Fish Aquarium Water Treatments

Aquarium water treatments: the conditioners, bacterial starters and test strips that make mains water safe to use and let you see what is happening in the tank. API and Nutrafin cover dechlorinating, cycling, testing and one botanical remedy between them, and most items here are labelled for freshwater and saltwater alike.

Test first, then treat

Guessing at water quality is how most tank problems start. The API 5 In 1 Freshwater And Saltwater Aquarium Test Strips read pH, carbonate and general hardness, nitrite and nitrate from a single dip, which is enough for a routine weekly check. Ammonia is deliberately not on that strip, so the API Ammonia Freshwater And Saltwater Aquarium Test Strips are the ones to reach for on a new tank, after a heavy feed, or any time fish look off — ammonia is the parameter that does damage fastest. API Quick Testing Strips PH cover pH on its own if that is the only figure you are tracking. Test at the same time of day each week, before a water change rather than after, and write the numbers down; a trend tells you far more than one reading.

Conditioning and cycling

API Stress Coat and Nutrafin Aqua Plus are water conditioners. They neutralise the chlorine and chloramine in mains water so it can go straight into the tank, and both add a slime-coat protectant, so one of them is used at every water change and top-up. Bacterial products do something quite different: API Quick Start adds nitrifying bacteria so a newly filled tank has a biological filter working from the start, and API Stress Zyme is dosed on an ongoing basis to keep those colonies going and help break down organic waste. Neither replaces the other, and neither removes the need to stock a new tank slowly over several weeks while you watch the numbers settle.

Treatments and a note on carbon

API Pimafix Fish Remedy is the one product in this group aimed at the fish rather than the water — a botanical formula dosed to tank volume over a course of days, so measure the tank properly before you start. Remove activated carbon from the filter before dosing it, or any other treatment, because carbon adsorbs the treatment back out of the water. Put fresh carbon in once the course is finished.

• The wider fish water care range
• Aquarium filters & media
• Fish tanks & aquarium kits
• Fish food
• The full API range
• The Nutrafin range