Preparing An Emergency First Aid Kit For Your Salt Water Aquarium
A salt water aquarium emergency kit is crucial to have along with all the other equipment you need when you own any kinds of tropical fish or marine life. These kits will ensure that you actually can cope with any emergencies to your salt water aquarium as and when they arise.
Such kits become extremely useful if you find yourself in a situation where you need to remove some, or all of the water in your salt water aquarium. Plus they are ideal to help you deal with situations when one or may be more of the tropical fish, and other marine life in your saltwater aquarium tank suddenly become unwell.
What Equipment Should You Include In Your Salt Water Aquarium First Aid Kit
The first piece of equipment that one should be purchasing as part of a first aid kit when keeping a salt water aquarium, is a quarantine or isolation tank. This is where you place those fish which have become unwell and offers you the time to actually discover what is really causing their illness. By placing the fish or other marine life into this small tank, you are preventing further contamination occurring in your main saltwater aquarium tank.
The next piece of equipment you need as part of your salt water aquarium emergency first aid kit, is a water test kit. This will ensure that all the right levels of nitrates, proteins and salt are in the water, which will provide the proper environment for the fish and marine life in the tank. Also these test kits will give you advance warning of any problems that could cause harm to the aquatic life in the tank.
The third piece of equipment that should be included in any first aid kit for your salt water aquarium, is a water conditioner. This helps to destroy the buildup of ammonia in the tank and is also useful when you decide to put any varieties of poisonous tropical fish into your aquarium. Sometimes these fish can actually release their poison and the water conditioner is able to neutralize it before it becomes harmful to other marine life in the tank.
If you can afford to purchase one, then an alkalinity and pH buffer is another product that you should include in your emergency first aid kit. It works to help bring the levels of pH back to a normal level in a salt water aquarium, should you need to change all or some of the water in it. Plus along with this product you will need to mix into the water in the tank, some baking powder. A teaspoon of baking powder needs to be added to a salt water aquarium for every 20 gallons of water that the tank can hold,
Salt Water Aquarium First Aid Kit – Other Possible Supplies To Buy
Medications are another essential item to include in your salt water aquarium emergency first aid kit, however be aware that certain ones can be harmful to other marine life in the tank including your reefs. Rather it is far better if you remove the unwell fish from the tank to the quarantine tank instead, as there are some medications that can also damage the filter system in your saltwater aquarium.
Another piece of equipment that many would consider essential in their salt water aquarium first aid kit is a sea salt mixture. At times you may find that water needs to be replaced and the freshwater you replace it with, needs to be treated first, to bring it up to the right salinity levels before you incorporate it into the tank.
Finally it is worth considering some additional money on getting yourself a spare heater (just in case the one you have currently fails), along with a spare canister filter for your salt water aquarium. This filter is ideal at helping to clean the water in your tank if at any time you add medication to treat any ill fish in your salt water aquarium.
