Morning check list.

[esoxlucius]

Every single morning when I come downstairs I have a routine, it's ingrained in me now, almost to the point of OCD. But it's important so I do it, no question. My two big tanks are in seperate rooms, I walk into each room and......

1. Audible.
Although my tanks are reasonably quiet, when I come down on my own every morning it's silent, so I hear everything. Slight whirring of pumps, splashing of returns, gurgling of drains. Everything sounds ok? Check 1 is done.

2. Odour.
Occurs simultaneously with sound. You walk into the room, are there any peculiar smells maybe indicating a dead fish. Everything smells ok? Check 2 done.

3. Visual.
First off I check the display tank water level, though if everything is fine audibly then I know that the water level is going to be ok without even looking. Then I check the thermometer, and also dip my fingers in the water.

(Those three checks, from opening the door, literally take 5 seconds. If I feel anything isn't quite right with either of them, then further investigation/remedial action is taken immediately).

Carrying on with the visual comes the fish themselves. This is just a quick once over. Firstly, any dead bodies? (I prefer to find them at this point before check number 2 has the chance to kick in). Any erratic swimming behaviour, fish darting about, gulping at surface, skulking in a corner etc etc. At the same time i'm looking for injuries, marks, scale loss, split fins, cloudy eyes, bloatedness etc etc. And lastly I may do a quick headcount, easier in my 360, not so much in my 180.

All the above take literally 2 minutes on each tank and they are my daily morning routine.

You guys do anything like this?

 

[fishhead0103666]

I do a check for dead bodies each morning then do a rough head count.

 

[A201]

Ditto. I have more or less the same routine, except I always have to tap the top of the AC 110's to quiet them down.

 

[duanes]

Every single morning when I come downstairs I have a routine,
You guys do anything like this?

Same here, great idea for a thread
For me listening to the pump and water flow, is one of the most important and concerning things I do, because its the heart of the system.
If it needs maintenance, any lapse can be costly in money, or the life of the fish, and beneficial bacteria, and sound is one of the first noticeable indicators of a problem.
if it gets plugged or starved of water it can burn out, and/or if any pipes get plugged , it could end up emptying the tank, or sump on the floor, and then burning up the pump.
When a power surge occurred a while back, it burned my pump out, and due to Covid and my general isolation, it took over a month to replace.
I now have an extra one sitting new in the box, just in case.

And although (if the tank is "not" over stocked) one dead fish shouldn't be able to overwhelm the biomedia, if the fish is big enough and goes undetected for any length of time, there is "that" possibility, and then, its like dominos. So I usually try to do a daily head count.
During my pump outage, the only fish that died, was the largest in the tank, so it was easily seen in the jungle of plants as a large corpse,
Although if it had died in a dark corner, and not immediately been seen, it could have started a domino like chain of death.

Because I usually take about 100 shots a day (in the end deleting 98 or 99), photos really help with the visual aspect, I often catch things that might go unnoticed on a fast moving fish. Last year, seeing the Lernea on this tetra helped to start a treatment regime sooner than It might have.

Although the Lernaea is obvious in the pic, its not so obvious when these tetras are flitting around in constant motion.
This might also help spotting an initial Ick spot or two, before its gets to an epidemic level

 

[tlindsey]

Same here, great idea for a thread
For me listening to the pump and water flow, is one of the most important and concerning things I do, because its the heart of the system.
If it needs maintenance, any lapse can be costly in money, or the life of the fish, and beneficial bacteria, and sound is one of the first noticeable indicators of a problem.
if it gets plugged or starved of water it can burn out, and/or if any pipes get plugged , it could end up emptying the tank, or sump on the floor, and then burning up the pump.
When a power surge occurred a while back, it burned my pump out, and due to Covid and my general isolation, it took over a month to replace.
I now have an extra one sitting new in the box, just in case.

And although (if the tank is "not" over stocked) one dead fish shouldn't be able to overwhelm the biomedia, if the fish is big enough and goes undetected for any length of time, there is "that" possibility, and then, its like dominos. So I usually try to do a daily head count.
During my pump outage, the only fish that died, was the largest in the tank, so it was easily seen in the jungle of plants as a large corpse,
Although if it had died in a dark corner, and not immediately been seen, it could have started a domino like chain of death.
View attachment 1433186
Because I usually take about 100 shots a day (in the end deleting 98 or 99), photos really help with the visual aspect, I often catch things that might go unnoticed on a fast moving fish. Last year, seeing the Lernea on this tetra helped to start a treatment regime sooner than It might have.
View attachment 1433187
Although the Lernaea is obvious in the pic, its not so obvious when these tetras are flitting around in constant motion.
This might also help spotting an initial Ick spot or two, before its gets to an epidemic level

Like stated by Duane great thread and I do basically the same every day prior to feeding.
1.look
2.Listen
3.Smell