Advice On Aquarium Cleaning Please

[craig-s]

we have now had our trigon 350 up and running for almost a year,we are running the standard jumbo filter and the bacteria levels appear to be OK,we have always done the 20% water change weekly and have also added stress zyme on a weekly basis as well,heres the dilemma,all ornaments,artificial plants etc.etc and starting to look dirty (as is the whole aquarium really),would it be ok to totally empty and clean the tank? (we already have a spare tank to put the fish in for a few hours),or would it be best to drop about 60% of the water,leave the fish in and remove all the things we wish to clean?...
sorry if this sounds a stupid question,but we really dont know what to do for the best,if the advice is to totally change the water,should i leave all the filter sponges standing in water?,again sorry to sound naive....
thanks in anticipation
Craig..

 

[ShoC]

what do you mean Dirty?
is it Brown!

if so it should wipe of easily people mistake it for algae its actually diatom or something or over,

Indication of poor lighting in the aquarium I believe.

 

[SexyFishKeeper]

Is this what you mean?

Mine's just got the above but comes off with an algae scraper.

 

[SJ2K]

For ornaments id just say remove a bucket of tank water then wash each ornament individually in the tank water and replace