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Russ - In comment to the 1g "change all water" comment, I'd like to advise that's not entirely a good idea. The water should always remain good (ammonia, and nitrite levels) if you keep a good filtration system with at least a bio wheel, and do not over feed. Changing all the water in the tank can be a shock to the fish (through varying temperature, substaintial loss of beneficial bacteria), and potentially shock the filtration system haboring your beneficial bacteria. I don't suggest ever changing more than 20% of your water at any given time. The only time you should change all your water is if it some kind of toxic material has poisened it.
- Oct 4, 2001
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Michelle M. - With a tank as small as a 1g, you really do need to change the entire water supply at least once a week. It's good to also use a turkey baster to take out waste and uneaten food. The ammonia level builds up fast in a container that small.
- Jan 14, 2001
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niktyler - Some people use turkey basters, however I prefer to use a section of rigid air tubing (the smallest I can get), and cut a length of flexible air tubing and attach it to the rigid one. (the length of the rigid tubing depends on the height of the containers being cleaned.. I usually make them about an 1" taller than the container).
To get them started, if you're cleaning the tanks (i.e. removing the water), then, rather than using your own suction power (i.e. like sucking a straw) and risking getting fish water in your mouth (yuck), you can hold the hose under running tap water (running strong enough to push the water through the tubing) until it fills all of the tubing up. Then "cork" it with a thumb or finger (preferably the flexible end, as the rigid side is what will go into the container), and place the rigid end into the tank and uncork the other side.. (make sure you have a bucket on that end. ;o) ) It will slowly suck the waste off of the bottom of the tank/jar/container and into the bucket. When you've cleaned up all the waste, "cork" the flexible end again w/your finger or thumb and remove the rigid end from the tank.
If you don't want to have to always run the tubing under running water to get it started, you can fold up the tubing, make sure both ends are even w/each other, and stick the tubing in an empty jar with the ends up.. the water will stay (maybe a little very slow evaporation) until your next cleaning.
Simply replace the water that was removed by the 'vacuuming' with fresh, de-chlor'd & aged water, and you're done.
If you don't have any sick fish, you can usually use the same tubing for all the containers, but when you have a sick fish, you'll want to make a separate one for it. Then when it's recovered, you'll want to treat the tubing w/bleach water (run it through as if you were cleaning your bettas tank), and then run tap water through it, then run water that's been treated w/de-chlor through it. (that's if you are watching your pennies and don't want to buy more tubing... otherwise, just throw it away and buy more tubing to make new vacuums.)
- Jan 14, 2001
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roger - i hear that with fish you dont ever have to
change water because the fish clean the water
for y
- Sep 15, 2001
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- That last one from Roger is completly
incorrect. They do NOT clean their own
water!
- Sep 26, 2001
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Ah Tan - I use a dropper to suck the bottom waste of my betta containers. However I did not scrub the sides of the containers. I just do partial water changes and the betta seems bery happy with that.
- Sep 2, 2001
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