Friday, July 15, 2016

Aquarium Cleaning

In this post, I'll describe how I clean my aquarium and what tools I use in the process. First, let me start by saying that cleaning an aquarium is really not difficult. If you spend half an hour every week (or sometimes every other week), you can have a crystal clear aquarium that is fascinating to watch. First, I would like to share with you the main tools that I use during a cleaning session. Here is a snapshot:


The tools in the picture are:

  • A 10 liter water bucket (I use two of these). This is for siphoning out the dirty water.
  • A long hose used to fill the aquarium directly from the tap. The small orange-gray piece in front of it is used to connect the hose to the tap.
  • A siphoning hose setup (on the right) - for siphoning.
  • A pink bucket to put the stuff inside the aquarium such as stones and plants during cleaning (yours doesn't have to be pink for sure).
  • A kitchen sponge and and an aquarium sponge with a long handle. These are to clean the aquarium glass from inside.
  • Two towels for cleaning the glass from the outside (as the last step of cleaning). Another large towel to spread below the tank to prevent water leaking on the floor.
  • A glass cleaner (for outside cleaning).
  • A water conditioner (also works as a dechlorinator)
I start the cleaning process by washing my hands to make sure that I don't pass any potentially harmful bacteria into the water. I repeat this process at the end to prevent the opposite. Next, I remove the stones into the bucket following by cleaning the inside of the glass using one of the sponges. This step is not required every time. I use the green side of the sponge for harder to remove algae but be careful not to scratch the glass. The green part of the sponge may scratch the glass if you apply too much pressure. Also if sands gets stuck between the sponge and the glass that may scratch the glass as well. So I try to be careful especially when cleaning the bottom part of the aquarium.

Next, I siphon out the water the from the bottom of the tank into my 10 liter water bottles making sure to collect most of the fish waste. I use a manual siphon for this purpose. But I added a valve to it so that I can stop the water flow when needed without requiring to restart siphoning. This is especially helpful when my first 10-liter bottle fills up and I have to switch to the second one without leaking water. Below is a picture of that piece. You can find something like that from the gardening department of any hardware store:


My tank is about 150 liters (40 gallons), so I typically change 30 liters, that is 20% of the total water volume once a week. If I got lazy and did not change the water for two weeks, then I change around 40 or 50 liters of water - but not more than that. Once the water is emptied I hook up the long hose to the kitchen tap thanks to this small connector and I turn on the tap:


At this point I add the dechlorinator to the water. It is suggested that the temperature of the new water matches to what you have in the aquarium. If you want, you can use a digital thermometer to ensure that is the case. Personally, I try to do it manually by checking with my fingers. It has not caused me any problems so far. But if you have a smaller tank, aiming for a more exact match may be a safer thing to do.

Once the tank is filled back up again, I turn on the lights to make sure that no missed algae remains on the glass surface. If I see some, I gently clean it with the sponge (I turn off the lights again just to prevent any risk with the electricity).

After closing the tank cover, I spray some of the glass cleaner on a soft fabric and clean the aquarium glass from the outside. This surely is the most fun part as at this point I enjoy the satisfaction of being almost finished.

Once the cleaning is finished, the water may still be somewhat hazy. This is okay as we have agitated the sand (or the gravel) and there are lots of floating particles around. In about 4 to 6 hours all of this stuff will be picked up by your filter and you tank will be crystal clear.

Here is a youtube link to a video of my aquarium several hours after cleaning it: