How do I choose the proper tank filter?

Question

Hi! A friend recenty gave me a 10 gallon tank with about 40 tetras and 6 other various fish. The tank was filthy when I got it so I cleaned it up and changed out 1/2 the water. I went to the pet store and bought a gravel vacumm. I use a water treatment that I got from the pet store but the tank is now even worse. It seems that everytime I try to clean it up, it just makes it worse because I have stirred up the gravel at the bottom. The tank has a heater but no filter. Should I get a filter? what kind? how can I better clean the gravel? Help! I have no experience with fish but have a two year old that already loves to watch them!

Answer 1

Didn't mean to jump in, but you haven't been given an answer I thought appropriate yet. Get the fish into some temporary vessel. Save about 1/2 the dirty water then dump the gravel into a clean, soap free bucket. Don't wash it. Now clean the tank out, put an under-gravel filter in the bottom, and put the dirty gravel on top of the filter, It needs to be about 2" tick or 20 pounds of gravel. Remember, the surface of your gravel is your bacterial filter, so more is better.

Instead of using an air pump and 2 riser tubes, use only 1 tube with a Power Head on it which will pump many times the water than an air powered and doesn't cost any more. The top of the Power Head (water pump) should be just slightly under water.

Put the 5 gallonss of water you saved back into the tank, fill with fresh water, and add dechloronator ,. Turn pump on. Should clear up fairly good in an hour . When temp is the same in the tank and in the bowl or wherever your fish are, dip them out and place them in the tank.

If water is not clear in 2-3 days, do a 1/4 water change. Keep doing that every 3-4 days until crystal clear. Then do about a 20% change every 2 weeks, unless more needed. Only feed fish every other day,

Don't add any additional chemicals, ammonia removers etc. It doesn't work and will hurt more than helps. Good luck and let me know how you come out. Feel free to email me if you have questions,

That is a lot of fish, put with thick gravel and a Powerhead, I think you will do fine with those species. While it sounds like a lot, it is far less than I kept in my fish shop tanks that stayed crystal clear. While this goes against a lot of rule books and what other people tell you, that is theory and I'm talking experience that is far better than books. You may have to thin out a little, as I don't know the type of Tetras you have. If neons, you are problbly fine.

Answer 2

My goodness that's a lot of fish :) You'll eventually need to get another tank...or two or three or four. Without knowing what your 6 other various fish are, I think they need their own 10-gallon tank and the tetras should be split into at least four 10-tallon tanks (or one 40-gallon tank, you get the idea). If you don't want to make this investment, consider selling most of the tetras or giving them to a pet store. Your tank will never be clean with that many fish in there, no matter how great you are about cleaning.

For now, you should go buy a master testing kit to give some idea of where your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels are and then test every day to monitor how things are changing. Buy a filter for a 20+ gallon tank. I like Whisper filters with the biobags. Keep doing partial water changes every day and use the gravel vaccuum for the changes (i.e., vaccuum the gravel every day, which will also serve as a partial water change). It will take time to get your tank cleaned, without getting rid of all the good bacteria that is growing in your tank, so be patient but diligent.

Good luck :)

Answer 3

Your tank is extremely overcrowded, which is why it gets dirty so fast. You do need a filter and it does need to be for a much larger tank, but you still need to have many less fish in there or get a larger tank. The tetras need to be in a 30 gallon or larger tank and probably most, if not all, of the others do as well. The only fish that does fine in a 10 is a betta. Even if your tetras are only 1 inch each, you have enough for a 40 gallon tank with no other fish. I don't know how they can even swim around in such crowded conditions. The general rule is 1 inch of fish per gallon of water. The exceptions are fish that need more gallons per inch of fish, such as angel fish that need 10 gallons each even though they rarely get to be more than 5 or 6 inches. So, you have enough fish to stock at least a 60 gallon tank, larger if any of them are more than an inch long. You should not add any fish to such a tank, especially an cat fish as they all need to be in larger tanks; even the small ones need at least 30 gallons. You also should not bleach the gravel. The gravel holds valuable bacteria that helps the tank to maintain a healthy balance of bacteria that break down the ammonia from fish waste so it doesn't kill the fish. It's very important to keep from over-cleaning. You should have a good filter and change it regularly, but you should not clean everything at the same time because you might get rid of too much of the healthy bacteria. Don't use chlorinated water without treating it first and don't use chlorine to clean it. You can get a product called Stress Coat that does a good job of removing chlorine and chloramines (a byproduct of chlorination that does not evaporate when you leave the water sitting).
Only feed your fish as much as they can eat in a few minutes and only feed once or twice a day. If you have no bottom feeders, only feed as much as they can eat before it hits the bottom. Tetras don't generally eat off the bottom, but some of the others might. Just make sure you don't have any left after a few minutes.
Here are some good sources:
http://www.firsttankguide.net/cycle.php
http://www.aquariumpros.com (Find angelmom on their freshwater forum for good advice.)
http://www.peteducation.com/category_summary.cfm?cat=1911

Answer 4

First of all, the problem is that the tank is way way way too small to hold that many fishes. A rule of thumb is one inch of fish per gallon, so now its like 200 people squeezed into a home and trying to eat, move, and use the bathroom. When the tank is overcrowded, disease will breakout causing bacteria, bacterial fungus, true fungus, and parasites. So the problem is not the gravel it's the water having to many waste floating around before settling into the gravel.

You have to buy a bigger tank, give at least half your fishes away, or kill them. After that, you must buy a filter at a pet store and get one that can hangs on the side of the tank to save space in your tight tank.

Filters are used mainly for promoting beneficial bacteria. Waste are eaten by bacteria and produce ammonia. A different bacteria eats ammonia and produce nitrite. Another different bacteria eat nitrite and produce nitrate. Finally, nitrate is the final product and can only be used a food source for plants (including CO2 and phosphate). Filters are also used for adding carbon (helps makes water clearer and odorless) or any other chemicals like ammonia remover (helps lower ammonia), etc.

Gravel also help promote beneficial bacteria.

Also buy ammonia. nitrite, and nitrate test kits to make sure the water is safe from these toxins. Nitrate is not very toxic but it would never disappear when your tank is fully establish with bacteria (so keep it in lower levels between10-20 ppm). Watch carefully on your fishes if their colors dull, any white areas, redden areas. or rapid breathing compared to others of its own species. If there is, then their sick and need to be separated or else disease will spread. Check at the website below if they are sick and more info about water quality.

Wow I talked a lot, well hope this helps you.

Answer 5

bettas do not mix with guppies. the betta will end up killing the guppies. a 1.5 gallon tank is way too small for anything, most people say that 5 gallons is the minimum for a betta fish, i personally think 2.5 gallons is ok. The problem with a 1.5 gallon tank is that you will have to constantly do water changes because it will get dirty fast and its too small for a filter. Both bettas and guppies require a filter and a heater because they are tropical fish. The guppies will not survive without them - a betta however might, but its absolutely cruel to do that to them. Without a heater they will be more prone to diseases and infections - they typically need temps above 78F. You would also have to do partial water changes almost every other day in order to keep the tank clean. My suggestion for that tank is to put a couple shrimp in - ghost shrimp are the cheapest, they go for around 25 cents a piece. If you're intent on raising guppies or a betta, go for a 5 or 10 gallon tank with a heater and filter and maybe some live plants.

Answer 6

Keep doing water changes,but only 20% at a time. Do one every day until everything gets clean. Vacuum only as much gravel as a 20% change will allow,then next day 20% more. It will eventuall get clean.
You can go with one small feeding a day until the tank is clean and the fish resume their appetites. Too much food will just make things worse and with the overpopulation problem you have,you don't need any more stuff dirtying up the water.
When doing the changes,try to get the replacement water the same temp as the tank water,also if you can,pretreat the water before adding it to the tank. A large bucket (food quality plastic is best) will facilitate pre-treatng.
I like Aqua-clear filters,because they are easy to maintain,and therefore I take better care of the tank. Just remember that whatever kind of filter you get,it won't actually remove anything from the water,just make it easy for you to do the removing. So keep the filter sponges well rinsed,(use only water that you have removed from the tank to rinse your sponges).

Answer 7

Sorry to say, but even with a filter, that many fish....it'll never be clean. For a 10 gallon tank, you should really only have about 4-6 fish tops-granted, it depends on the type of fish, if they're small like neon tetras you could fit more, but I'd say no more then 10 of them even. Or, consider a larger tank, at least a 30 gallon, but that depends on what type of fish they are.

I would suggest picking out a few you really like, research them to make sure they'll do ok in a 10 gallon, and taking the rest to a pet store that will take them/give you store credit or maybe a little cash.

For a filter, definitely need one. Don't go by what size tank it's rated for, go by the gallons per hour output. Should be listed on the box/package. For your tank, you'll want a filter that will put out a minimum of 100 gallons per hour(just add a 0 on to the tank size). For larger or messier fish, you'll want to increase that gph number, but for the fish you have the 100 gph should be sufficient.

Since you're new to fish keeping, when you have a filter on a tank, you're tank will go through what's called the cycle process. Read through this article, it's the first one on the page:

http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/startupcycle/Step_5_The_Cycle.htm

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Answer 8

you want a filter pump odeally and boil the gravel then leave it out for about 6 hoours chlorine evaporates after about 3 hours so if you check with your local water company as long as chlorine is all they use to treat the water if you leave it out a while you can use it with know chemicals which are more trouble than they are worth sometimes.If you are in the uk you coul try free cycle because you really want a filter that has been working already in a tank because it has to build up a friendly bacteria and then you can have that and another filter going before you take that old one out otherwise it will start cycling and you could kill all the fish and treat the water when you do water changes with a water neutraliser for the ammonia and nitrate as ammonia and nitrate is toxic to fish and they excrete it through their toilet and gills hope that helps.

Answer 9

always try to go a notch higher with filters.. ex: you have 10gallon tank.. go for 20-30 gallon filter.. (i also suggest going for higher since many fish keepers after a beginner 10gallon tank move on to bigger tanks and getting the bigger filter will save you money)
http://www.petco.com/product/6315/Tetra-or-Second-Nature-Whisper-Triad-Power-Filters.aspx

dont worry about cleaning the gravel 2 much, just use the gravel vac to get most of the stuff.. the rest will either be broken down by the bacteria or eventually be cycled through the filter..

(dont boil the gravel since many gravels contain a special coating on them, boiling/washing under hot water will ruin the gravel and promote tank infections)

just make sure to not over feed the fish and or you can get algae eaters and they will eat up all the sunken uneaten food..

Good luck and Have fun with it

Answer 10

Of course you need a filter in proportion your gallon and also you must decrease the food in order to stop dirt the water.the fish not need to much food one time per day is good.
if you bought filet food stop and buy round food.