any tips on cleaning a fish tank?

Answer 1

scoop the fish out in a tupperwear.
take out rocks/decorations
dump water
scrub the tank with a washcloth
clean off decorations/rocks
place decos/rocks
fill w/ water
add water conditioner
float the tupperwear w/ fish at the top of the water until the temperature matches
add fish

remember not to use soap.
and dont close the lid fully to the tupperwear
and dont dump your fish

Answer 2

hi there,
i am assuming this tank is already at ur house and u hav e some fish in it and the watetr had gone dirty. This is how i change the water in my tank. (I usually follow the below steps)

1. Unplug the power filter and the air pump. Make sure the water doesnt drain thru the airline tubing when u do this.

2. Remove all the decorations and put it in a container filled withe ur aquarium water(Reason to put it in water , so that the decorations dont dry up and end up making it difficult to clean away all the moss/algae on it )

3. Siphon the gravel , make sure u vacum most of the gunge/fish poop at the bottom and make sure u dont take more then 25% of ur aquarium water.

4. Take a sponge, make sure u use the sponge to clean only ur aqua and nothing else. Wipe the sides of ur aquarium and rinse the sponge in the water u had siphoned, U can do this a couple of times until the sides of ur aquarium are clean.

5. Remove ur power filter , rinse the bio wheel in aquarium water (do this if urs is a bio-wheel filter) . U can also rinse any sponges that come with the power filter. I would only rinse them with the aqua water and not with the tap water so that i dont kill any of the beneficial bacteria that grows on the sponges or the wheels. Another reaoson is if the the tap water is chlorinated or if the water is too cold or hot would kill the bacteria and would effect the bioligical filter.


6. Replace the carbon in the filter if required , i usually change the carbon once a month. Depending on the type of fish u can do it more often if required.

7. Clean all the power filter tubings and the air tubings with a bottle cleaner brush.

8. When adding the water , i would add decholorinated water (usually u can treat with prime or aquasafe thats availabale in any pet stores to remove any chlorine or chloramines )
The added water should be close enough to the water temperature of the aquarium.

9.U can clean the decorations with rock salt and thorughly rinse them under running water. Some people bleach the decorations , i wouldnt do them . If any traces of bleach are left on the decorations u would end up killing the fish. So u would be doing more harm then good.

10. I would only clean the decorations once a month or whenever required.

11. Keep the decorations back and plug the power filter and the air pump and ur good to go.

Well i hope i had been clear, write back to me if u think i need to elaborate anything more. I would be glad to help you and in return u would be keeping ur babies safe.

Cheers!!

Answer 3

I use a long rod with two blunt spikes on the end, I dig and turn my gravel over with this and it puts all the dirty and old bits in the top of the water. Excuse the expression, fish out the main bits with your fish net, if you go slowly back and forth from one end to the other continiously and notice all the bits coming into the net. Empty and repeat about 3 times. The filter should clear the rest up. I do this every 2-3 days and it works wonders. Also this works well when doing a water change

Answer 4

A magnetic algae cleaner is good at keeping the glass clean and a gravel vac/syphon will help keep the gravel or sand relatively clean and helps with water changes as well.

Carry out partial water changes every week/fortnight. Never change anything more than 25% of the water at a time unless it's an absolute emergency - in which case you can change up to 50%. NEVER EVER change more than 50% - it can shock the fish.

Use live plants to help take up toxins in the water.

If you use a gravel syphon for the gravel, a magnetic glass cleaner and install live plants, the tank should be kept clean enough.

Answer 5

It really depends how big your fish tank is. If it's a small 5-10 gallon tank i would do it the old way, which is to hand clean it with some scrubbers, but don't use any sopa or any kind of cleaning liquid. It will harm your fish. Grab a bucket scoop out the water or move your fish to a different tank, and dump out the water in the other tank and refill. After you clean your tank and add new water I usually use stress coat. Which you can find at many pet stores. It helps to tame the stress on the fishes. Though if you have a 20 gallon or above tank, I would use a gravel vac. Which cleans the gravel and takes out the water. YOu should usually take out 20% of the water when usin gravel vacs. Watch carefully to see if your fish get caught. If they do pull out the vac to save your fishes. After the 20% percent of the water is gone, replace with new water(you can do this with the fishes in it). Then I would use stress coat. Scrub the tank well!

Answer 6

I assume that you received this tank from someone and need to get it cleaned before putting any water and later fish in there

the best way to go about this is using warm water and a brush or sponge especially used for aquarium cleaning

There is also a solution you can buy in petstores to spray on and then just wash off with warm water

let it sit for 2 days to try out, then you can start filling it up with water
also check for leaks before installing all the other equipment, if it doesn't leak after having water in there for at least 2 days, you're good to go





Hope that helps
Good luck


EB

Answer 7

If you clean it the correct way, then it won't take "ages" and it will work out better for you. You should do it once each week.
1.Take out all of the ornaments.
2.Get a gravel siphon and a bucket.
3.Start the siphon and clean your gravel, while removing only ten% of the water(it is okay if you remove more).
4.If you don't remove 10%, remove the remaining ammount.
5.Replace the 10%(be sure that the replacement water is the same temperature and if it had to be dechlorinated, make sure it sat out for at least ten minutes for the dechlorinator to work).
6.Replace ornaments.
7.Clean up the remainder of your mess.
8.Replace the filter cartridge every month, and don't clean the filter pad off to make it last longer, just replace it.
9.Scrub the sides with an unused sponge that doesn't have any cleaning agents or anything on it, or you can buy special scrubbers that are fish safe.
Good luck..............Merry Christmas/Happy holidays.

Answer 8

I have a toothbrush forced into the end of a piece of rigid plastic tubing (approx 15 inches long).
This is great for cleaning algae from the glass - the small head gets into tight corners.
I only replace about a third of my water at a time (after vacuuming up any bits from the bottom). I use water which has been filtered, boiled and left (covered with cling film) overnight to cool.

Answer 9

Don't empty your whole tank that is very stressful for your fish just get a gravel vacuum if you don't already have one and use it to remove about 20% of the water once a week.

Answer 10

Following on from other answers, keep one of those dish washing brushes, with nylon bristles, to clean the algae off the side of the tank. If the water is fairly clean, and a pump is running, you can do this whilst the fish(es) are in the tank. The pump will filter the loose algae altho it will go misty for a while. am assuming we're referring to cold water fish.