How to Clean a Dirty Aquarium

A fresh water fish tank needs about 30 minutes to an hour of work a week depending on the size of the tank.

What you will require:
1) You will require a clean 5 gallon bucket that has never had chemicals or soap inside of it.
2) A hose or gravel cleaner
3) A bag of natural or synthetic sea salt

I have split the work into two parts the tank which requires to be cleaned ever week on the same day and the filters which may be cleaned every 2 or 3 weeks.

The markedly first thing you have to do before you embark cleaning your fish tank is to unplug your tanks heater if you have one. The heater can not be approved to be removed from the water while it is hot so be sure to leave it unplugged at least 20 minutes before attempting to eliminate it. The water help nice the glass on the heater if removed it could crack, or the glass could completely shatter. You should also call to mind to never adhere your hand inside of any fish tank before making sure the heater is not only off but unplugged from the wall. A little crack in the heater may be more then sufficient to cause a shock to you that may be fatal.

After the heater has ha time to nice you can safely eliminate the heater from the tank or it the heater is submersible you can just push it down to the bottom of the tank.

Now take any decorations you may have placed in the tank, so all you have are the little gravel at the bottom, this will permit you to get any dirt that those decorations may have been covering up. Now in case you don’t have a gravel cleaner you are going to have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands wet. You will require to stir up the gravel to get the dirt that has settled among the gravel into the water, and embark removing the water into the bucket with the hose. don’t throw out the water you will still require it to clean the filters.

If you have a gravel cleaner, push the plastic tube into the gravel until it hits the bottom of the tank, then embark a siphon into the bucket, every second or 2 move the gravel cleaner through an inch or 2 and repeat this process until either you have removed 15 percent of the tanks water of you have cleaned all the gravel.

Now at this point you can clean the Aquariums filters. The insides of the filters are used to grow bacteria, that help break down the nitrites and nitrates that are in the water from fish waste and uneaten food. To be sure we don’t kill all these Aquarium friendly bacteria, we clean the filter materials and sponges in the dirty water that I in addition full of the bacteria. Take everything out of the filters and rinse them of in the bucket of dirty Aquarium water, then give the sponge a number of squeezes in the bucket and reassemble the filters, and put them back on the tank.

Now before adding the water sea salt must be added to the tank. All water has a couple of amount of salt in it and to replicate the natural habitat of the fish there must be salt in your tank likewise. Add more or less 1 cup of sea salt for every 50 gallons of water.

Now you can add water to the tank, but you must be sure the water is the within a degree or two of the temperature of the water in the tank. A radical change in the tanks temperature abruptly can throw the fish into shock and kill them or weaken their immunity and help give them a fish disease. I suggest filling the bucket with hot water and checking it usually till it is the same as the tanks temperature, then steadily add the water to the tank, embark the filters and the heater.

Cleaning the filters only requires to be completed once or twice a month, but the water in the tank must be cleaned on the same day every week.