Aquariums

[Bassett]

Jill has me convinced I need a small aquarium.

My questions is. Can I use city water that smells like bleach in it? My water has a strong smell. If you let it set the smell disappears and when you drink it, it is fine. I'm just wondering if it would be safe for fish. If not what kind of water should I use? I've been following Jills progress on her aquariums and find it fascinating. I will only get a small one though, don't have room for anything too extensive.

 

[HorseMom]

Jill has me convinced I need a small aquarium.

My questions is. Can I use city water that smells like bleach in it? My water has a strong smell. If you let it set the smell disappears and when you drink it, it is fine. I'm just wondering if it would be safe for fish. If not what kind of water should I use? I've been following Jills progress on her aquariums and find it fascinating. I will only get a small one though, don't have room for anything too extensive.

I asked my husband. He was a pet store manager the specialized in aquariums and exotic animals. He thinks that it would be ok if you boiled the water first or used a heavy duty chemical that removes chlorine. You can find it at most pet and aquarium stores. What we do for our aquarium is clean out several milk jugs and store treated water in them for we when do water changes. That way everything is ready when we need it. i refill them after I'm done cleaning the tank and have them ready to go again the next time i have to clean it.

Here's a link to some good information on water treatment for aquariums.

http://fins.actwin.com/mirror/begin-tapwater.html

I also love watching Jill's tank videos. She has some very beautiful setups. Good Luck with your tank and enjoy it. Jill is right, it is so relaxing to just watch them swim around.

 

[Sterling]

Hey Bonnie, we have well water now and I still use a water conditioner. Back before we moved to our farm, I still conditioned the water for my tropicals. You can find chorine and chemical removers in the pet stores that will condition your water. They also have ph, chlorine and ammonia tester kits. How big is your tank....what are you planning to get......we wanna know!!!

 

[Jill]

I think you can make it safe from the cholorine, etc., just by adding a water conditioner. I've been using (up until a few days ago, below...) Tetra's AquaSafe. It removes chlorine, heavy metals, etc.

One thing when you start a tank, you should cycle it. You can read up on that... it's basically what you do to allow good bacteria to establish itself, and that will nutralize the amonia the fish produce (which can kill fish if in an uncycled tank)... the good news is if you get it as "bad" as I got the bug, you can instantly cycle new tanks using filter media from an established tank

We have well water here, too, and I don't think I ever needed to use the conditioner, but I was "just because". I didn't use it though in our betta tanks and recently stopped using it in our tanks that have bettas, platies and corys. Today, I did partial water changes (huge ones) and didn't use it in any tank. So far, so good. I'm trying to get ride of the residual "AquaSafe" in the tanks as I want to start using a new chemical filter media ("Purigen") and it is not safe to use that with many water conditioners, including AquaSafe.

I love the tanks. Love Love Love them. If I could change anything, I'd have started with much bigger tanks. I didn't realize 1. How much I'd enjoy keeping the fish, and 2. How many different (non compatible) types of fish I would want to keep. Over the next couple-few months, we're doing weekend projects to consolidate smaller tanks into bigger ones. I think when it's all done, we will have 1 150g fancy goldfish tank, 1 75g mbuna cichlid tank, 1 55g parrot fish tank (with tropicals), 1 55g with a flowerhorn, 1 38g angelfish and tropicals, 1 29g small tropicals, and then some 10g divided tanks for the bettas. Phew... I'm tired just thinking about all the changes! But I love it...