am i hurting my fish

[ShadowBass]

There seem to be two different boats of keepers.. some who check water parameters constant and freak when they forget to add stress coat during a water change and others who KISS(Keep it simple stupid) who hardly ever check water parameters/feel water temperature with their finger/and never use stress coat. I think both are ok.

But for the point of this exercise I guess it's good for the poster to learn what all these things are so he knows about them.

I'm not in either boat, lol.

I rarely check water parameters. I have my little system going where I do water changes a certain amount and I can pretty much look at my tanks and know if I've slacked a bit too much.
Every once in awhile I check nitrates to make sure they're not too out of wack, but that's about it and I rarely have a sick fish.

I still think it's good to understand nitrifying bacteria though. Having a full understanding means that if something goes wrong with your tank or your fish get sick you know where to start checking.

 

[Cross127]

I am by no means a test freak. I test once a week maybe 1 evrey two weeks, just to keep things in check. I just add Aquasafe and let it sit for an hour then dump it into the tank. I test the water with my finger for temp. One day I adjusted it to what feels like the tanks temp then put my digital thermomater in and it was the same exact temp as the tank. So I just go by my sense.