water changes

[bailey1993]

Besides adding Aqua-Safe to the water, is there anything else I should be doing to the tap water before adding it to the tank? Should I boil it? I do heat it up a bit before adding it too. My ammonia is still at 1 ppm per api test kit even though I do daily water changes. The cae is going to the lfs on Wednesday of next week. I hate to let him go though, I got him with the tank my Auunt gave him. {reminder-5 gallon tank, still not cycled, 5 Neons plus 1 cae. currently Nitrites @0- .25 ; Nitrates @ 10 and Ammonia Staying @ 1}

[jay2487]

No need to heat just set it by your tank for a few hours to make sure the chlorine evaporates and the temp regulates. Have you transferred any media from another tank or old filter? I just recently learned about cycling from northernguy and others on here but the way I read it is it is much harder when the tank has fish and even more hard when it's that small.

[Neon]

you need to use a dechlorinator.

[Northernguy]

No boiling,no heating.
Just match the temp of the water to the temp of the water in the tank.Add dechlorinator or prime.

[bailey1993]

the water wont be the same temp as the tank even if I let it sit out. The tank temp is almost 80 degrees and the house temp is at 70 ish up here in western New York, so that is why I heat it up a bit before adding new water to tank for these daily water changes.

[bailey1993]

I didnt find this site until after setting this tank up and having had the fish in it for a couple of weeks. as i said before it is a shame this site doesn't come up when you put in fish in a search engine. I had looked around the web for info re Neons before I got the tank, because I knew those are what I had always wanted but I didn't see anything about cycling. The tank was given to me with some fish so the fish less cycle would have involved giving up the fish which i would have done if I had known. I am willing to work hard to get this tank working properly and save up for a bigger one. the CAE is going to a good home this week. No i didn't get any media from an established tank. Would it be a okay to add it now if i could get some.Thanks for all the help. I feel bad about this situation and always having to ask questions and not contribute anything to this site.

[ISquishWorms]

Hello Bailey,

Adding media from another tank will be of benefit if you are still cycling. There are a few things to keep in mind though. Firstly make sure as much as possible that the tank you get the media from is disease free. Only use media from a tank that looks to hold healthy fish and has not had any recent cases of fish diseases. You don't want to be introducing a disease into your tank esp. during the cycle process that would just add more stress to your little fishes. Secondly make sure that the media you are adding remains wet if it was to dry out the benficial bacteria would die and thus the benfit of adding media from an already cycled tank would be lost. You will also need to add the media idealy within a few hours of removing from the cycled tank as otherwise the bacteria will run out of an ammonia and nitrite food source.

Finding your CAE a new home is a good thing as well. :)

Best of luck with your cycle,

ISquishWorms.