Tank Cleaning Tips

[Dazzlearoobob]

Can anyone give me tips on cleaning out my tank. I do not want to change more than 50% of the water but want to do a deep clean without disturbing the fish too much.
Thanks in advance,
Darren

 

[mark1979]

a deep clean as in what?

what size tank is it?

 

[Dazzlearoobob]

Kinda want to get into the gravel and clean out all the s***, literally. It's a 64L tank with 2 gold gourami, 9 neon tetras and 3 cory.
Thanks,
D

 

[gaz gun man]

do two 40% water changes with gravel vacuming, that way you do a largish water change without polluting the water too much from the gravel cleaning

 

[umpsfar]

I'm sure this is confusing, im not a writer....oh and please feel free to tell me im wrong.=newbie.

i've 150 litre tank since december with an inch and a half of white gravel,
i was vac-ing the water into a 15 litre old clean bin then putting the bin up higher than the tank and leave it for two hours to let it settle, then carefully siphen 80% back in again i was doing this after my tank cycle had completed.
i got 3 new fish, then my nitrates spiked (i forgot to check of them for 2 weeks) i got scared and then stopped doing deep cleaning and recycling the old water,
then i got a catfish who leaves such a mess i was doing 20 litres purely superfisious gravel cleaning a week just to keep it looking ok, did this for 3 months(no deep cleaning)
now there is so much small dirt and new hard water in my tank im getting lots of problems.
if i was to do a proper clean i would have to loose 50% water a week. (thats alot of tap safe. cha ching)
now that i havent done deep clean, my tank is infested with everything (bad LFS's in dublin city center does not help)
hope that makes sense, im going back to my old ways soon.

now im far from being an expert, december is the first time i ever had a fish.

but if u check your amonia , nitrite, and
especially nitrates levels
i would say you could get away with a 5 litre water bottle (maybe 2 of them)(or a water dispenser container, the type u get in the work place)( u can see the dirt settle) a clamp on your vac, and another tube to siphen back to your tank.
as long as u have a api master test kit your should be ok.

you will still need to do a small % water change but not as much, which i think has been knocking the hell outa my fish (new apartment block, who knows whats in the pipes).

hopes this makes sense to read , oh and again please feel free to tell me there's more than just nitrate and visible poo to get rid of in old water.

 

[OldMan47]

I would normally stay away from Umpsfar's approach. It is recycling most of the water and not giving much of a water change. Gravel cleaners that just move the water through the cleaner are also made. Both of these have the disadvantage of not introducing fresh water into the tank. We remove far more than nitrates with a water change, nitrates is our canary, so to speak, it tells us when we are not removing enough contaminants but it can be badly distorted by having plants in the tank. My heavily planted tanks get an addition of nitrate salts to fertilize the plants because the plants absorb every bit of it that comes from the fish. Those tanks get water changes anyway because I am well aware that nitrate is not the only thing water changes control. Unless you are using a very inadequate water conditioner that requires whole ml amounts per gallon and is only available in 50 ml bottles, the expense of a water change is almost as much the cost of the water as the treatment. I buy Prime in 500 ml bottles for about $15 which means it costs all of 3 cents per ml. A single ml treats 10 gallons of water. I buy water at $6 per 1000 gallons. That 10 gallon change with 3 cents of Prime costs 6 cents for the water itself. Depending on how dry the environment you live in, water is often much more expensive than it is here but even here the water is the cost, not the Prime. With 20 tanks to change water in, my one bottle of Prime lasts several years.
Gaz gun man's advice to remove the waste and he waste water is a good one. When trying to clean the gravel you don't want to just remove the visible solids, you also want to remove the dissolved material that happens when you stir up the gravel. That means disposing of the water, not removing the visible part and putting the dissolved material back into the tank.

 

[umpsfar]

i couldnt agree more with OldMan47. as a newbie i shouldnt hijack this thread or give advice and i should keep my mouth shut, but in regarding water i have big problems.
and ive yet to figure out a cheap and successful way to remove the amount of catfish poo when i recon the water i remove is still good.
ive 2 tanks, play sand and white gravel.
considering all my levels are nearly always zero.
i have problems with my water, its hard, its got limescale and it gives my girlfriend stomac pains even though we filter it, we cant make tea without it curdling even before the milk goes in.
Stopping and starting my filter, fires limescale into the tank thats built up in the tubes( i think its limescale ). i now use a sock around it when pumping the filter.
So a full gravel clean and filter clean and then restarting the filter makes my tanks look like a snow orb, with fish,

In saying all that i still throw out 10-20% of what i remove each time and out of a 150 litres i have to top it back up by 15-20 litres each week.

maybe i am using the wrong tap safe, "Gold, Tap safe" 100ml bottle and ive to do a 80% of 150 litre change tomorrow.
Quote "One bottle treats up to 57 litres (100 Pints)"
One bottle = 5 euro in dublin.
So refilling my 60 litre, topping 50% to my 150litre and a 80% water change tomorrow after thread worm treatment.

Is going to cost..... 60+75+120=255 litres = 5 bottles , a grand total of 25 euro just for a treament for in 2 days , excluding stress coat or melafix or primafix or stress zym or the treament itself,
a normal week on the both tanks would cost 5 euro. just to get rid of horrible looking poo and replemishing the water.

any advice to me or origional poster ?

 

[rotex5510]

I thought API Stress Zyme was okay on it's own as a tap water conditioner. Is that wrong?

 

[waterdrop]

I thought API Stress Zyme was okay on it's own as a tap water conditioner. Is that wrong?

I know API StressCoat is a water conditioner, but I thought API StressZyme was just a bottled bacteria product. Does anyone know if its also a water conditioner??

As a bottled bacteria StressZyme would just fall into the "waste your money" category I'd say but if its also a conditioner then that confuses the issues a bit when we're advising beginners...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Curiosity101]

Stress Zyme is a biological filter additive containing live bacteria that improves the development of the biological filter and helps clean a dirty aquarium. The build-up of organic pollution in the aquarium inhibits the growth of nitrifying bacteria. The bacteria in Stress-Zyme keep conditions in the aquarium right for the development of the biological filter by consuming harmful organic pollutants. This speeds the development of the biological filter in newly set up aquariums. A build-up of organic compounds also promotes the growth of disease-causing organisms in the aquarium. Stress Zyme keeps the biological filter working properly by keeping the aquarium gravel and filter clean. Water quality and living conditions are improved when Stress Zyme is used on a regular basis.

Each teaspoonful of Stress Zyme contains 300 million bacteria. These bacteria are in a dormant state and become active when added to the aquarium. Stress Zyme has a five year shelf life and does not require refrigeration. Stress Zyme is effective in freshwater and marine aquariums.

It's a waste of money. Apart from anything else, it says it's suitable for both marine an freshwater aquariums. Which either means that 150mil bacteria are freshwater and 150mil are salt water. Not to mention the different temps of coldwater --> tropical --> saltwater!
It's biologically impossible that this product works, in my opinion, I do only have an A level in Biology at the moment. But it goes against so many fundamental biological facts.

And no it isn't a water conditioner in the sense that it doesn't remove heavy metals, chlorine or chloramines.

 

[waterdrop]

ok, good, I was remembering it right, its not a conditioner in the sense we use that term

Puts it squarely back in the worthless column I'd say, probably one of the many that tried to use Nitrobacter prior to Hovanec figuring out its Nitrospira that are most probably the N-Bacs.

Its still curious that Hovanec feels the idea of bottled bacteria is viable. Wouldn't we all enjoy a lecture from him on that? But I'm afraid we'll never get it as he must feel he needs to protect his "one and only" product secrets and there's no reason to think he'll go back in the labs and publish any more papers I guess.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[rotex5510]

Oops, I did mean Stress Coat, which says on the bottle that it's a water conditioner.

 

[OldMan47]

Whatever water conditioner you are using that would cost 25 euro for an 80% change on a 150 litre tank is the wrong stuff. For a water change that size, I would use about 3 ml of Prime. It is made by Seachem and is quite concentrated. I buy Prime in 500 ml bottles for less than 12 euro delivered to my door, I live in the US so I am converting currencies here. I find products like that on eBay for very little money. I don't know that Prime is any better than any other product but, when it comes to how much I use and what it costs, I figure it is worthwhile looking for it. The bottle label says it treats 5000 gallons of water so that would be about 19000 litres. Yes, I put the decimal in the right place on that number.

 

[umpsfar]

nice,
i like
i buy.

 

[Scvpirates]

Oops, I did mean Stress Coat, which says on the bottle that it's a water conditioner.

Stress coat is more for keeping the fish healthy it adds to their slime coat and helps prevent stress it may also do some water conditioning but i would highly recommend aqua plus in combination with amquel i use the two together in my 29 gallon and my tank stays pretty clean.