How should I setup and take care of my 10L planted aquarium tank?
A2A. Since its just a 10L aquarium, I would not suggest that you put any fish in it. Fish require more room to swim and live. Also, a 10 L tank is easy to maintain and high plant growth can be maintained even by using dirt as a substrate. You can collect some soil from your garden, microwave it and add it as the base of your tank. It takes a week to settle in properly. A cleaner alternative would be to use sand, and mix it with a pre soaked soil enricher (You can get it at any nursery store, its black and smells like humus). After this, fill the tank with water.After everything has settled(perform a few water changes), now you need light. A 10L can be easily illuminated by a 30-40 watt cfl bulb. Remember, give 7-8 hrs of light. Now coming to the plants, you can try Sagittaria, Microswords, hygrophila polysperma, cryptycorne or aponogeton crispus. these plants are easy to keep and grow fast. You can also try Java fern, it requires little care. Once your plants have establised after a few months, you can add small snails like the ramshorn or pond snails and a Betta fish at most. Goodluck!
Washed some aquarium decor in diluted bleach. They still smell like bleach. Are they safe to put back in?
They are ABSOLUTELY NOT SAFE to put back in. Allow these pieces of decor to sit in direct sunlight for a day or two to allow lethal (to tropical fish) Chlorine to evaporate off harmlessly.
Is using Super Glue at an aquarium safe?
Yes.Super Glue is cyanoacrilate.Cyanoacrylates, once they polimerize, are safe. And they polimerize in contact with water.They are even used as medical adhesives in humans (2-Octyl cyanoacrylate).They also are the standard way to glue coral frags to live rock in marine aquaria. If corals can take that, you can’t go any safer.It also has the convenience of being possible to use it directly underwater if you have some skill, so there’s no need to tear apart a rock setup just to glue a new coral frag to the live rock.I’ve even successfully used it to “suffocate” nasty algae: after removing as much of them as I could, just covering all of the affected area with cyanoacrilate. This will look ugly for some time, so I don’t reccomend doing it if your algal problem is extensive; however, if it’s just a spot, I think this is the safest way to eradicate it.Over time, benevolent algae, coral or some other sessile organisms will grow over it and it will no longer be visible.In freshwater tanks, however, you should use it sparingly, as the amount of things that can grow over it is limited. This is only an aesthetical limitation. But you can use it to attack plants to decoration or to build some decoration without any issue.
I have an used aquarium that once housed gerbils... can I clean this and use it for goldfish?
I just received an aquaruim from a woman on a local free cycle site... she said she kept a gerbil in it at one time. I just cleaned it the best I could without soap or any other cleaning solution... I also Iet some water soak in it for about a day and a half before I tried to clean it out to see if any water would leak out. After I thought I had finished cleaning it, I noticed that there was some residue in the corners in the bottom... It seems very difficult to remove with just water and takes a lot of scratching. Its kind of thin and whiteish... I wonder if it might be gerbil pee. Is there any way to remove this? Maybe if there were ever fish in here before could that have left some sort of buildup like this? ...anyways, I guess the real question is how can I make this tank safe for goldfish?
Fish Tank Smells ????
Fish tanks build up beneficial bacteria then convert fish waste (ammonia) into nitrites. Other bacteria develop that convert the nitrites into less harmful nitrates. Your weekly 20% water changes keep the nitrates from reaching toxic levels. If you change too much water, of do too thorough a job, the bacteria go into shock or starve and die off, allowing a build up of ammonia while they regrow. Hence the smell of urine (ammonia). The best thing you can do for a new tank is to wait for the bacteria to establish itself. If the tank has fish in it, the cause is usually overfeeding. The bacteria cannot deal with the excess food fast enough and the water starts to go foul. The water will need to be changed every three days for a few times (only 20%) to keep the amount of toxicities down and food should be restricted to every other day to make it easier on the bacteria. Polluted water will kill the fish a lot faster then missing a few meals. In future, the fish should be fed a lot less. A
Is bleach suitable for cleaning fish tank ornaments or not?
It should be safe to use bleach on nonporous rocks and natural gravel, but for tank ornaments it is not safe, especially long term. Over time, bleach can etch glass, causing a blurriness to the surface like that on some bathroom windows. If you use bleach on wood, plastic items, silk plants, or equipment with plastic components, the bleach will make the plastic, silk, or wood weak and brittle, and de-colorize it. Except for artificial plants, where the change is obvious from the start, it may not be noticeable from one use but the damage builds up each time. When moving parts in filters and ornaments break, it is later so you don't connect the problem with the bleach, but bleach was the cause of early failure. Dechlor and complete air drying remove the danger of the bleach to fish and live plants, but the damage is already done to the equipment. Trapdoor snails are largely immune to the effects of bleach, unless there is a hole or crack in their shells. They close up and wait for the smell to go away. A good alternative to bleach is hydrogen peroxide, sometimes called oxygen bleach compared to chlorine bleach. Instead of relying on chlorine to combine with target and non-target molecules for cleaning and sterilization, hydrogen peroxide uses oxygen, so it only needs rinsing, not a dechlor, to make the cleaned object safe. Instead of chlorinated organic compounds, the residue of hydrogen peroxide is oxygen and water. Both safe. Tiny amounts of hydrogen peroxide can be mixed into a working aquarium to eliminate algae and detritus while not affecting fish and live plants. In high concentrations, it will foam and it will kill trapdoor snails. Instead of closing up and waiting for the chemical to dissipate, the snails don't seem to recognize H2O2 as a danger and let it in. Small amounts of hydrogen peroxide increase the dissolved oxygen levels in the aquarium, benefiting the fish, activating the cycling bacteria we cultivate, and reducing the opportunities for anaerobic bacteria to establish a hold.