How to clean an aquarium

How to clean an aquarium. What you should and should not do when cleaning your aquarium to keep your fish healthy.

By Maria Coolester, Vet   Talk to the Author.

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How to clean an aquarium

If you are like most fish owners, then you are used to periodically cleaning your fish tank or aquarium. You transfer your fish and empty the tank then you clean the inside of the tank and change the gravel. After this is finished, you then fill the tank back up with fresh water and return your fish to his or her home, after floating them in a bag so that they can get used to the water temperature again.

If this sounds like you, then you are endangering the lives of your precious fish! This cleaning procedure is very dangerous to your fish for two reasons.

First of all, the moving of your fish back and forth from their tank to a bag or bowl and then back to the tank again can send them into shock and kill them. Also, by cleaning the inside of the tank you are damaging the special ecological balance in the water that the fish have naturally created for themselves.

The special ecological balance in the water is mostly found within aquariums or tanks that have an undergravel filter system. When cleaning out the fish tank, most people change the gravel or clean it. The gravel should not be changed or cleaned. The reason for this is that even though fish droppings and food that your fish do not eat decompose in the gravel and give off ammonia and other poisons, good bacteria forms and these bacteria lives off of the ammonia. If you leave your tank alone for about two months, the good bacteria will form and rid the tank of the poisons. By changing the tank constantly, you are actually destroying the good bacteria. This is nature's way of keeping your aquarium or tank at a level that the fish can tolerate.

So, when starting a fresh tank or aquarium, you should only put a few strong fish in the tank for the first two months until the good bacteria have caused an ecological balance in the water. Then you can add more fish.

If you do not have an aquarium with an undergravel filter system, then you will need to clean the gravel with a vacuum. The vacuum will remove any debris that found its way down into the gravel and it will also remove some water. You will need to remove about one third of the water in the tank and then refill it with fresh dechlorinated water. The reason you will need to replace the water is because the ammonia levels in the water build up and need to be replaced with fresh water.

Whenever your tank is empty (usually before you start an aquarium) you will probably want to clean the glass. DO NOT EVER USE AN AMMONIA BASED CLEANING PRODUCT TO CLEAN THE GLASS. Even on the outside of the tank. The ammonia will seep through the glass and kill your fish! Use a glass cleaner will vinegar or alcohol.

One other thing, many people do not like the look of algae in their aquarium or tank. You can buy one or two algae eating fish or suckerfish, as they are called, and put them in your tank. Do not buy more than you need because if you do not have enough algae in your tank, some will die of starvation. There are also magnetic tools to clean the algae off of your tank glass if your algae fish or not eating enough off. One part of the tool goes inside the tank and the other is on the outside. The magnet will hold the tool together and you just slide it around the tank until you are satisfied.

After you are finished cleaning out your tank or aquarium properly, you can now sit down and enjoy your healthy fish!

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