brittant
Dog Person in the Water
(I know a have a thread about when to do the first change, but I have a 24-hour window to do this change in before I have surgery, so apologies for the overlap of the posts.)
I am about to do my first water change sometime in the next 24 hours. My strips (yes, I know, I will invest in a dropper kit when I get my paycheck this weekend) read yesterday that I had around 40 ppm Nitrates; it's around the same today. I have no idea about ammonium, honestly, as that is another test I need to pick up when the paycheck comes in. I'm also about to leave the tank for 6 days (but will be babysat) so I would like to do a change before I go. My 14 gal tank is approx. 6 weeks old.
I have been doing research online, and wanted to verify my methods with members:
1. Mix distilled water (1.4-2 gallons) with amount of salt according to package.
2. Let sit and aerate for 24 hours. Unfortunately, when I watched my dad do the exchanges as a kid, he always put the new water directly in, so it did not occur to me to buy an airstone (again, something I will pick up in the next week or so). Would regularly manually stirring it, and placing a small fan above it suffice?
3. After the 24 hours, turn off all lights and pumps in tank. Use the hose to pump out the desired amount of water and debris.
4. After heating the new water so that it matches the tank in temperature, slowly siphon it in.
Does it sound okay? Thanks!
I am about to do my first water change sometime in the next 24 hours. My strips (yes, I know, I will invest in a dropper kit when I get my paycheck this weekend) read yesterday that I had around 40 ppm Nitrates; it's around the same today. I have no idea about ammonium, honestly, as that is another test I need to pick up when the paycheck comes in. I'm also about to leave the tank for 6 days (but will be babysat) so I would like to do a change before I go. My 14 gal tank is approx. 6 weeks old.
I have been doing research online, and wanted to verify my methods with members:
1. Mix distilled water (1.4-2 gallons) with amount of salt according to package.
2. Let sit and aerate for 24 hours. Unfortunately, when I watched my dad do the exchanges as a kid, he always put the new water directly in, so it did not occur to me to buy an airstone (again, something I will pick up in the next week or so). Would regularly manually stirring it, and placing a small fan above it suffice?
3. After the 24 hours, turn off all lights and pumps in tank. Use the hose to pump out the desired amount of water and debris.
4. After heating the new water so that it matches the tank in temperature, slowly siphon it in.
Does it sound okay? Thanks!
