fish tank...?

Question

I just took all of the water out of the tank, swished the rocks around in some clean water (without using any soap) and then added new water in. The tank has 96 liters. When can I put the fish back in the tank? We have good well water and it's been about an hour since we cleaned it so the filter sucked up any left over debri.

Answer 1

I wouldn't put the fish back into your aquarium for at the VERY minimum another 5 days or so. The reason being that when you dumped out the original water and cleaned the gravel you had essentially destroyed all the beneficial bacteria which the fish were originally used to. In other words your tank has to now be competely re-cycled (all steps you took when you first bought it)

Putting them in the way it is now is going to shock your fish because of the sudden Ph imbalance as well as water condition. If lucky and you kept at least 70% of the original water in one or multiple containers (since some storage containers can fit as much as 100 litres) you can take all the new water out of your tank and re-fill the old water in .. and top it off .. with a good capful of cycle ..

If you get new tank syndrome (cloudy milky water) you can always grab some gravel off from someone with a healthy freshwater aquarium 'n toss it into the tank and it'll help cycle it since you killed off all the bacteria in the gravel

good luck :)

Answer 2

You are good to go. I have 3 tanks just so you know.

Also I would not clean my tank like that if I were you. You need to just get a fish tank syfon and use it. You should be able to get one at Walmart if you have one. And only clean the rocks with it. It will suck the water out of your tank and when you get to about 25% of the water out then I would stop. And do that once a week . You should only do and 100% water change once a year and you still want to save most of the tank water when doing so.

Fill the tank back up with water that is close to the same temp.

You should be adding AquaSafe (or something like it) to your water. It makes the water safe for your fish by neutralizing cholrine, shloramine, and other harmful things that are in your water supply, also it adds the slime coat. You can also put in some aqua salt. not to much just a little, its good for fish even if they are freash water.

The person before me has a ponit just so you know, but since you left all the stuff in the rocks and didn't clean it out you should be ok. But next time PLEASE don't change all the water at once.

Answer 3

it is usually a good idea to "prepare or cure" your water 24 hours before you plan on changing water or cleaning the tank, so it is closer to room temperature, and any water treatment is not such a shock to the fish. Change out only a third to half of the water at a time. I always left the fish in the tank. They have vacs for aquariums (to remove the water not the fish from the bottom of tank.ask at the pet store)The debris and such is not always bad, some is actually good for the aquarium, and fish health. I always had bathroom size trash cans to fill with water and let it "cure". I ONLY used them for that purpose, so you don't poison the fish with soap, or cleaners. Good Luck.

Answer 4

Typically you should never change out all of the water (in essence you performed a 100% water change, 20-50% is what should be change out, dependent on how fully stocked the tank is).

The reason being, the parameters new water will be significantly different than the tank water (you don't want to have major flucuations with your water's pH, GH (general hardness) and KH (carbonate hardness) levels. Significant different levels can stress, shock and possibly kill fish.

It doesn't matter when you put the fish back in (you could do it immediately). Just observe them for the first few hours and refrain from total water changes.

Routine water changes don't involve removing the fish from the tank.

Answer 5

You should NEVER change the water in a tank like that. You just killed their ecosystem and now are going to put them into a sterile environment. Fish need bacteria to survive. The bacteria is what keeps thetank clean and healthy. They destroy the chemicals in the water that harm/kill your fish. Since you flushed your ecosystem down the toilet your tank is going through the cycling process again. This is very difficult on the fish- often times fish will die during this time. It is referred to as new tank syndrome (even though your tank is not new- you got rid of everything healthy in it).

You should only change 25% of the water at a time.

Clear water doesn't mean clean water.

Answer 6

Hopefully you didn't lose all of the beneficial bacteria. Your fish could die from such a drastic change.
Next time change only 20% of the water, and use a gravel vac to suck up dirt and stuff from the bottom of the tank.
Also, if you don't have a dechlorinator, set your water out over night so that the chlorine will be taken out naturally.

Answer 7

wait 24 hours or use a water de-clorenater. Even though you have clean well water it help the fish out. But you should wait 24 hours so all of the water was clean by the filter.

Answer 8

did you use any kind of thing like slime coat to help the fish adjust to the water...if you did throw them in if the water is around the temp the fish need. Since it's well water you may get by with not using the slime coat just float the fish like you would after buying them for 10-15 minutes then let them loose.Good Luck anad enjoy your fish!Oh and if you can and want get a golden snail, they kinda clean your tank and are fun to watch!

Answer 9

If it's well water, it shouldn't have any chlorine in it, so you just need for it to get up to temperature, if it's a heated tank. If not, you can put them back in now.

Answer 10

check the temparature and i would let it sit 24 hours