The saying that a dog is man’s best friend may sound dated, especially following recent surveys. According to the latest research, there is now a better friend, found in aquarium waters. Year on year, sales of aquariums and related paraphernalia have been on the increase. The reason, according to some, is that most folks do not have enough time to spare to pets like dogs and cats, and others say that the lowering prices of quality fish tanks and all related paraphernalia has made them more affordable.
Yet, though fish are wonderful and more desirable now, they still cannot clean their tanks and spare their owners the work. Well, fish cleaning their tanks on their own would be great news, and then pet stores would close down, but in the mean time, there is other good news: cleaning fish tanks can be much simpler and hassle-free than most people think.
Are you lamenting having to get out the many fish because you must clean their tank? The following tips, provided by professionals, will help and teach you to replace overall cleaning with simple, mini-tasks that you can do monthly and even daily.
Tips for Daily Cleaning and Checking
The things that you should check every day in order to take care of your health and the health of your fish will help you prevent the chore accumulation which would lead to problems in the longer term. These simple things include the following:
- Food – Your fish’s food is the worst matter polluting the tank’s water, and that is why overfeeding is really not recommended. Just keep to the recommended food amount and after waiting for about a minute, remove the floating leftover particles with a net.
- Temperature – Temperature changes, however small they may be, can help the development of unpleasant brown and green stuff accumulating all over the tank. Moreover, that stuff makes fish sick, so it is important to check the tank water temperature every day and install fish tank chillers.
- Filter Checks – Filter packing-in or strange behaviour can happen at any time, but unfortunately then you are a step away from disaster. Check your filter daily, and make sure it operates efficiently and properly.
- Water – Even if you don’t plan any daily cleaning, check the water closely every day, and look for odd colours or any smells which could be a signal of a problem accumulating.
Tips for Weekly Cleaning and Checking
Forming a habit of doing a few simple tasks each week will make you feel like the tank has started caring for itself – it will really look that easy. Since those tasks are not especially taxing you have every reason to follow the common sense guidelines including the following:
- Plant Audits – By plant auditing you avoid the accumulation of dead and dying matter, because of which even the cleanest tank would look simply horrible, and such matter would also mean powerful wallop for your fish. Audit your tank plants once a week, so you can spot any malaise signs and remove dead or shed plant parts.
- Ornaments –Take the ornaments out of the tank and wipe them well, using water from the tank – tap water would be disastrous and could kill all your fish.
- Algae Scrape – If you see algae build-up, use a special scraping device to remove it quickly, with just one stroke. The earlier the build-up is spotted, the easier it is to remove it.
- Glass Cleaning – You can use a lot of tools for glass cleaning the tank inside – choose from electrical scrubbers, magnetised scrapers or other approved scrapers. Clean the glass with approved scrapers that offer safe use, once a week.
- 20% Water Change – That is perhaps the most crucial thing. Using a gravel cleaning siphon, drain about 20% of the water, while also pulling out the dirt from the gravel, replacing it with fully treated, clean water. This step is much easier compared to the full cleaning which people usually do once a month; monthly water change could lead to life loss for half of your fish.
The above tips are based mostly on common sense. Their logic means the same for the health of your tank and the fish in it as timely cleaning for your home – modest cleaning daily and weekly is better than letting your home become too dirty for you to survive until the next complete cleaning if you go about cleaning it once every six weeks.
