In aquarium care, the most important thing is to make the living space of your fish reproduce the conditions to which they are accustomed in nature. The foundation for this is laid when planning the aquarium. If fish from the same natural habitat live in an aquarium, it is easy to create the right water conditions, if instead you combine fish from different waters, they may have totally different needs in terms of values, making it difficult to care for the aquarium.
To avoid a lot of work to care for your aquarium, use the sera online laboratory. You will easily learn how to use water conditioners and tests. You can monitor the quality of the water in your aquarium at all times and will receive suggestions for improvement immediately.
Care plans
1. Daily care:
Lighting on and off:
The lighting should be on for approximately 12 hours, which roughly corresponds to the length of a tropical day. In case of problems with algae, you can reduce the lighting to 8 hours, for example by turning it off for a few hours at noon. You can control the lighting hours with a timer.
Water level control:
Check the water level and restore the evaporated water so that the surface vacuum cleaner continues to work and the heater remains sufficiently submerged. Remove plant debris from the suction grids of the inner filter or the suction tube of the outer filter if they seriously impede the flow of water.
Filter control:
Also check if the filter and / or aerator are working properly. If the flow out of the filter clearly decreases, clean the filter materials. The filter outlet should be arranged in such a way that the surface of the water does not just move slightly. In this way, the loss of CO2 is reduced by creating better growth conditions for the plants and thus reducing the growth of algae.
Temperature control:
Today’s aquarium heaters are very reliable. However, once a day you should take a look at the aquarium thermometer. This way you can be sure that everything is going well.
Feeding:
Feed the fish 2-3 times a day, but only as much as they consume in a short time. Feed nocturnal fish and those that live near the bottom after lighting is turned off.
2. Weekly care:
Water change:
Weekly partial water change is the most important care measure to maintain biological balance, especially in small aquariums. In larger aquariums or aquariums with little fish population, partial water changes at 2-3 week intervals are sufficient. If you are well organized, you should allow 15-20 minutes for each water change.
In case the water values drastically deteriorate, sera toxivec provides immediate help.
Water tests:
Once a week you should check the most important water values.
Fertilize the plants:
Plants perform important tasks in the aquarium: supply of vital oxygen to fish, biological removal of harmful substances. hiding places and limits of territory for fish.
3. Care as needed
Inadvertent supercharging:
After an hour the food still lies at the bottom of the aquarium without interest to the fish. Obviously it has been too much.
Take the following measures immediately:
Vacuum up food debris with the sera aquarium vacuum cleaner. As you do so, change between 15% and 30% of the aquarium water. Condition the new water with sera aqutan and sera nitrivec and check the water values.
High levels of harmful substances?
After the water tests, you see that the values of harmful substances are above the maximum values indicated. Some of the causes are:
Too many fish for the size of the aquarium.
The filter capacity is too small.
Supercharging