how do i clean a fish tank correctly?
9 February 2010
4 Comments
my fish tank is humungous!
and also pretty dirty....its in need of a major cleaning.
am i supposed to empty out the tank and clean everything?
I really know nothing about cleaning fish tanks, so can someone PLEASE help?
an the algae eater has been killing almost ALL the fish....is that a result of the tanks condition?
also do i have to drain it out???
DONT empty the tank and overclean things, that will just stress the fish and mess with the tanks natural cycle.
You will need a gravel vacum and some sort of algae wiping/scraping thing.
Go around the glass and scrape/wipe off the algae. It may end up making the water a bit cloudy, but dont worry about that. You can take out individual rocks and ornaments and give them a wipe down too.
Then get your gravel vacum and start going around the bottom of the tank sucking up as much crud as you can. Take out about 1/3 of the water, then top up with fresh treated tap water.
You should do this every week to keep your tank running smoothly, but if your tank has been a bit neglected you can clean like this every day to catch up.
It’s unlikely the algae eater is actually killing your fish, but if they are dieing (maybe due to lack of water changes?) then plecos will scavenge the dead body. Improve the water quality and the deaths should stop.
But the important thing is to keep the tank running as a stable ecosystem. Overcleaning and sterilising things disrupts those cycles and will cause more problems.
Good Luck
Ian
my teache rtakes out all the rocks and soaks them in bleach, then she runs them under water 4ever tell she knos they are really clean. then she puts bleach in the tank and covers it up so no light can get 2 it and lets it sit over the summer. at the end of the summer she’ll rinse it out and all the algae will be gone. this is just wat she told the class sooo if it doesnt work its not my falt k. LOL
Get a gravel siphon to clean the tank. You algae eater is most likely a chinese algae eater which, ironically, isn’t from china and doesn’t eat algae. It eats the slime of other fish and will kill them.
Don’t drain it. If you do you’ll lose all of the beneficial bacteria and you’ll have to cycle it again. Get a gravel vacuum (available at pet stores that carry fish) and use it to clean the debris from the gravel. Stop when the water level has dropped by about 20% (maybe 25% to 30% if it’s very dirty) and replace the water you removed with clean dechlorinated and conditioned water.
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