Fishkeeping: Day 11

Once again DC helped me feed the fish when I got home from work. I could tell that DC didn't mess with them, because they were a lot more active and less skittish. I am really starting to enjoy watching the fish eat, its like a little dance that they are doing for me. After the feeding I started thinking that with the trip to New York tomorrow and knowing that the ammonia was not going to go down, it would be best if i did a partial water change tonight.

I started out by taking a 10 gallon wide cooler and filling it up with 6 gallons of water. I then added tap water conditioner, pH 7.0, and aquarium salt. I then put the cooler near the tank and walked away.

After the kids were asleep, I went ahead and took the current levels of the tank:

• pH: 7.0
• Ammonia: 1.0 mg/l
• Nitrite: 0.0 mg/l
• Nitrate: 5.0 mg/l

Then just to be safe, I got the pH level of the new water which was 7.0.

I used my neighbors siphon to fill up my new 3 gallon bucket. I dumped the bucket at repeated. Doing the math, there was 6 gallons taken out of the tank, and I had a cooler with 6 gallons of replacement water. All I had to do was put the water from the cooler in the tank and boom goes the dynamite, my first PWC was completed.

As a final step, I grabbed the water levels one more time:

• pH: 7.0
• Ammonia: < 1.0 mg/l
• Nitrite: 0.0 mg/l
• Nitrate: 5.0 mg/l

6 gallons of water out of a 20 gallon tank is approximatly 30% of the total water volume in the tank, so numbers should have gone down 30% and I don't think it did. After some serious thinking, I went to AquariumAdvice.com and looked up information on API water testing kit expiration date. It said the last 4 digits of the batch number on each bottle represents the date it was made, and it should be good for 3 years after that date. the bottles dated from 2009, so I didn't think the testing chemicals were bad yet.

I really didn't have anymore time, so I turned the light off and said goodnight to Leela, Fry, and Bender.

(PHOTO's)



Draining the Tank

Filling the cooler with 6 gallons of water

chemicals for replacement water

Leela, Fry, and Bender

Levels after PWC

Levels prior to PWC

pH of replacement water

Tank after PWC