My Cleaning Fishtank Story Its True And Sad :'(

[withington]

Hi fish fans

well at 3pm today (sunday 20th ) i deciced to epmpty my 4th tank because it had algue floating on the top of the water and was very dirty, so I cleaned it all out getting very stressed on the way because i put the wood in the sink and my big brother who is 20 washing his hands with fairy liqud and it went all over the wood and plants in the sink so we have a little fight punching each other, any way I put all the fish back in to the tank and there was only 6 in there and at 3pm i did have 10 so i lost 4 fish somewhere and i have 5 cuts on my fingures and hand from my slate 2 of them really do hurt but still being able to type the story up. So no its 6pm 3 hours later im pi55ed off cuz i got school tommorow so most of my sunday has gone andi lost 4 fish and my hand hurts so its all cra.p so far,oh by the way they are tropical fish.

Be careful when cleaning your tank out.

from Alex Withington

 

[WILDER]

Sorry, don't you just love brothers at times, sorry do you no what happened to the missing fish, i bet you wish you never started the job.

 

[withington]

yeah i wish i never did its not like i was rushing, and no they might of got pushed under the gravle or somthing i just feel really bad upset and angry right now. thanks for reading.

 

[withington]

i dont know if this is allowed but my msn is alexwithington7@hotmail.com because i have some questions add me im on now and all the time posts 6:25pm sunday ill b on till 10pm tonight

 

[dwarfgourami]

Sorry to hear of your misfortunes. It is almost always better not to clean out the whole tank like this. For one thing, even without disaster, you would have killed off all your beneficial bacteria. Better to keep up on regular maintenance. How often do you do water changes?
Another thing that is better avoided is posting the same thread more than once, it gets very confusing for people answering it.

 

[withington]

i dont do water changed just clean the whole thing out in 1 big run then leave it then do it all in 1 big go agian

 

[WILDER]

That's the wrost thing you can do, as you will be cycling the tank every time, you need to do a water change and gravel vac once a week, that's all i takes.

http/semperficichlids.freewebsitehosting.com/tanks.html

 

[withington]

i dont have a vac ? and its a tank full of things so do i take them out to vac ?

 

[WILDER]

I just remove the plants and ornaments, it dosn't take long on one tank, i have three to do, twice a week.

 

[withington]

yeh but i dont like moving the things its strees the fish

 

[WILDER]

Cleaning a tank fully will stress the fish even more, plus they will die eventually through bad water quality.

 

[withington]

oh i didnt know that thanks.

 

[dwarfgourami]

You don't have to move the plants for your water changes provided you do them regularly enough, I just clean around mine, and maybe once a month I might move a piece of bogwood and clean under it. Little and often is the best way. Buy a cheap gravel vac from your lfs, this will help you siphon out the water and hoover the dirt off the gravel without moving or even disturbing the fish. In fact, my fish always come out to investigate, they don't seem stressed at all. And if you do it once a week they get used to it. Take out maybe 25% a week and replace with clean dechlorinated water. Unless you have some horrendous infectious disease in there, you should never need to scrub the tank down.

 

[withington]

ah ok thanks I need to sae some money up get some more liquds to put in the water, and this vac is popping up alot so i need one of those.

 

[dwarfgourami]

ah ok thanks I need to sae some money up get some more liquds to put in the water, and this vac is popping up alot so i need one of those.

The only liquid you should need to put in is dechlorinator and that's really cheap.