How do you clean a fish aquarium and how often do you do it?

Question

I'm interested in keeping a fish aquarium. I've done it in the past but end up killing the fish because I don't know how to clean it well. Its got to be a easier way to clean it besides having to empty the tank.

Answer 1

equipment absolutely needed:
bucket.
smaller cup or small bucket.
necessary chemicals. (dechlorinatior, aquasafe, easybalance)
airstones and filter media.

equipment that is very useful, cheap, and makes life so much easier:
siphon vaccum,
algea scrapers (you can use an old credit card for this)

use the siphon vaccum to vaccum the left over fish food and waste out of the substrate (Gravel). it's uselfu, because you get the nastys out, plus, it removes the water for you. only do it long enough to take 20% of the water from the tank. then, replace with chemical treated water. do this once a week. VERY SIMPLE. use the algea scraper to get the thicker or green stuff off the glass, and yuo're good to go. make sure that youchange your air filters and bubble stones as recommeded on the pacakge.

check out this website: www.drsfostersmith.com its very infomational, and it's run by vets and you can order any and all equipment (and fish) that you may need.

good luck, and happy fish-ing!! lol

Answer 2

You never empty the entire tank. You lose beneficial bacteria that help keep the tank clean and cycled. If you did change all the water, the overflow of harmful toxins would kill your fish. But water changes all depend on how big your tank is and how strong of a filter you have. Keep a strong filter, and start with a good beginner's size, like a 10-gallon. Make sure you always use dechlorinator drops ANYTIME you add water, whether it is the first time you fill the tank or just when you do a water change. But every week or so maybe do a 10-20% change on that sort of tank assuming you have a 10 gallon filter and you should be fine.

Answer 3

Water changes have to be performed weekly to maintain proper water quality. There are ways to avoid having to change water so often, but these ways cost several hundreds of dollars, and don't work in freshwater.

No matter how much filtration you have you can not get rid of nitrates that build up after fish waste is broken up and converted.

Sucker fish will only make things worse, some people for some reason think that they are a miracle fish that clean anything, what really all they do is eat some algae, and any food that is left over as a result of careless overfeeding. They still poop, and they don't eat poop(nothing in an aquarium does) so they still produce waste, so adding them will only make water qualitly worse.

Answer 4

you only take out 25% of the dirty water and you could put tap water back in but to be safe you could buy a treatment liquid that removes chlorine and other bad stuff that harm your fish and for the algae that builds up on the walls of your aquarium you could use and algae magnet its a magnet that u could get from your local pet store its pretty cool to use hope that helps :|

Answer 5

remove 20-30% of the tank water every 2 weeks

Answer 6

if it's only mildly dirty get a couple plecostumus fish othewise known as sucker fish bigger the better. algae eater fish and snails work too and can be housed with plecos.