CB, Raven and Lucille
No. As long as the salt is added slowly in the first step to prevent the fish and/or bacteria from going into shock, then they should be fine… at least up to the 0.3% range. When you inadvertently went up to the 0.5% range near the beginning, that might start to affect the nitrifying bacteria but probably not since you never did see a major cycling issue.. just this constant mini-cycling issue.
If it’s an Aquaclear filter, the extra end could just slide onto the existing end since the tubes are slightly tapered. No problem having two strainers since the inside one will not likely be affected since the bottom one would catch any big stuff anyhow until it breaks down enough to slip through the slots. It’s better in some ways to have the intake deeper into the tank to make sure there is sufficient circulation in the deeper sections of the tank.
The fact that your nitrates keep rising sure seems to indicate that your tank is cycled. I’m wondering if the nitrite test might be giving a slightly bad reading. Double check your instructions. Double shake the bottles. Maybe bring a water sample to your LFS or pet store to see what they come up with for nitrites.
From all I’ve read over the years, it’s usually the API Nitrate test that will sometimes fail or give bad readings due to the chemicals settling and hardening in the bottom of the bottle, which can be remedied by making sure you shake it plenty. I haven’t seen this issue with the API Nitrite kit. I shake all of my bottles before using them just to make sure everything is in solution… and I even tap the bottoms of the bottles to loosen up anything that might have settled too much.
Once your fish are fully healed up, you should certainly start weaning them off the salt since they do not need salt in their water once every thing is cycled and the fish are healthy.
When you refer to “hate removing good bacteria with PWC’s”, do you mean the SafeStart? Other than that, very few of the good nitrifying bacteria live in the water column. They live on all of the surface areas of the tank and mostly in your filter media.
Lenny Vasbinder Fish Blog - http://GoldLenny.blogspot.com (Links to any articles referenced in above reply are listed on the right side, alphabetically under Labels and also under Archives by Year, Month)
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
