STAGE 3 (WEEKS 2-6)

MATURING YOUR AQUARIUM

sera KIT - STAGE 3

This stage calls for your patients, rush it and can easily lose fish and with it confidence. If you add your second batch of fish to early, you run the much higher risk of destroying all you have already achieved, by exposing your fish to the risk of disease or even death.

1. Aquatest

   Use 'Aquatest' as the tool to help you turn you tap water into your healthy aquarium. Test a minimum of weekly and see what happens to your aquarium, it is quite amazing to see how the chemistry changes. Remember don't be tempted to add your second batch of fish until 'you get an 'Aquatest' score of 90%+ and you won't go far wrong.

2. Ammonia & Nitrite

   By testing at least weekly you will see both the ammonia and the nitrites increase, then as the 'friendly' bacteria colonise in your filter they will decrease. No two aquariums are ever exactly the same, so there is no exact time scale as to what will happen and how fast it will happen. Interestingly 10 days is about the fastest you can mature an aquarium, but for most aquariums it normally takes around 4-6 weeks.

3. Overfeeding

   Levels of ammonia and nitrite on average peak around the two week mark, if you are climbing to the top of the test results tables in say a few days to a week, this can be caused by giving to much food at this stage of the aquariums life.

   It is not necessarily that you are over feeding the fish, more likely you are putting in more food then the aquariums filter system can cope with. So cut down to one small meal a day and make sure you have no uneaten food in the aquarium as this makes the problem much worse. If you have over fed remove any uneaten food but gently whisking the water with a fine white net, you will find you can catch the food in the net quite easily and remove it. When using the Aquazoo technique and the sera products Aquatest will not normally recommended changing any water at this stage. Keep following the Aquatest recommendations, if you have purchased the fish we recommended they are normally strong enough to get though this period. Changing water often just slows things down as it is not possible to dilute neither ammonia nor nitrite the only way to get lower levels is to let the friendly bacteria do this for you.

   Note. If at anytime Aquatest does recommends a water change in this period, it is safe to carry it out, but make sure you prepare the water correctly first. If you require any additional help please feel free to e-mail us

4. Are your pH and GH on target

   Make sure that you are on target with both the pH and GH. If you live in a hard water area it normally takes from between one to two weeks to get this part of your aquariums chemistry correct. Please remember it is better not to add aquatic plants until you have the correct readings, the plants do not like having the pH adjusted, especially quickly, so again be patient. In soft water areas this is less of a problem and hopefully you will get a good result quite quickly. Amazingly though some water companies in soft water areas make the water harder to protect their piping network thus extending it's life span, so some adjustment may become necessary. Be aware also that in some areas the KH value will be very low; thus making your aquariums pH less stable and the growth of the plants will be somewhat inhibited, so follow the Aquatest recommendations.

5. Nitrate

   As the aquarium matures you will notice an increase in the level of nitrate this is quite normal. Nitrates are in them selves not as toxic as ammonia and nitrite, but without any doubt, the lower the score the better the fish. Many areas in the UK have tap water with high nitrates, so water changes alone don't necessarily improve the situation. If you are in a situation where the nitrates are climbing high fast, then follow Aquatest recommendations and you will improve the situation very quickly.

6. If your Aquatest score is 90%+ = more fish.

   Once you are confident that you have successfully matured your aquarium and you have scored 90% or more using Aquatest on more than one occasion, then feel free to add more fish. You are best advised to add fish slowly, whilst slowly increasing the quantity of food you are offering your fish up to the manufactures recommendation. If you go to far to fast you will end up with the ammonia and nitrites climbing again, so test regularly and follow the recommendations and you will experience minimal problems.

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