Welp, I'm cooped up at my sis-tor's joint. Doc has Mother all rigged up to a mobile thingamejig wrapped around her waist, or something, and she has to report back tomorrow to make sure everything is ok with her heart. So, to make lemonade out of these lemons, I need to think of ways to terrorize my sis-tor. Hmmm.. Only something innnocent like... Maybe... puting her bras in the freezer as revenge to what she did to me last year when she stayed at my place during Christmas. All done with Love. :biggrinangelA: Or... Maybe I should wait until the holidays. Hmmm... :evil: :bdaybiggrin:
Very good Mrs. Goode. Sounds like ya have a good nub on those shoulders. Yep, patience and water changes. Personally, I would also look into the Amquel Plus and slightly increasing the salinity as mentioned previously, only if you're comfortable doing it. Also, I would significantly reduce feedings until everything evens out.
Forgot to mention...
As the microorganisms reproduce and perform their duties, converting the ammonia and nitrite through the process, these guys will be fueled by consuming the water's alkalinity, other minerals, and will release byproducts, such as a form of nitric acid, as the end result of the biological process. The water changes will help to compensate for what you will lose due to these biological processes.
In addition to the water changes, you can put in some a calcium carbonate (i.e., crushed oyster shells, crushed coral) or an aragonite product, and these products will slowly dissolve to replenish what the microorganisms will consume out of the water. If you can find a good aragonite product at a local fish store, then this would be the best. Otherwise, rather than aragonite, you can get crushed oyster shells from a farm supply store since this product is also fed to egg laying hens, except be sure the product does not have any addtives. You can layer this product at the bottom of the QT tank or use the product to create a waterfall or trickle tower or make your self a whiskey barrel bog where the top few inches is composed of the aragonite or calcium carbonate. Here is an exmaple of a
trickle tower, where you can use different material to hold the aragonite/calcium product or you can build a
diy water filter to house the material. Here is a
good retail option of a trickle tower made by Tetra. There are many options available and imagination is the only limitation.
To help move along the bio-filtering process, there are a few more options available :
1) The aforementioned calcium carbonate/aragonite product.
2) Koi clay as discussed in
post#4 in thread "how to stop murkiness". This product will contribute more microorganisms and beneficial minerals.
3) To keep this short, rather than repeating myself too much, then also check out the thread,
Raising KH and GH thread; I think in particular
post#23.
4) Good aeration. If the QT is small, then a good aquarium air pump/stone might be all you need.
Along with water temperature, the particular microorganism we are trying to grow also like a pH in the 7.8ish~8.3ish range. As the microogranisms consume the chemical pollution, then there is the potential for the pH to lower, as mentioned above, but major water changes will address this assuming your water is
not soft and acidic.
I would also look into putting in some plants. If you can obtain them, then choose plants that can tolerate a salinity quite well such as Canna, Fairy Moss, Hibiscus, Water Celery, Water Chestnut. So, then you can still do a
.10% salinity without having a concern of the salt harming the plants. You can easily make a bog out of any size of pot. The plants will improve the health of the water as well.
Sticking to slow major water changes is quite fine, as long as you have good water, during emergency situations such as when the pollution is quite high. Once everything settles down, then look into how you can help make the water healthier for the fish and checkout some of the fun homemade fish food recipes, which I imagine there are some for goldfish.
There's always homework to keep our brain active and strong... :banana: :claphands:
Anyways... Just a few thoughts for ya... :cheerful:
