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Aquarium Maintenance

Aquarium maintenance is one of the things that most people get frustrated with. I have always learned that it is easier to keep up with the aquarium maintenance than to let it go. When you do not perform maintenance at least once or twice a month the aquarium usually gets filthy dirty with algae taking over the tank.

Okay, so it does not really matter on what size of tank that you have because you will always have to do maintenance on it. Lets say you have a tropical or gold fish tank. I recommend doing maintenance on it a least once a month. Every other week maintenance will really make the fish thrive, though. Also, the amount of feeding and amount of fish you have in the tank determines on how much maintenance will have to be done.

I usually recommend having 1 inch per gallon of fish. Take into factor that fish grow so if you have a 10 gallon tank and you buy 2 fish that will grow to 5 inches each, then you should only have those two fish in that particular 10 gallon tank. You really only need to feed the fish once a day enough for them to eat within 2 or three minutes. Twice a day feeding will defiantly increase the amount of waste in the tank and make the maintenance more intense.

So lets say you have a 10 gallon tank set up for a month with two goldfish in it. It is time to do some maintenance. First, the most important thing is to use a gravel vac to remove and clean the gravel at the bottom. This looks like a hose and uses a siphon to circulate the gravel. The heavy gravel just floats in the tube falling back down and the lightweight fish waste flows up and out the tube. I recommend a five gallon bucket for the dirty water to flow into.

Now, the most important part of doing the gravel vac water change is to only remove no more than one third or 33% of the water. So in this 10 gallon tank example we should not remove no more than 3.33 or 3.5 gallons. The reason for this is because you want to leave enough water in the tank that has the appropriate levels of bacteria. If you take out too much water you can reset the bacteria levels making the fish die due to shock.

Dump out the dirty water, rinse out the bucket and replace with fresh water. If you are using tap water make sure to use water conditioner. This removes the chlorine and chloramines out of the water. Remember that chlorine can definitely kill fish off.

The last step involves algae scrubbing and cleaning out the filter media. Do not use a sponge from your kitchen to do this. If you have a acrylic tank make sure to use an acrylic safe scrub pad. Clean off the algae so there is no more on the glass or acrylic inside of the tank. Next, unplug the filter and clean out all the media. All you have to do is rinse off in your sink. Make sure to not rinse of the biological media though. Put it back into the filter, prime the filter (refill with a cup of tank water), and plug in. Use a towel to wipe the tank off and you are done.

Seems complicated, but this process becomes much easier when you do it a few times. Have fun and good luck.