I'm about to clean out my tank for the first time. How should i go about it ?

Question

Where should i put the fish?
How much of the water should i change ?

48 litre tank (tropical)

Answer 1

1.) To clean the sides use a mildly abrasive scrubbing pad sold in most fish stores, but if you use one from home make sure it does not contain any chemical to reduce bacteria etc. Scrub all sides of the tank to remove any stubborn algae.

2.) Look at your aquarium decorations to see if they are covered. If they have a lot of algae on them remove them and set aside, if they do not just leave them as they are.

3.) Use a siphon to remove about 20% of the water from the bottom of the tank into a bucket.

4.) Rinse off your aquarium decorations, if you removed them in step 2, in this bucket, you can use the sponge to get off any really stubborn gunk.

5.) Replace the water you removed with conditioned tap water that is roughly the same temperature as the tank.

6.) Replace the decorations.

EDIT: Do not remove the fish, this is unnecessarily stressful for them. Do not change more than 30% of the water at any one time, the sudden change in water chemistry from such a large volume change can again stress your fish and make them more susceptible to diseases. Do not change your filter media at the same time you are changing the water as you are already removing beneficial bacteria when you siphon the bottom (but siphoning is necessary to remove the accumulated fish waste, so it makes up for removing a little good stuff). Beneficial bacteria also lives in the filter media and when you change it you are removing that culture. The cultures regenerate fairly quickly so don't worry too much, just change the media once a month or so between weekly water changes. Good luck.

Answer 2

Yes you need to change some of your water.

You should be aiming to do a 25% water change every 7 - 10 days, sometimes more often if you have particularly messy fish in your tank such as Oscars or Pleco's. The best way to do a water change is to use a 'Gravel Vac' which is a long cylinder tube that you place in the water and pump up and down a few times. This gets water moving up into it and through a tube that you have in a bucket. Once this siphoning action has started you move the gravel vac over the gravel in your tank and you will notice some of the gravel move up the tube and draw the muck out of it before it slides back down. You do this over your whole tank until you have removed 25% of your water. This way you not only do a 25% water change but you also clean your gravel and get rid of excess mess and waste that would have been sitting in it. Please note you do not need to take the fish out of the tank whilst doing this.

Remember when you top your tank back up to add the correct amount of water conditioner to the tank to take all the harmful chemicals out of the new water going in (such as chlorine etc).

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

Get a siphon from the fish store. Also called a gravel cleaner. Leave the fish in the aquarium. Follow directions for the gravel cleaner. Take 25% of the water out of our aquarium while cleaning the gravel. Add new water with water conditioner. If it is an established aquarium clean the media in the filter a little, if it is a new aquarium leave the filter alone for awhile. You'll want to clean the tank once a week. If you just set up this aquarium, don't change the water, you're tank needs to cycle first.

Answer 4

Do a 25% waterchange with a gravel siphon and replace with conditioned water
Never do a complete waterchange ever, or you will kill any good bacteria which had grown in there
Leave the fish where they are, never take them out
you will experience cloudiness after cleaning your tank, but it will clear up in a matter of 24 hours again

Do this weekly and your fish will be healthy



hope that helps
Good luck


EB

Answer 5

you need to do a 10% water change weekly and 50% water change monthly, you should never completly clean out a fish tank becasue there are good bactiria liveing in the tank that is keeping your fish healthy

Answer 6

in a bucket,with water from tank.Many aquariests drain off a QUARTER of the volume of water each wk.Whist others replace a THIRD every 10days(as i do).
Basically you should replace 10-20%of the actual volume per wk.
Remember to wash all tank things(filters ect.)in water from the tank,NOT under the tap.(tap-will destroy all the ECO-cultures&good bacterial colonies that have formed(these are needed for happy,healthy fish.

Answer 7

put them in a container, thats what most people do when they clean out the whole thing, but I don't understand why you need to but normally people change water to keep the water clean.

Answer 8

Put the fish in another similar sized tank and just clean out the algal bloom from as much as you can.

Try not to put the fish in shock when you re enter it into the new fresh water

Answer 9

For the fish(es) I would get some plastic bags and put them seperatly into them filled w/ water of course. For the water, I'll probably agree not to change them all at once, or you can dump them all out and then refill it all up

Answer 10

dont change all the water at once!!