Tips For Maintaining A Stable Tank For The Long Term

There are lots of threads about setting up new tanks (understandably), and all the problems that can arise with this. But I can't find much about maintaining a stable, stocked tank.

Is that because all the drama stops and it becomes easy?

I have finally moved into this phase and all I can think of is keeping up regular, good sized water changes, and quarantining any new fish. I'm sure there is more.

Do you more experienced fishkeepers have any tips? Eg how often should water be tested? Any pitfalls to be aware of? I want my fish to live out their full lifespans happily in my tank.

 

Is that because all the drama stops and it becomes easy?

Pretty much. Unless you have a high tech planted tank or reef after it cycles, and you get all the fish in, you basically just settle down into a routine. Water change once or twice a week, and feed. Honestly now that everything is setup I never test my parameters in my low tech tank. My high tech gets nitrates and ph tested since I have to dose nitrates and ph lets me know how much CO2 in the water. But in my low tech tank and shrimp tank I never test. Just weekly water changes.

 

I think so, that would make sense.

I am definitely still a newbie and I hope you don't mind me piping in, but ever since I started doing the below things religiously I have not had any major problems:

Test water parameters once a week

Do my tank maintenance/partial water changes once a week or more if testing indicates I need to though this has not happened to me yet.

Make sure I am not overstocked. I have platies so there can be lots of new babies on the way. I monitor this and will bring to LFS when there are too many.

Make sure I am not over feeding.

Try to monitor how each fish is acting every day so if someone looks like they are not doing well I have some idea of when it may have started. Fingers crossed, I have not had any problems here yet.

 

It's not that the drama goes away but it's that if a tank is doing well, people don't have so many questions about it. Now at the same time, you'll find a few threads about tanks that have been around for a while and then "suddenly" have failures and deaths. So pretty much, lots of questions about setups, a few about long-term tanks failing when things were going well "just the other day" or when adding in new something to the tank that has been doing well for a while, and finally not that much about intermediate tank life because things are mostly OK at that time.

I reduce testing down to once a month or even once every 2 months. If fish seem well with no weird coloration, no low physical activity, or no bacterial/fungal infections, then I assume my water parameters are within limits. This is with regular water changes, not a no-water-change situation that some people settle in to, because that kind of situation can actually begin to make a tank that looks OK, suddenly crash.

 

Thanks everyone! I've got some really great ideas from your posts.

 

Definitely, once the tank is cycled and there are no large stocking changes the issues seem to be with algae and plant growth. Still you can have very serious drama after cycling - I crashed the cycle in my 20 gallon absentmindedly and killed my dwarf gouramis with ammonia poisoning when I was much too busy at work.