Water Quality
Water quality is the single most important aspect of fish keeping. Whether you keep coldwater Goldfish in a bowl, Koi carp in a pond or Tropical fish in an aquarium, the quality of the water the fish is living in ultimately governs the health or indeed the life or the death of any fish.
Whilst different varieties of fish tolerate different water qualities, individual variations of fish within a species can also be vitally important.
In very simple terms, fish deposit their waste in the water in which they live. If the level of waste rises above a level which an individual fish can tolerate, the fish will suffer ill health and ultimately will die unless the keeper acts quickly to improve the water quality.
Fish Keepers need to test the water their fish live in within days of setting up a new aquarium or pond before fish become ill.
What removes the fish waste for the water?
Beneficial nitrifying bacteria feed upon the fish waste and eventually change it to relatively harmless Nitrates. Initially, fish waste contains Ammonia (NH3) and you should only test for this in the first three weeks of setting up a new fish system. After a few days the Ammonia starts to be converted to Nitrite by some bacteria which develop within the fish system, usually within the filter system, and you should only test for Nitrite (NO2) also after one week.
It is only safe to add more fish to your system after all of the Ammonia and all of the Nitrite have been converted to Nitrate. If you put more fish into a fish system which has high Ammonia or Nitrite levels, the new fish will usually perish.
Just because you're original fish look OK after a few weeks in a new system, this does not mean that any new fish will also be OK because the first fish learn to tolerate the nasty Ammonia and Nitrite because they build up slowly.
The only way to remove Ammonia and Nitrite successfully in our opinion is by partial water changes and the addition of bacterial activators like Hagen Cycle for aquariums or MS10 for ponds.
The use of Ammonia and Nitrite test kits is vital for every fish keeper who wants success and least mortality.
How long does a fish system take to mature after the first fish are added?
This can vary from between three weeks to three months and will take longer if too many fish are added initially.
Once your fish system has matured and you have slowly but surely added more fish over a reasonable time period, you will only need to do Ammonia and Nitrite tests if you foresee a problem within your aquarium or pond. However, it is important to regularly check the PH of your fish system to make sure that this is not changing too fast.
What is PH?
PH is a measure of the respective acidity or alkalinity of the water in your system. As fish produce waste this tends to slowly reduce the PH until eventually the PH drops to a level which causes an imbalance in the useful nitrifying bacteria in your filter system, which in turn usually means that the Ammonia or Nitrite or both will start to rise and fish health will suffer.
If you check your PH once a month, you will discover the problem before it has time to harm your fish and you can take corrective action. This corrective action should be discussed with your advisor at The Fish People Aquatic Centre, as there are a number of options regarding buffering the water and/or water changes and/or full system cleaning.
