Guide: Routine & Priority (Intermediate)

The Importance of Routine

One of the most overlooked topic in the hobby is the importance of ‘Consistency’, the subject is often spoken in relation to water chemistry and general maintenance of your aquarium environment.

‘keep a stable and consistent parametre’

This is true! spikes of anything in the water column is not good..the only thing that happens fast within the aquarium are bad things, fishes and plants do not like spikes or drops in Ph, nutrients, Co2 etc etc and although plants tend to be more resilient than fishes in most cases the only organism that benefit from turbulent conditions are algae.

Setting a routine and priority list for your tank mitigates a lot of the problems that we run into, not only does it provide consistent routine for our flora and fauna to adapt to- it also provides us with peace of mind and a baseline on what is ‘normal’ for OUR tank at any given day/week etc, this in turn makes it easier for us to spot anomalies and budding problems.

Don’t worry this is still a hobby! these routines are simple even for high tech tanks.

Routine & Your Aquarium

Did you know that our aquarium and it’s denizens adapt to our habits as it’s keeper? ever see your fish swim up to the front of the glass when you walk by? notice how your plants ‘close’ up their leaves during light’s out period? Long story short Pavlovian conditioning is somewhat in play here and the more consistent we are with our routine (time of day etc) the more powerful these conditioned behaviors become.

I get it, it seems ridiculous to think that plants and fishes can learn and to adapt to our behavior and you are correct! they don’t react to our behavior at all, they adapt to the stimulus that our behavior result in. Still don’t believe? try this!

Experiment: Flora Behavior Part 1

• Light on everyday at 9am and Lights out by 5pm.
• Make sure there are no other significant source of light for your plants.
• Do this for 60 days.
• You will observe plant leaves ‘opening’ at 9am and closing after photoperiod.

Experiment: Flora Behavior Part 2

• Change your photoperiod to start at 3pm.
• No adaptation, just change your routine.
• You will notice immediately that your plants STILL ‘open’ at 9am expecting the beginning of the photoperiod that they’ve adapted to.

GET SCIENCED!

-Stalin probably

For animals it’s far more observable! and depending on what type of fish you have this ‘learned’ behaviour can be more pronounced.

Experiment: Fauna Behavior Part 1

• Feed your fish everyday at 9am.
• Feed what they like, make sure they get their fill.
• Be consistent. Every.Single.Day at the same time.
• Before feeding stand in front of your aquarium for 30 seconds (this is important).
• Naturally you will see your fish come to the surface to feed- this is normal, it applies to almost all fish.
• Do this for 60 days (depends on fish really).

Experiment: Flora Behavior Part 2

• Now stand in front of your tank without feeding.
• You will notice that your fish will swarm to you expecting food! I did this with Angel Fish- cichlids tend to be good for this experiment.
• Now break the routine by feeding them at random times, after X period they will lose this behavior.
• If you put an automated feeder, they wont even react to your presence next time- since your presence is no longer associated with food.

Oscars, Angels, Discus and larger fishes tend to show these behaviors more readily.

Your snails are never going to show you this much affection…

I’m not trying to make the case that your going to be able to play fetch with your fish anytime soon….although…

Priority List & Your Aquarium

Equilibrium is the goal of all planted aquariums, a point in which all desirable organisms thrive and complements the existence of the other within our enclosed ecosystem- we as hobbyist facilitate this state by fertilising, adding CO2, water changes etc but what is the priority order?

This subject was a cause of much hesitation for me, not everyone has the same priority list and certainly not everyone has the same amount of time to dedicate to their hobby. To simplify this discussion I will be speaking based on MY priority list and hope that you can translate some benefits from my thought process.

Priority list is a simple checklist that ensures the needs of your aquariums are met, they are quiet static most of the time in an established tank and is quiet easy (even relaxing) once you’ve grown accustomed to them.

My Priority List

Different aquariums have different priorities.

1. Plant growth
2. Algae Control
3. Clear Water
4. Fish Health
5. Fish Breeding

My daily routine revolves around maintaining the priority list, ensuring plants have adequate nutrients and parameters are kept in balance.

My Routine

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
High Tech	Macro	Micro	Macro	Micro	Macro	Micro	Water Change
Low Tech	Macro	Micro	–	–	–	–	–

Fertilising Regime

Only ‘Sprite Garden‘ received 60% water change every Sunday, no other aquarium gets water change. All tanks are trimmed as needed with some tanks getting trimmed weekly to others which are trimmed every fortnightly or once per month.

Once/Day	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Feeding	Flakes	Krill	Waterfly/Live Food	Blood worms	Algae wafer	Protein pellet	Fasting

Feeding Regime
All tanks except Discus tank

Fishes are fed at 10:00 am everyday.

Automated Regiment

• CO2 injection begins at 7:00am for all High tech tanks.
• Lights turns on at 8:00am for all aquariums.
• 8 hour photoperiod for High tech tanks
• 6 hour photoperiod for Low tech tanks

In total I spend 10 minutes per day and 20 minutes on Sunday for the single water change, every once in a while the plant growth synchronizes where ALL the aquariums need trimming- this takes around 1 hour.

Final thought

This routine ensures that my plants have all the required nutrients to continue growth and my livestock are kept well fed (importantly not overfed). I don’t have algae issues in my tanks until recently where phosphate deficiencies has led to GSA popping up, easy fix since the problem was identified quickly and now I’ll be dosing phosphates.

Ironically I spent effort importing phosphate free fish foods because I had BBA issues early in my hobby, now I’m having phosphate deficiencies…

The solution is balance not eradication.

This hobby shouldn’t be a chore and your routine and maintenance should be fun! offering you an opportunity to adjust and play around with your setup, depending on your style of tank routines can be complex of very undemanding.

Craft your routine around you and your preferred amount of effort and you will find that once your aquarium adapts to a stable regime general maintenance and upkeep of your ecology is astoundingly simple.