how do you clean a fresh water tank?

Question

i know u take the fish out with a net,but last time i did it killed it..so how can i clean it very gently and getting all the water out of it and everything..its a tiny tank with a filter,enough for a couple fish.
~please and thank you

Answer 1

You shouldn't be taking the fish out of the tank to clean the tank. If you put them back in the tank and the temp. isn't the same as the water they're in, they could die of temperature shock.

To clean a tank, you need to siphon the gravel, which will also change the water. Try to change 25% of the water weekly, for a small tank. If you don't have a gravel siphon, I highly suggest you get one now. Here's a link on how to get the siphon started (NO sucking on it with your mouth):
http://www.fishlesscycling.com/articles/how_to_use_a_common_siphon.html

After you take out the dirty water, you should replace it with clean, dechlorinated water.

Also, I highly suggest you upgrade to a bigger tank. Smaller tanks can't handle alot of fish, and they might die soon because they will be stunted in such a small tank. Do you know the size of your tank? If you do, I might be able to help you.

E-mail me for any questions!

ZTM

Answer 2

HI ☺My ♥ Your Hands☻, You should never take a fish out of the tank to do routine maintenance. Nets are for 'herding' fish into containers if you absolutely have to remove them from their tank or better still for 'fishing' floating debris & uneaten food out of the tank. The fish will soon get used to your hands in the tank-my fish follow the siphon around waiting for titbits to fly up & if they don't get any they nibble on my arm in protest!

You should only have an inch of gravel or less-any deeper & you will be harbouring lots of hard to remove debris. Gently siphon through the gravel & collect the old water in to a bucket, change around 30% each week using same temperature, treated water. Then using the old water in the bucket gently rinse the filter media in it-the aim is to remove the loose debris while maintaining the good bugs in the gravel & filter which eat the toxins. If you don't have test kits you would benefit from ammonia & nitrite tests-use the liquid ones, the strips are rubbish.

You don't say how big your tank is or what type of fish you keep but for example, anything less than 20 gallons for 2 Goldfish & you are asking for trouble. This is because they produce far too much waste to be dilutable in anything smaller than 20 gallons no matter how often you do maintenance.

Answer 3

You shouldn't have to take the fish or the water out. Taking the fish out causes much more stress than leaving them in there. The best way is to get a gravel vacuum. It acts like a siphon to such the debris from the gravel and remove enough water for a partial water change all at the same time.

Answer 4

You shouldn't ever have to completely tear down an aquarium. Removing the fish will stress them out a lot and the new water will be completely different than the old and stress them out further. If you completely empty it all the beneficial bacteria will die and your cycle will start over. This will expose your fish to both ammonia and nitrite spikes which could kill them. Like everyone else has said, get yourself some kind of gravel vacuum and change 20-25% of the water weekly. Also, make sure you use dechlorinator to remove the chlorine if you're using tap water.

Answer 5

all the water treatment Plants ( the older types) use Bleaching powder (calcium hypochlorite) for sterilization of treated water

Answer 6

Rarely if ever will you have to do a complete water change. When you do a complete water change you are removing a lot of the beneficial bacteria that have already established themselves. Once this is done, the tank will have to go through another nitrogen cycle and this is stressful on your fish.
1. get a sipon tube or hose
2. siphon the gravel and change out approx. 10-15% of the water volume every week.
3.Slowly replace the water with dechlorinated, conditioned water

Answer 7

You seldom have to break down the entire aquarium. When I clean ours, I have a siphon cleaner to pull crud out of the gravel. It's a 10 gallon aquarium, so I take 2-3 gallons out with the siphon as I move it around from spot to spot. Then I pour in enough water to refill it. I do this about once every week or two.

If you do tear it all down, and put the fish in another container, when you wash everything out, DON'T USE ANY SORT OF SOAP. It's impossible to rinse it all out perfectly clean. Just use clean fresh water, and a clean wash cloth. Then rinse everything as well as possible.

Answer 8

When you take the fish out, put it into water from the tank you are cleaning, then empty and clean... WHY are you cleaning the whole thing???
Just clean your filter and do a partial water change.
If you are cleaning the entire thing, then the tank MUST cycle again... each and every time you break it down!!!

Answer 9

well you shouldn't empty all the water out (it'll make the fish sick or die), leave the fish in the tank and buy a tank vaccuum(they are cheap), and you vaccuum the yucky stuff out of the rocks. You shouldn't vaccuum out more than 30% of the thanks water. Then you fill a bucket up with water and wait til it's room temperature and fill the tank up to the top.

Answer 10

I pretty much have the same deal going for me

step 1: take out fish
step 2: drain old water ( i use a large mcdonalds cup, and poor it into a bucket and throw it on my lawn)
step 3: pick up tank, take outside, take a sponge, scrub the green crap on the sides,bottom, everywhere off.
BUT DONT USE ANY CLEANERS, NO SOAP, NO BLEACH
step 4: put back into house, and fill with room tempeture water.


The reason you dont use soap because it disturbs the fishies ecosystem.
and they will die if you keep using soap.