A fresh water fish tank requires about half-hour to an hour of work every week depending on the size of the tank.
Waht you will need: 1) You will want a clear 5 gallon bucket that has never had chemical compounds or soap inside it. 2) A hose or gravel cleaner 3) A bag of synthetic or natural sea salt
I have split the work into two elements the tank which must be cleaned ever week on the same day and the filters which can be cleaned each 2 or three weeks.
The very first thing it’s important to do earlier than you begin cleaning your fish tank is to unplug your tanks heater in case you have one. The heater can’t be allowed to be faraway from the water while it’s hot so make sure that to go away it unplugged not less than 20 minutes before attempting to take away it. The water help cool the glass on the heater if eliminated it may crack, or the glass may totally shatter. You must also bear in mind to never stick your hand within any fish tank before making sure the heater is just not solely off but unplugged from the wall. A small crack in the heater could possibly be more then enough to cause a shock to you that may be fatal.
After the heater has ha time to cool you can safely remove the heater from the tank or it the heater is submersible you possibly can just push it down to the underside of the tank.
Now take any decorations you will have positioned in the tank, so all you may have are the small gravel at the bottom, this will can help you get any filth that those decorations might have been covering up. Now if you happen to shouldn’t have a gravel cleaner you’ll need to roll up your sleeves and get your hands wet. You’ll need to stir up the gravel to get the dust that has settled between the gravel into the water, and start eradicating the water into the bucket with the hose. Don’t throw out the water you’ll nonetheless need it to wash the filters.
If you have a gravel cleaner, push the plastic tube into the gravel until it hits the bottom of the tank, then begin a siphon into the bucket, each second or 2 transfer the gravel cleaner over an inch or 2 and repeat this process till either you’ve got eliminated 15 % of the tanks water of you might have cleaned all of the gravel.
Now at this point you can clean the Aquariums filters. The insides of the filters are used to grow bacteria, that assist break down the nitrites and nitrates which can be within the water from fish waste and uneaten food. To ensure we don’t kill all these Aquarium friendly bacteria, we clean the filter materials and sponges in the dirty water that I also stuffed with the bacteria. Take every little thing out of the filters and rinse them of within the bucket of dirty Aquarium water, then give the sponge a few squeezes in the bucket and reassemble the filters, and put them back on the tank.
Now before including the water sea salt have to be added to the tank. All water has some amount of salt in it and to replicate the natural habitat of the fish there must be salt in your tank as well. Add approximately 1 cup of sea salt for each 50 gallons of water.
Now you possibly can add water to the tank, but you have to make sure the water is the within a level or two of the temperature of the water in the tank. A drastic change within the tanks temperature all of the sudden can throw the fish into shock and kill them or weaken their immunity and help give them a fish disease. I recommend filling the bucket with sizzling water and checking it often until it is the same as the tanks temperature, then slowly add the water to the tank, start the filters and the heater.
Cleaning the filters only must be completed a couple of times a month, but the water within the tank should be cleaned on the identical day each week.