Question: The hell is cycling? + Water changes and temperature?

[Zonadow]

I'm sorry, I've read several links, I've researched it, I've asked my mother who has previously been an employee of an aquarium shop and the girlfriend of an owner of an aquarium shop, I still don't understand. I don't want to kill my axies when I get them because I didn't cycle the tank or if I didn't cycle it right!

I also know you're supposed to do a 20% water change daily - how dyou know it's 20% and what do you fill the tank with? Would a Pur filter on a kitchen sink faucet work? I've heard tap water has chlorine in it but I don't wanna take the risk. I'll be getting my axies when we move to Utah, and Utah has a 3-4 month snow and 80-90 degree summers - how am I supposed to keep the tank warm and cool enough for a stable temperature during winter and summer days?

 

[dazkeirle]

Hi,

In my sig are the readings that are recommended for your water. Use an API test kit to measure.

20% of water is pretty simple to work out on a cuboid tank, just take approximately 1/5 of the water out daily and replace untill your readings are acceptable and then reduce to once weekly.

Normal cold tap water is fine, just use a dechlorinating solution like "tanksafe". They will be next to the test kits and have full instructions in them.

The kit will cost around £30 and the Tank Safe solution around £5.

There are hundreds of threads here regarding keeping you tank cool. I'll let you do that bit of research for yourself, it'll do you good

 

[JWERNER]

I'm sorry, I've read several links, I've researched it, I've asked my mother who has previously been an employee of an aquarium shop and the girlfriend of an owner of an aquarium shop, I still don't understand. I don't want to kill my axies when I get them because I didn't cycle the tank or if I didn't cycle it right!

I also know you're supposed to do a 20% water change daily - how dyou know it's 20% and what do you fill the tank with? Would a Pur filter on a kitchen sink faucet work? I've heard tap water has chlorine in it but I don't wanna take the risk. I'll be getting my axies when we move to Utah, and Utah has a 3-4 month snow and 80-90 degree summers - how am I supposed to keep the tank warm and cool enough for a stable temperature during winter and summer days?

Its really simple.

Water changes are needed to dilute what ever nitrates are left behind as well as any other contaminates that have built up not involved with the nitrogen cycle.

You could do 20% water changes or more but not all of the water at once. I would also recommend doing it weekly unless your doing some breeding and heavy feeding. That way your not constantly messing with water parameters from a day to day basis. Animals can tolerate a slow build up of nitrates and can adjust to s low swing in PH. Its when it happens so suddenly that it stresses them out and could sometimes put them in shock killing them.

Just eye ball it really. Say you wanna do a quarter water change,.... well just take the tanks volume ( 20 gallon for example ) and do the math. If your using a 5 gallon bucket one bucket does the trick.

Once your comfortable with the amount your removing you can take a sharpie or piece of tape and mark the tank so you know in the future.

 

[jclee]

Just eye ball it really. Say you wanna do a quarter water change,.... well just take the tanks volume ( 20 gallon for example ) and do the math. If your using a 5 gallon bucket one bucket does the trick.

I'll second the eye-balling method. I usually measure the height of my tank, and mark ~20% of the way down from the water's surface with a dry erase marker. (I.e. 10" tall, rectangular tank = 2" from waterline is ~20%). I just aim for the marker line, or go a little over if the axolotls have been particularly hungry/waste-producing that week. (They seem to eat more when the tank's a bit warmer.)

Also, I thought I'd go ahead and post the link to the article that JWerner got his image from. I find the written explanations helpful as well: The Aquarium Nitrogen Cycle