How to Change the Water in a Brackish Aquarium

To keep your brackish water aquarium clean and chemically balanced you need to periodically change out part of the water. A brackish water aquarium has less salt then a saltwater aquarium and emulates the water that can be found in the mouths of rivers where the river meets the sea. Many beautiful puffer fish require brackish water.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Bucket
• Water
• Chemical Neutralizer
• Siphon hose
• Salt
• Bucket to store salt water
• Hydrometer

1. Get a bag of salt for a saltwater aquarium.

2. Mix salt with water. I use a 5 gallon bucket with a lid. Let sit at least overnight

3. Follow the steps in this article to clean your tank first. How To Change the Water in your Aquarium http://wehow.ehow.com/how_2000666_change-water-aquarium.html

4. Add tap water and some of the saltwater. Use a hydrometer to get the salt water to the proper density. Your aquarium store can tell you what level is appropriate for the brackish fish you buy.

Tips & Warnings

• If you need to change more than 25% of the water wait about 3 days and then do another water change.
• If the water temperature is not the same as already in the tank, you can stress or kill your fish.
• Changing too much water at one time can stress or kill your fish.

[daviej]

on 9/3/2009 URGENT HELP NEEDED ASAP PLEASE:

I set up a brackish tank about 3 months ago for the 1st time & I’ve had nothing but trouble, my Nitrate is fine as well as my PH which varies from 8 to 8.5 due to the amount of water changes I’ve been doing, my Ammonia was 0.1 at the last test but my Nitrate is high, 75, I was advised to do a water change every other day but this doesn’t seem to be working. I haven’t been putting the Salt back in due to the water changes every other day.

I was also advised to get rid of the sand as I’d used sand I got from the beach because I liked the colour, I was informed that even though I cleaned it it’s not acceptable for aquariums & that I shouldn’t have sand any deeper than 1.5 inches deep, I had it at 2.5, this apparently is because it holds more harmful bacteria than gravel & the deeper it is the worse, I don’t know if it’s true but I’ve taken the sand o...