334

--- On Fri, 9/3/10, suemfrancis <peterelectrician@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

From: suemfrancis <peterelectrician@tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: [tropical fish club] New fish keeper/tropical fish tank
To: tropicalfishclub@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, September 3, 2010, 1:37 PM

Hi Dawn/Group

Since changing over my filter media to polyfilter, planting more, and dong deep gravel cleaning my high nitrate levels of 40+ (high nitrate tap water) has stabilised to 10. PH still 8, amonia 0, nitrite 0.

Very grateful for the advice.

The remaining 10 fish and 2 amano shrimps are looking good.

The question I have (probably for Dawn) is the filter I have replaced the media in is a Stingray. I cut the filter media to the shape of the original filter, I needed two pieces for the width, which were not quite enough, but three needed to be jammed in. So I just put two in.

Now the filter media has becaome floppy I have added a new third piece to make up the width as it fits now. Shall I replace one of these three every three or four weeks (or how do you know when to replace?).

The other question I have is I do a 10% water change every 3/4 days deep cleaning the gravel, but as it is a small tank with lots of plants I have to take them out in order to clean the gravel. When the root system has spread under the gravel - is this ok in the long term to keep disturbing the roots.

Sue Francis

Coulsdon, Surrey, England

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