I make sure nitrates are good bi-weekly. I do have a planted tank, should I be checking kh or potassium regularly? API master test kit doesn’t come with either
Another benefit of test strips that I rarely see mentioned is how great they are for people who are colorblind! I used to have an awful time testing water: "what color is this tube? And this one? How about this one?" Thanks to a great tip from the forum, I'm now able to use strips to test my own water! I take a photo of the strip and one of the key, convert both to greyscale, and then compare! It's allowed me more autonomy and confidence in water testing.
There is so many videos on RUclips for for aquariums. What would be good for me is to have a grouping of recommended videos for a new aquarist. Kind of like having a checklist. So you could have one group for newbies and another group for intermediate and another group for advanced. Easy one location.
Make playlists for yourself. I do that for different tutorials, paint pour methods and recipes, all kinds of random. I can look back on them and delete anything I don't need saved.
I tried api test strips and when put it in water it fall apart the little cubes on the strips it fall off many times. But with I never had that problem with aquarium co op brand. I been using for 2 months now it works I never had any problems with it thank you Cory keep up the great work 😊❤️
The advice on ich on previous videos was excellent. Ich-X worked so well. Within 24 hours the fish most affected was eating and moving around with so much energy. I was able to save my fish :). Just starting up my 210 gallon planted tank I am able to keep everything balanced at zero for NO-3, NO-2 and ammonia for four days. The plants really help keep everything in check. How do I determine if my tank has a balanced ecosystem where all I need to do is add water to top up?
These test strips have been a life saver for me. I have the test kit but I have to read the instructions every time and take the time to do it right so I just kept putting it off. With the test strips I don't need more than a minute to just grab it and test, done. And to the people who whine 'it isn't as accurate!' It sure as hell is more accurate than just not testing until there's a tank emergency which is what I was doing before.
On the subject of water changes I highly recommend anyone who's considering it and has fish that won't tear em up to get plants, they're great for keeping nitrates down so you don't have to water change as often. That said, if you're like me and have harder tap water it's probably good to do weekly wcs anyway to replenish whatever nutrients are in the water for fish and plants.
It's possible to setup a planted tank so it can run years without water changes, but I think it's good idea to do a water change once in a while even in them.
I usually only test when starting a new tank, notice any environmental changes, or strange deaths or behavior. Then once a month, to see if I need to do more water changes, increase/reduce current, clean filters, or am okay to get new livestock.
Changing the water every week and never mind about testing the tanks. However, I usually double-check if I made any significant changes like replacing the filter, adding plants, or changing the food source.
Never done a water test in my life. I have plants and do 20% or so water changes every other week. Definitely recommend it for beginners just to lower the frustration that may occur, but for more intermediate hobbyists I feel like it's more of a number game than a necessity.
I also had that habit at the beginning, but then I realized that water changes every week does make my fish healthy so I keep changing water weekly until now.
Do they make a digital test kit? I have difficulty telling the difference in shade colors so its always a guess on what my strips show. Am I at 20 or 40 Nitrate?
We always talk about new tank syndrome and new fish keepers but what about old tanks and average keepers? People who’ve been doing this a while but haven’t leveled up to owning a fish store level. I’ve had a planted tank set up for almost three years and now some plants that used to do very well, don’t do well at all. Should I change out the gravel? So much advice out there for newbies can us mid range keepers get some advice?
@@dgs.creates just trying to open your mind about some unseen benefits of water changes. If this method works for you, then by all means keep doing what you do.
The simplest answer is yes. Pretty much all plants consume food/fertilizer during day light hours. At night with no light they kind of go into sleep mode.
Hey Cory, I've been in the hobby for a bit but I'm much more grown up now and am just starting to realize the importance of the nitrogen cycle and water changes. I'm looking to basically start from scratch with the 20 gal tank I have set up. If I added plants right away and began to fertilize them to get the cycle going, how many times should I be changing the water and testing for parameters? Or would you suggest another route to get the tank going before I add fish? I'd really appreciate your thoughts!
I've been an aquarist for over 40 years, the smaller your tank the less buffer it has. This means all the measurable quantities that could be a threat to your livestock. I would suggest you start your tank with livestock first, these livestock must be those you are willing to sacrifice if the quality goes bad. Don't over feed, test daily until quantities are balanced, no more than what they can eat in 5 minutes. Once they're balanced you can plant, when you see your plants thriving you can then stock what fish you want. You don't need to fertilise. An excess of detritus shows either a lack of plants or inadequate filtration (for 20 gal I would use a UG filter). Ultimately, you'll get to know through observation (including smell; if it smells like a sewer it is a sewer, if it has a nice "earthy just after rain" smell then all is good). Top up water as needs be don't do radical water changes (more than 10%)
Once a week before changing my water just to see how much of the water needs changing. And all my tanks are planted so keeping an eye on them nitrates ❤😊
I have a question!!!!!!!!! So I was at my local pet store, and I was talking to an employee there and I mentioned I wanted a community set up for my 65 gallon planted aquarium. I mentioned that I wanted their 6 bronze Cory’s and two schools of terta for now. And later get honey 1 or 2 gouramis as center piece fish. Here’s where it gets weird for me: he suggested that I add tetras in particular in groups of 3’s. Even though I was wanting more he suggested I only get 3 for now, and to add 3 more in two weeks and rinse and repeat until I’m at the stocking level I desire. I am new to this hobby and have cycled my tank for about 2 months. so I’m curious if he suggested that since it was a new tank? Or is this good practice for tetras?
Are bigger fish more susceptible to ammonia? My big angel fish recently passed away but all the other smaller fish were completely fine, it didn't seem he had any health problems so I'm unsure of how he died
I've not tested my tanks water in a very long time. I have canister filters, lots of plants and I do water changes 25% weekly, just how much nitrates I can have? 🤨
I test my 29 gallon every 10 days. Over time, I have found that I can go 14 days between water changes before my nitrates start to climb. My 20 gallon is weekly due to guppies breeding like crazy and I have 2 newer 10 gallon tanks that I am in the process of getting dialed in where I test every 2-3 days. Just added some new plants to each tank, so I will probably start to test a little more often just to see what the addition has done to my water.
Treating ick with a heavily planted tank as well as shrimp snail and scaleless fish I.e rainbow sharks khulli loaches and clown loach/ leapord frog pleco.
while im cycling and maturing a tank its every day to every week but once its matured maybe once every 1-2 months but my water changes are done more frequently then it needs to be
I got a couple of mystery snails, they both died after a couple weeks. I did a water change once a week but only about 25%. Tested my nitrates and they were really high, so I’ve started doing bigger water changes and now it’s about down to 20 nitrates. All of my fish are doing great tho and my plants are still adapting but not dying off. My vals are sending off runners but not growing tall but I heard that can be normal for a while
I'll be honest, once my tank is cycled I can't be assed to keep testing, I hate the drop kits if something seems wrong I'll pull it back out otherwise I just do big water changes every week or two
what about if your aquarium water not go above 5ppm after 1 week after 2 weeks no water change even after 3 weeks ?? then what u will do ? did u gonna water change everyweek or u will let it without waterchange 1 month ? aquarium is 118gal with 2 severum fish and 1 oscar fish and 2 plecos fish feed 2 times per day
Ammonia test strips are like twice the cost to manufacture. Most people don’t use as many ammonia test strips as once the tank is well seasoned ammonia only shows up when there is trouble like a bit make over or a power outage.
I’m new, just about done with my fishless cycling. I test with API master kit and Aquarium Coop test strips. Ammonia and pH match well between the 2 tests. But Nitrite and Nitrate are really different. The strips show 10 times as much ppm than the API. This has been consistently true. I’m very confused about that.
If you are getting a difference by a factor of 10 it means that one of them is way off, problem is that you have no way of knowing which one is in error. Suggest you buy another set of test strips from another manufacturer and a couple of individual liquid tests, maybe API and probably Sera. Run all four tests together and hopefully you should find that three are giving similar results and either the original API or CO-OP test is giving the odd reading.
After decades of keeping fish I tend to just "know" what's going on and when I need to do a water change etc. Having said that when anything new is going on, if I change a tank setup or stocking level or something seems wrong then I'll test every day until I'm confident everything is back in its groove.
hey guys, to anybody that can help me please share your opinion. around a week and a half ago I bought 3 Bolivian rams about 2 inches long online and when they came in I saw that they had a bit of a sunken belly. I introduced them to their tank (Temp: 75 degrees, ph:6.5 and no TDS because of them being in straight RO) containing 11 corys 15 rummy nose and 2 young apisto pairs (they never bother each other.) The problem is that they still haven't had a typical belly and I don't see them eating even if they are coloured up fine and do have those short moments of sparring between each other. However I did move one of the three rams to a different tank, he's alone and he's the one who is in the worst state of all as he doesn't wanna eat and swim. I tried fine pellets, baby brine, frozen brine and frozen tubifex worms but nothing. What can I do? Any help is much appreciated. Thank you.
If I remember correctly I think Cory did a video regarding that. Basically if an under powered heat sticks on it takes long to cook your fish giving you time to notice.
I don’t understand the nitrate readings on your test strips. They don’t correlate to the API master test kit. I find myself not using them as a result.
I have a 200l cichlid tank with around 15 Africans in had it a year never once tested water and do a 50% water change and clean filters every 4-5 weeks water crystal clear and fish breeding, always done this with my tanks and no issue, I find personally the more you screw with the water the more goes wrong, just my personal experience
Twice a day here. If my aged water is out of whack and I pump it in, it's a fail. Mainly automated testing, but still, there is no day without testing. It's part of the hobby/business
Just to be clear, doing the API test kit takes far longer than 10 minutes. 3 of the 4 tests have 5 minutes just to process. I don't mind the time and always looking for accurate tests. 😁
I mean, if you have a test tube rack and you fill all the tubes at once, then add the solutions to each tube and start your timers, that's not going to take very long.
When setting up a new tank I test frequently to make sure the cycle is fine. In an established stocked tank I start with testing nitrates & pH to learn when and how much water changes to do. After that I only test if something doesn't look right. Fish not acting as usual, plants starting to suffer, etc... I'll test everything to see what is starting to go awry.
That's a question I have pondered for a while. Virtually everybody will make the claim that test strips are inaccurate compared to liquid test kits - but is that actually true? How do these people making the claim know, do they actually know or are they just repeating something that has been said so many times that we now take it as the gospel truth. It would be interesting for somebody working in a proper laboratory with highly accurate equipment to test the test kits and strips to either confirm or dispel what I suspect may actually be a myth.
If you are testing ammonia, nitrites & nitrates it's fairly easy and straight forward. When setting up a new tank the cycle will take care of itself. You start by testing for ammonia. Once the ammonia drops start testing for nitrites. Once the nitrites start to drop test the nitrates. Then test all 3 to make sure ammonia and nitrites are zero. After the tank is stocked just keep an eye on ammonia for awhile to make sure the cycle didn't crash. After that keep an eye on nitrates to learn when to change the water. After testing nitrates for a few months and you know when the water change needs to be done and how much you just follow that regimen. Correcting the water conditions involves just doing water changes.
Water hardness is very important. Simply put... Soft water fish can adapt to slightly hard water. But hard water fish can't really adapt well to soft water. Look up osmoregulation in fish for a detailed explanation.
One of the best things I have for using the drop test is either a large syringe or turkey baster to get all the water out in one go. Then uncap and fill all the test tubes with water. I took an old suction cup and glued it on top of the air pump so I could shake the test tubes vigorously after adding drops. It's fantastic if you only have a few tanks. I have never used the test strips before and I wouldn't mind trying them out one day if I ever had more than a couple tanks
I am just trying plants for the first time because of your videos. I test my water daily because I'm scared to death I'll kill them lol. I have to say your test strips do make it easy so it doesn't seem like a chore to test daily.
I have ten 75 gallon tanks in my fishroom and a couple of 10 gallon cubes on my desk. I test the cubes weekly due to the low water volume and I test the 75's bi-weekly. I am mainly watching nitrAtes. I change water based on NitrAte levels.
I rarely ever test have over 50 tanks from 2 feet to 8 feet. Just let the tank do its thing. See way to many people put so much garbage in there water an throws out the tanks work
*When do you test your water, and what kinds of things do you look for the most?*
almost never lol
I try to test weekly, but don't always. Nitrates and nitrites are what I'm usually worried about.
Literally only when I see "off" behavior or have changed stocking in some way.
Edit: I lied, I test fry tanks incessantly
I test it if my fish is looking off :)
I make sure nitrates are good bi-weekly. I do have a planted tank, should I be checking kh or potassium regularly? API master test kit doesn’t come with either
Another benefit of test strips that I rarely see mentioned is how great they are for people who are colorblind! I used to have an awful time testing water: "what color is this tube? And this one? How about this one?"
Thanks to a great tip from the forum, I'm now able to use strips to test my own water! I take a photo of the strip and one of the key, convert both to greyscale, and then compare! It's allowed me more autonomy and confidence in water testing.
There is so many videos on RUclips for for aquariums. What would be good for me is to have a grouping of recommended videos for a new aquarist. Kind of like having a checklist. So you could have one group for newbies and another group for intermediate and another group for advanced. Easy one location.
Make playlists for yourself. I do that for different tutorials, paint pour methods and recipes, all kinds of random. I can look back on them and delete anything I don't need saved.
I tried api test strips and when put it in water it fall apart the little cubes on the strips it fall off many times. But with I never had that problem with aquarium co op brand. I been using for 2 months now it works I never had any problems with it thank you Cory keep up the great work 😊❤️
The advice on ich on previous videos was excellent. Ich-X worked so well. Within 24 hours the fish most affected was eating and moving around with so much energy. I was able to save my fish :). Just starting up my 210 gallon planted tank I am able to keep everything balanced at zero for NO-3, NO-2 and ammonia for four days. The plants really help keep everything in check. How do I determine if my tank has a balanced ecosystem where all I need to do is add water to top up?
These test strips have been a life saver for me. I have the test kit but I have to read the instructions every time and take the time to do it right so I just kept putting it off. With the test strips I don't need more than a minute to just grab it and test, done. And to the people who whine 'it isn't as accurate!' It sure as hell is more accurate than just not testing until there's a tank emergency which is what I was doing before.
I love using your test kit! It's awesome
That's kit is really convenient compared to other kits of API.
@@LuckAqua Agreed😎
Thank you so much for your channel I wish I lived in your state and could go to your fish store you’re truly living my dream
Aquarium co-op should have an app so you get notified when plants and other stuff come in stock 😊
I agree with that. That would be so much easier
On the subject of water changes I highly recommend anyone who's considering it and has fish that won't tear em up to get plants, they're great for keeping nitrates down so you don't have to water change as often. That said, if you're like me and have harder tap water it's probably good to do weekly wcs anyway to replenish whatever nutrients are in the water for fish and plants.
I change the water every week so I don't worry too much about the chemical. However, the plants and filters also help me maintain the tanks.
It's possible to setup a planted tank so it can run years without water changes, but I think it's good idea to do a water change once in a while even in them.
I usually only test when starting a new tank, notice any environmental changes, or strange deaths or behavior. Then once a month, to see if I need to do more water changes, increase/reduce current, clean filters, or am okay to get new livestock.
your videos are so HELPFULL!!!
I actually test my tanks when they look brilliant. That's how I get a benchmark to strive for.
Great content TY
Is there any plan to start selling these in the UK?
when is the opening day for the new store? : )
Changing the water every week and never mind about testing the tanks. However, I usually double-check if I made any significant changes like replacing the filter, adding plants, or changing the food source.
Never done a water test in my life. I have plants and do 20% or so water changes every other week. Definitely recommend it for beginners just to lower the frustration that may occur, but for more intermediate hobbyists I feel like it's more of a number game than a necessity.
I also had that habit at the beginning, but then I realized that water changes every week does make my fish healthy so I keep changing water weekly until now.
@@LuckAqua it's the opposite for me xD I used to change every week because I had no plants and was worried about nitrates.
Do they make a digital test kit? I have difficulty telling the difference in shade colors so its always a guess on what my strips show. Am I at 20 or 40 Nitrate?
We always talk about new tank syndrome and new fish keepers but what about old tanks and average keepers? People who’ve been doing this a while but haven’t leveled up to owning a fish store level. I’ve had a planted tank set up for almost three years and now some plants that used to do very well, don’t do well at all. Should I change out the gravel? So much advice out there for newbies can us mid range keepers get some advice?
I have a 10g tank. Went a solid 5 months with no testing and no changes. Tested parameters a week ago and everything is totally fine.
What about all the minerals and nutrients that you didn't test? There's likely something missing or built up.
@@DylanRenke who said I didn't test that? All plants and fish are doing well.
@@dgs.creates just extremely unlikely to test minerals that hobby test kits don't typically include.
@@DylanRenke I appreciate your concern, but I've had tanks for 30 years... everything is fine.
@@dgs.creates just trying to open your mind about some unseen benefits of water changes. If this method works for you, then by all means keep doing what you do.
my 55 gallon with maybe 15 nano fish and a couple snails has tested the exact same for the last 4 months.
Good...! You said it...! We can blame you for our lack of testing since "you're the excuse"... Keep up your awesomeness...!
Here is a question for a future topic…does lighting usage (length of time on) affect how much nitrate is used by the live plants in the aquarium?
The simplest answer is yes. Pretty much all plants consume food/fertilizer during day light hours. At night with no light they kind of go into sleep mode.
Hey Cory, I've been in the hobby for a bit but I'm much more grown up now and am just starting to realize the importance of the nitrogen cycle and water changes. I'm looking to basically start from scratch with the 20 gal tank I have set up. If I added plants right away and began to fertilize them to get the cycle going, how many times should I be changing the water and testing for parameters? Or would you suggest another route to get the tank going before I add fish? I'd really appreciate your thoughts!
I've been an aquarist for over 40 years, the smaller your tank the less buffer it has. This means all the measurable quantities that could be a threat to your livestock. I would suggest you start your tank with livestock first, these livestock must be those you are willing to sacrifice if the quality goes bad. Don't over feed, test daily until quantities are balanced, no more than what they can eat in 5 minutes. Once they're balanced you can plant, when you see your plants thriving you can then stock what fish you want. You don't need to fertilise.
An excess of detritus shows either a lack of plants or inadequate filtration (for 20 gal I would use a UG filter). Ultimately, you'll get to know through observation (including smell; if it smells like a sewer it is a sewer, if it has a nice "earthy just after rain" smell then all is good). Top up water as needs be don't do radical water changes (more than 10%)
Hi guys! I really want to buy the Aquarium Co-op brand test strips but I live outside of the US, do you guys have other brands to recommend?
Once a week before changing my water just to see how much of the water needs changing. And all my tanks are planted so keeping an eye on them nitrates ❤😊
I test weekly now that "Sunday School" has started again. Before that, probably once a month.
Ick in a scaleless/bottom feeder pleco heavily planted aquarium coop plantes with snails and African dwarf frogs
I have a question!!!!!!!!!
So I was at my local pet store, and I was talking to an employee there and I mentioned I wanted a community set up for my 65 gallon planted aquarium. I mentioned that I wanted their 6 bronze Cory’s and two schools of terta for now. And later get honey 1 or 2 gouramis as center piece fish.
Here’s where it gets weird for me: he suggested that I add tetras in particular in groups of 3’s. Even though I was wanting more he suggested I only get 3 for now, and to add 3 more in two weeks and rinse and repeat until I’m at the stocking level I desire. I am new to this hobby and have cycled my tank for about 2 months. so I’m curious if he suggested that since it was a new tank? Or is this good practice for tetras?
It’s a good practice . Build your stocking slowly.
Are bigger fish more susceptible to ammonia? My big angel fish recently passed away but all the other smaller fish were completely fine, it didn't seem he had any health problems so I'm unsure of how he died
I've not tested my tanks water in a very long time. I have canister filters, lots of plants and I do water changes 25% weekly, just how much nitrates I can have? 🤨
I got distracted from what you said watching Murphy eat. Very cute and distracting lol
I test my 29 gallon every 10 days. Over time, I have found that I can go 14 days between water changes before my nitrates start to climb. My 20 gallon is weekly due to guppies breeding like crazy and I have 2 newer 10 gallon tanks that I am in the process of getting dialed in where I test every 2-3 days. Just added some new plants to each tank, so I will probably start to test a little more often just to see what the addition has done to my water.
NO3 could be easily eliminated with plants, especially floating plants.
Treating ick with a heavily planted tank as well as shrimp snail and scaleless fish I.e rainbow sharks khulli loaches and clown loach/ leapord frog pleco.
while im cycling and maturing a tank its every day to every week but once its matured maybe once every 1-2 months but my water changes are done more frequently then it needs to be
I got a couple of mystery snails, they both died after a couple weeks. I did a water change once a week but only about 25%. Tested my nitrates and they were really high, so I’ve started doing bigger water changes and now it’s about down to 20 nitrates. All of my fish are doing great tho and my plants are still adapting but not dying off. My vals are sending off runners but not growing tall but I heard that can be normal for a while
In general snails don't like nitrates above 10ppm, around 5 would be better.
Which test strips would you recommend for us here in the UK ?
Tetra test strips are good ones.
I'll be honest, once my tank is cycled I can't be assed to keep testing, I hate the drop kits if something seems wrong I'll pull it back out otherwise I just do big water changes every week or two
To mbuna or not to mbuna?
55 gallon tank suggestions. I want a planted with some good looking fish.
U can cut the strip in half and get twice as much testing
what about if your aquarium water not go above 5ppm after 1 week after 2 weeks no water change even after 3 weeks ?? then what u will do ? did u gonna water change everyweek or u will let it without waterchange 1 month ? aquarium is 118gal with 2 severum fish and 1 oscar fish and 2 plecos fish feed 2 times per day
I'm curious why you sell the multi test strips in 200 but the ammonia test strips in 100 making them twice as expensive than the multi strips?
Ammonia test strips are like twice the cost to manufacture. Most people don’t use as many ammonia test strips as once the tank is well seasoned ammonia only shows up when there is trouble like a bit make over or a power outage.
@@AquariumCoop I see. I tend to use both strips every week at minimum. It's probably overkill. Thanks for the response.
I’m new, just about done with my fishless cycling. I test with API master kit and Aquarium Coop test strips. Ammonia and pH match well between the 2 tests. But Nitrite and Nitrate are really different. The strips show 10 times as much ppm than the API. This has been consistently true. I’m very confused about that.
If the liquid regents aren't overly old they are normally more accurate than strips. API Liquid test kits are usually accurate.
If you are getting a difference by a factor of 10 it means that one of them is way off, problem is that you have no way of knowing which one is in error. Suggest you buy another set of test strips from another manufacturer and a couple of individual liquid tests, maybe API and probably Sera. Run all four tests together and hopefully you should find that three are giving similar results and either the original API or CO-OP test is giving the odd reading.
I would run a control test by testing your tap water as well. Does margin of error decrease when you measure your tap water?
@@ketchumifucan1130 I did check tap waster and they matched.
You've inspired me. I'm on my way to the fish room to test my tanks 😀
After decades of keeping fish I tend to just "know" what's going on and when I need to do a water change etc. Having said that when anything new is going on, if I change a tank setup or stocking level or something seems wrong then I'll test every day until I'm confident everything is back in its groove.
How often do I feed my fish
hey guys, to anybody that can help me please share your opinion. around a week and a half ago I bought 3 Bolivian rams about 2 inches long online and when they came in I saw that they had a bit of a sunken belly. I introduced them to their tank (Temp: 75 degrees, ph:6.5 and no TDS because of them being in straight RO) containing 11 corys 15 rummy nose and 2 young apisto pairs (they never bother each other.) The problem is that they still haven't had a typical belly and I don't see them eating even if they are coloured up fine and do have those short moments of sparring between each other. However I did move one of the three rams to a different tank, he's alone and he's the one who is in the worst state of all as he doesn't wanna eat and swim. I tried fine pellets, baby brine, frozen brine and frozen tubifex worms but nothing. What can I do? Any help is much appreciated. Thank you.
Think an interesting video would be to talk about different heating methods and why stop at 100 watts on your heaters.
If I remember correctly I think Cory did a video regarding that. Basically if an under powered heat sticks on it takes long to cook your fish giving you time to notice.
@@James_Hande yeah, I kinda remember that video being small though.
You have a fourteen hundred gallon for Murphy? Cool!!! 🎉😊
I don’t understand the nitrate readings on your test strips. They don’t correlate to the API master test kit. I find myself not using them as a result.
What do you stock in your pond? I think a video on it would be neat.
I have a 200l cichlid tank with around 15 Africans in had it a year never once tested water and do a 50% water change and clean filters every 4-5 weeks water crystal clear and fish breeding, always done this with my tanks and no issue, I find personally the more you screw with the water the more goes wrong, just my personal experience
Twice a day here. If my aged water is out of whack and I pump it in, it's a fail. Mainly automated testing, but still, there is no day without testing. It's part of the hobby/business
Just to be clear, doing the API test kit takes far longer than 10 minutes. 3 of the 4 tests have 5 minutes just to process. I don't mind the time and always looking for accurate tests. 😁
I mean, if you have a test tube rack and you fill all the tubes at once, then add the solutions to each tube and start your timers, that's not going to take very long.
When setting up a new tank I test frequently to make sure the cycle is fine.
In an established stocked tank I start with testing nitrates & pH to learn when and how much water changes to do. After that I only test if something doesn't look right. Fish not acting as usual, plants starting to suffer, etc... I'll test everything to see what is starting to go awry.
Can you do Bolivian ram article
Do you actually use test strips? Why does everyone online always say test strips are garbage and to use liquid test kits?
That's a question I have pondered for a while. Virtually everybody will make the claim that test strips are inaccurate compared to liquid test kits - but is that actually true? How do these people making the claim know, do they actually know or are they just repeating something that has been said so many times that we now take it as the gospel truth.
It would be interesting for somebody working in a proper laboratory with highly accurate equipment to test the test kits and strips to either confirm or dispel what I suspect may actually be a myth.
Another great video. Quick question, does the chemicals in the test strips harm the fishes if you dip it directly into the aquarium?
No. You can see in the video that he dips it right in the tank and swirls it around.
Testing your tank is useless unless you know how to safely make adjustments. Correcting the water conditions can be very time consuming and difficult.
If you are testing ammonia, nitrites & nitrates it's fairly easy and straight forward. When setting up a new tank the cycle will take care of itself. You start by testing for ammonia. Once the ammonia drops start testing for nitrites. Once the nitrites start to drop test the nitrates. Then test all 3 to make sure ammonia and nitrites are zero. After the tank is stocked just keep an eye on ammonia for awhile to make sure the cycle didn't crash. After that keep an eye on nitrates to learn when to change the water. After testing nitrates for a few months and you know when the water change needs to be done and how much you just follow that regimen.
Correcting the water conditions involves just doing water changes.
How important is water hardness with keeping fish?
Water hardness is very important. Simply put... Soft water fish can adapt to slightly hard water. But hard water fish can't really adapt well to soft water. Look up osmoregulation in fish for a detailed explanation.
One of the best things I have for using the drop test is either a large syringe or turkey baster to get all the water out in one go. Then uncap and fill all the test tubes with water. I took an old suction cup and glued it on top of the air pump so I could shake the test tubes vigorously after adding drops. It's fantastic if you only have a few tanks. I have never used the test strips before and I wouldn't mind trying them out one day if I ever had more than a couple tanks
How are you gonna move the puffer fish ? He’s so big lol
Can you do a video discussing how you’d act to correct various problematic water test results?
I am just trying plants for the first time because of your videos.
I test my water daily because I'm scared to death I'll kill them lol.
I have to say your test strips do make it easy so it doesn't seem like a chore to test daily.
Awesome
Have you considered solar for the pond aerator? Or would that be more of an expense than running power out there?
I have ten 75 gallon tanks in my fishroom and a couple of 10 gallon cubes on my desk. I test the cubes weekly due to the low water volume and I test the 75's bi-weekly. I am mainly watching nitrAtes. I change water based on NitrAte levels.
I rarely ever test have over 50 tanks from 2 feet to 8 feet. Just let the tank do its thing. See way to many people put so much garbage in there water an throws out the tanks work