water change question

Take a look at Kent's site on fishless cycling. It might save you some time with the cycle. He only adds ammonia _once_ to the tank to 5ppm, where others 'feed' ammonia daily - note what he has to say about a 'never ending' cycle. http://www.angelfire.com/or2/cichlid102/Tank_chemistry/ cycling.htm

The water change at the end of the cycle is to lower the nitrate levels and may take as little as a 10% water change - and as much as a 70% water change.

Add a dechlorinator as your filling the tank from the tap (hose) keeping the tanks water temperature around 78º. Quite a bit of the time, people lose their bio-colonie because they didn't add the fish fast enough, starving the colonie....Frank

Hi Chris,

I've never purchased a python, but it's definately the technique to use. I'm a DYI type of guy and have found that you can mix and match garden hoses attachments with pvc pipe (which is easy to work with). I'm fortunate enough to own a house and ran pvc pipe from my tank to the laundary tub in the basement. On each end I have garden hose attachments (which attach to your laundary faucet) so I use the pipe for both drain and fill. I added a valve both ends so I can easily test the temperature of the water and don't have to quickly run downstairs to turn of the water.

Pythons seem to take all the guess work out of this process, especially if you are in an apartment.

One more tidbit. There is a PVC pipe attachement for dishwashers. The small pipe coming out connects nicely to a piece of garden hose. I attached this to a U shaped piece of PCV. The hose and PVC rest on the gravel for filling and now my water shoots up from the gravel.