Frequent Aquarium Questions

• Is there any other means of increasing salinity levels other than evaporation or a product like instant ocean?
  
  
• How often should I clean my aquarium?
  
  
• What's the best way to vacuum the substrate in my tank?
  
  
• How much water should I change and how often?
  
  
• I use carbon in my filters. How often should I change it?
  
  
• I have white deposits on my tank, filters, etc. How do I get rid of it? I have tried lemon juice and OxyClean.
  
  
• After cleaning my tank and changing the filter cartridge, my water had remained cloudy for 2 weeks. What can I do?
  
  
• I just got a 2 gallon tank for my Betta and after about a week my air pump started making fizzing bubbles across the entire tank. What does that mean?
  
  
• I am going to have to move my fish about 800 miles by car...what is the best way to do this without losing any fish in the process? It is about a 12 hour drive.
  
  
• How often should you add sea salt to your aquarium?
  
  

• Is there any other means of increasing salinity levels other than evaporation or a product like instant ocean?
  
  Salinity is actually an incorrect term, though we realize many others have probably used it. The correct term is specific gravity, which is a measurement of how much dissolved solids are in water. The only way to increase the specific gravity is to add more salt. Even evaporation does not have much effect unless a lot of evaporation occurs.
  
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• How often should I clean my aquarium?
  
  The answer to this rather generic question depends on the size and type of aquarium, the filtration with which it is equipped, the number of fish that are kept, and your definition of "cleaning." For most aquariums, if time allows, we recommend 10% water changes done once a week. If you use an under gravel filter, gravel on the bottom, or a bare-bottom tank, we suggest you vacuum out accumulated detritus and debris as you remove water from the tank. Do not vacuum a Jaubert (or plenum) system! Mechanical media in canister and other filters should be rinsed or changed every two weeks. Please note: Biological filter media used to support beneficial bacteria populations should rarely be cleaned, and should NEVER be cleaned in tap water. If biological media becomes clogged, it should be flushed in a bucket of water taken from the aquarium. Algae removal from the tank panels can be done on an as-needed basis, but no more than once a week. Remember that to your fish, your arm and hand look like a giant predator. Each time you reach into your tank, you stress the fish. Fish that get stressed too often get sick and eventually die!
  
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• What's the best way to vacuum the substrate in my tank?
  
  You should vacuum the gravel in your tank as part of the process of removing water during a water change. Use a gravel washer. This is a 2" diameter tube that fits on a much smaller diameter vinyl siphon hose. Some tank cleaning systems hook directly to a sink and use water pressure to create a vacuum in the hose, allowing you to drain the water from your tank to the sink drain without carrying buckets. You should not vacuum the gravel through a filter and pump that puts water back into your aquarium.
  Tanks equipped with under gravel filters should always be vacuumed at every water change. The substrate that is visible in reef tanks should be siphoned free of detritus at every water change. Care should be exercised not to disturb root systems when vacuuming substrate in freshwater planted aquariums.
  Unless you have a reef aquarium or a planted freshwater tank, remove half of the decorations before you remove water from the tank for a water change. Put the other half at on end of the tank, to provide cover for your fish. Vacuum the substrate in rows from front to back, gravel-washing each row thoroughly before going to the next. The trick to gravel-washing is to wash as much gravel as possible while only removing the desired amount of water. If you have removed as much water as you want, but are not finished vacuuming, stop, redecorate, refill the tank, and take up where you left off on the next water change.
  
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• How much water should I change and how often?
  
  Water changes may be done on a regular schedule or as-needed according to water test results. For most aquariums, if time allows, we recommend 10% water changes, done once a week, regardless of test results. If you use an under gravel filter or a shallow layer of gravel on the bottom, we suggest you vacuum out accumulated detritus and debris as you remove water from the tank. At a very minimum, we suggest changing 25% of the water at least once every four weeks. If you are correcting a bad water condition and more than 25% of the water is to be changed, add new water back to the aquarium slowly or do smaller water changes every other day. For water changes in excess of 25%, add one inch of new water every ten minutes so as not to stress fish, or upset the environment. It is possible to change too much water or change water too often, and this happens more than you might think. Always remember that an aquarium should not be a sterile environment that is clean enough to drink out of!
  
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• I use carbon in my filters. How often should I change it?
  
  Every two weeks to once a month. If the biological load is low (the tank is under-stocked), you may stretch this to once every two months. Some carbons or carbon/resin exchange mixtures may advertise that they last longer, and they probably do. Take what they recommend and cut that in half. It's carbon. It works by the process of physical adsorption. It gets clogged. If your filtration system depends on it . . . change it. We may take some heat for this, but one of the reasons we have a web site is so we can bask in the energy created when arguing and discussing the merits of one aquarium technique versus another. To those who would argue this, we say: "Get a microscope. Examine a grain of freshly-washed new carbon at 100X. You'll see hundreds of tiny pores in the structure. Then examine a grain of carbon that's been in your filter for a week. Unless your aquarium is immaculate, the holes will be filled. At that point, it doesn't work anymore." To those who advocate not using carbon at all, we say: "We can dig it! If it's working . . . don't fix it."
  
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• I have white deposits on my tank, filters, etc. How do I get rid of it? I have tried lemon juice and OxyClean.
  
  You were on the right track with the lemon juice. The white deposits are lime, mostly calcium carbonate, which is alkaline. No household chemical should ever be used on anything that will come into contact with aquarium water. We've had OK results with white vinegar, provided it is allowed to soak for several hours, but Python products makes a product called RYDIT, which will dissolve lime deposits. They make two versions, one which can be used on an aquarium and equipment when not in use (a stronger version), and one which can be used on the outside of the aquarium when the tank is set up. You can find it on our web site, by clicking "Aquarium Tools" in the left hand margin, then selecting "Lime Removers" from the pop-up menu.
  
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• After cleaning my tank and changing the filter cartridge, my water had remained cloudy for 2 weeks. What can I do?
  
  You probably cleaned your tank TOO well! When you clean a tank too thoroughly, you destroy the bacteria population that keeps your fish alive and renders ammonia harmless. The bacteria grow back, but until they start adhering to the gravel, your filter and other items in the aquarium, they will live in the water, causing cloudy tank conditions. You simply have to wait it out, and change those filter cartridges every two weeks.
  
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• I just got a 2 gallon tank for my Betta and after about a week my air pump started making fizzing bubbles across the entire tank. What does that mean?
  
  If you mean that air is coming up throgh the gravel in the tank, it sounds as though you have the airstone for the undergravel filter pushed down so far that it is actually releasing air below the gravel which is bubbling up through the gravel. I would lift the air line up a bit so the air rises up the tube and cannot be released below the gravel.
  
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• I am going to have to move my fish about 800 miles by car...what is the best way to do this without losing any fish in the process? It is about a 12 hour drive.
  
  The only guaranteed way to safely make such a long move is to take your fish into an aquarium store that uses oxygen-packing to bag their fish for sale, and let them bag the fish for you. They should use doubled, over-sized bags with about 1/3 water and 2/3 oxygen. The bagged fish should then be packed into styrofoam containers to prevent temperature fluctuations. Expect to pay for the service, the bags and the styrofoam containers. If such a store does not exist within an hour's drive from you, then you'll have to try the hard way. You may experience up to 50% losses with this method: Use large, deep, plastic containers with snap-on lids, and you'll need a battery-operated air pump for each container, and some jugs of fresh spring or distilled water. The containers must be deep enough so that when they are 1/3 full, the fish will be completely covered with water. Fill the containers 1/3 full with half tank water and half spring or distilled water. Divide your fish up between the 1/3 full containers and start the battery air pumps. When the journey is 1/2 over, do a 50% water change on the road. If any fish die during the journey, remove them immediately. Good Luck!
  
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• How often should you add sea salt to your aquarium?
  
  You should never add salt to your aquarium without doing a water change. Salt does not evaporate and if you keep adding salt, the salinity will rise to dangerously high levels. Do a 25% water change once a month, or change 10% every week or two weeks, by remnoving some saltwater and addding new water. When removing water, you should vacuum the substrate (gravel). When your tank evaporates, you should only add plain water, with no salt added.
  
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