How To Clean Fish Tank: Guide To A Spick & Span Home For Your Fishes

If you keep a fish tank in your home then it’s important that you keep it clean as well, just like your own place. As everyone, and your fishes, would surely prefer a clean and algae-free environment. It will not only keep your fishes healthy but also a clean fish tank adds on to the beauty of your home. But, the question is, how to clean fish tank?

There are few important things that every home with a fish tank should have at their perusal. One also needs to follow a series of steps to clean out the gunk from the fish and leave it looking amazing.

Things You Require in How to Clean Fish Tank:

1. Aquarium water testing kit (this is a must-have kit if you have an aquarium)

2. Bucket for holding dirty tank water (please use a separate bucket for this purpose and don’t use it for anything else)

3. Algae scraper (for glass or acrylic depends upon your fish tank)

4. Algae scraper blade attachment (you can also use a razor blade for glass tanks)

5. Toothbrush for cleaning algae off decor or plants

6. Scissors for pruning plants

7. Dechlorinator (it is also known as water conditioner)

8. Glass cleaner (for outer glass)

9. Towel for wiping up water spills

10. Glass-cleaning cloth or paper towel

11. Aquarium shipon (it is also known as a gravel vacuum)

With these pieces of equipments, you’re good to go.

Please keep in mind, on this guide on how to clean fish tank you have to follow a sequence:

Testing the Water Quality

For this, you have to use the aquarium water testing kit. Take a sample of your water and check whether it has 0 ppm of ammonia, 0 ppm of nitrites, and a nitrate level below 40ppm. If not then take the measures which are specified in the guide provided with the kit.

Cleaning the Inside Glass – How to Clean Fish Tank

Start by scraping algae off the inner walls and the corners, for any hard deposits on the glass use the blade to scrape it off. If the walls of your fish tank are made up of Acrylic don’t use a metallic blade.

Cleaning the Decorations

Remove any decorative plant with high algae deposit and clean those with warm water and algae pad, never use soap or detergent as even the slightest residue of it can harm your fish.

Cleaning the Gravel

Using a siphon this can be done easily, use the vacuum of the aquarium siphon to suck out any debris. Make sure to use the siphon thoroughly on the fish tank floor in order to remove the debris completely.

Cleaning the Outer Glass – How to Clean Fish Tank

Once the inner side gets cleaned, use any glass cleaner to clean the outer glass. Clean the hood, tank top, lights, and other fixtures. Then replace the water with fresh dechlorinated water, it is always advised to use the water which is at the same temperature as the water in which you kept the fish to avoid any stress to the fishes.

Cleaning the Filter

Never clean the filter on the day you changed the water and cleaned the tank, as the filter holds the necessary bacterium group which is required to maintain the environment of your fish tank. It is always advised that you should wait at least 2-3 weeks before cleaning the filter, as in the given time filter will restore any bacterium which is removed during the cleaning.

If you clean the filter with the fish tank there is a great chance that the ammonia level might get spiked as no beneficial bacteria are left to remove the toxic elements from the water. Even if your filter has carbon ammonia absorbers, you should change them in the interval of two-three weeks as they get exhausted very soon.

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It is not always necessary to remove fishes from the tank while cleaning if you don’t have to clean the floor and gravel you can just remove water from the upper level and clean the tank. Through this guide on how to clean fish tank we’ve gone through some of the most basic methods, however, if you have live plants or saline plants in your aquarium, you should use different methods.