Aquarium+Maintenance

 **__ Aquarium Maintenance __** These are the jobs that the 8th grade students do to keep the aquarium running and keep the fish healthy.

__ Water Monitoring __ pH: Amount of acid in the water. Between 6.5 - 7.0

Nitrates: Amount of gas and oxygen in the water.

Ammonia: The higher ammonia the higher the ph.

Temperature: Between 50 and 52

WATER CHANGES AND SIPHONING You take the number of jugs that are on the shelves. You add water to the fish tank. Dump the new ones in. It is vital to their life because they need new water for their life. You fill the tube of the siphoning up with beakers of water. Then you put the tube in the tank which makes suction. The reason we do this is so the fish don’t eat their own waste and get sick.

Feeding the fish The fish feeding process is pretty simply. Probably the hardest part of this job, is finding out the amount you must feed the fish. Luckily we have a very nice chart to know this information. For example, when the fish were 1 inch long, we fed them **.34 grams** (About 1 pinch) of type __one__ food. But now that they are between 1 ½ inch to 2 ½ inches, we feed them **.85** to **2.73 grams** (about 2-3 pinches) of type __two__ food.

**__ How to clean the filter __** To clean the filter, you have to first take it apart, then clean off the ceramic rings called “Biomax”, next, you have to get some water from the aquarium and pour slowly over them, also you must clean the “Chemi-Pure- A media filter that removes the ammonia and other harmful waste products and toxins from the aquarium water”, you CANNOT get Any tap water on neither the media filter or the Biomax… the plastic trays holding the Biomax and the Chemi-Pure can be RINSED with tap water but NO SOAP!!!!!! Then you put the filter back together and hook it up to the aquarium and make sure it is working….. That is all you really need to do to clean the filter……  By: Cassidy Burke + Ryan Walker



Nitrogen Cycle This is the Nitrogen Cycle of our fish tank. First you feed the fish, the fish eats the food. Then the fish leaves the food out as waste. (NH4) The ammonium goes into the plants and the extra turns to Nitrites. (WO2) After awhile the NO2 turns into Nitrates. (NO3) Then you must change the water to get rid of the NO3.




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Before the fish came we had to prepare the water in the aquarium. Here is what we had to do: __** · Get tank running about 4 weeks prior to eggs. · Tap water conditioner. · Set chiller down to 50-52 degrees two days before eggs arrive. · Stress zyme- speed up the process of culturing the beneficial bacteria in the tank that help with the nitrogen cycle. · When changing water in the tank, it must be “aged” to allow the chlorine to dissipate unless you are using well water. Chlorine will naturally dissipate within 24 hours.