hi i'm Irene with girl talks fish and yes despite my best efforts i ended up catching the virus
so i'm all headachy congested feverish that kind of thing and i barely have the time or
energy to take care of myself much less my fish but life must go on they still
need somebody looking after them so i wanted to show you my top five time saving techniques that
you can use hopefully if you're ever sick or if you're crazy busy like i usually am
#1 has to do with testing water parameters now i used to be a die hard API master test kit user it
has those little test tubes and reagents that test pH, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate but nowadays um
with my aquariums i'm mostly interested in nitrate and this test takes seven and a half minutes to
eight minutes to run just so i can tell how much fertilizer i need to add or how much water to
change and that takes a lot of time so nowadays honestly i just use test strips so we've got the
aquarium co-op test strips and i like them because it only like i said takes 60 seconds
and it tests a number of things besides nitrate and i'm not only interested in nitrate but also
GH or water hardness just because my water is super soft so i need to know
when i need to add more minerals so that my plants and invertebrates will do well.
Time saving tip #2 is my Python no [spill] water change system which is basically a very long
aquarium siphon that has one end that can hit hook directly to a sink so if you've seen my
previous video on how to clean a planted aquarium you'll notice that i didn't use any buckets to
transport out the dirty fish tank water and to refill in clean water into my aquarium instead
i use this 50-foot Python um aquarium siphon that basically one end goes into the tank
and then the other end goes directly onto my lawn so that i can put the dirty fish tank
water to feed my grass and then once i'm done i take that end that was on the lawn and hook it up
directly to the sink turn on the faucet and then that water pours back into the tank easy
peasy no buckets needed probably the thing that takes the longest is just winding this thing up
tip number three is to use some kind of automatic fish food feeder now i am not so sick that i can't
get out of bed but if i was in that position or if i was going out of town or if i just
really wanted to amp up the feeding of my fish to condition them for breeding and grow up my fry
this little machine is the way to go i like the Aquarium Co-Op one because it doesn't require
any double a batteries you can actually use a USB cable to charge it which is pretty cool and then
i like to use pellets to fill up the drum just because i feel like they're kind of evenly sized
and they pour out pretty easily you just adjust this opening to determine how much food you want
to come out and if that opening is still too big just cover it with a little bit of scotch tape and
then whenever the drum rotates that amount of food will fall out each time i think you can program
this thing up to four times per day pretty cool i would say one of my biggest pet peeves in the
uh hobby would be having algae on the tank walls just because then you can't see the fish in plants
and it just makes like everything look gross so a few tips and tricks to help there would be a)
definitely have your light on a timer so that you're not growing that much algae in the first
place b) get the help of some algae eaters like otocinclus catfish and nerite snails definitely
a huge help and then c) uh get a mag-float algae scraper they're really nice because you don't even
have to get your hands wet in order to scrape off the algae you just you know every time you
pass the tank just do a few swipes here and there and the gunk just comes right off for
more tips and tricks on how to get rid of algae make sure to check out my videos i have over here
now i know i just went through my siphon uh system and my algae cleaning techniques but
the biggest time saver in my opinion is not having to clean the aquarium as often period
so i know some people really enjoy that but if you're super lazy like me here's what you got to
do: a) get a bigger tank like i feel like my 10 gallon and 20 gallon aquariums because there's
more water they don't get as polluted with fish waste as quickly and the water parameters seem
to be a lot more stable versus my five gallon tank i feel like i'm always having to babysit and watch
really carefully because those water parameters can swing pretty drastically if i'm not careful
b) is not to over feed your fish so if you are seeing lots of excess food on the gravel don't
do that anymore if your fish are obese or there's constantly strings of poop hanging from them feed
them less portion control c) speaking of fish waste, get fewer fish i know a lot of people
they want to see a beautiful aquarium full of fish but you know the less fish you have the
less food you'll have to feed them the less poop will be produced and then the less often you'll
have to do water changes and d) the most important component is to get as many live aquarium plants
as possible because they will actually consume those toxic nitrogen compounds that come from your
fish's waste so imagine your aquarium should look like a forest full of trees with very very few
animals in sight in comparison i used to have to do massive water changes every single week which
took about 30 minutes to an hour per aquarium but now because of those plants that i added
i often have only 0 ppm nitrate and have to add fertilizer to make sure that my plants
stay well fed but to me adding a few pumps of fertilizer is a lot easier and quicker than
having to do a full water change if you've never played with live aquarium plants before you've
gotta check out this playlist i have over here on five things i wish i knew before i started a
planted aquarium so you can learn about some of my best practices and mistakes to avoid
to keep your plants happy and healthy take time to enjoy your aquariums i'll see in the next video
yes i made it now i'm gonna go to bed
[thump]