Waterdrop's Thoughts On Keeping A Tank Looking Like Its 6 Months O

[eaglesaquarium]

Hello all, I am not waterdrop, but in another thread I asked this question, and rather than have it be buried in a thread by an unrelated title, I thought a more appropriate action would be to have a thread devoted to this topic. I am not an expert, I'm very much a novice, so don't expect any pearls of wisdom from me on this subject! I am just trying to get the ball rolling for folks like myself who understand the basics of tank set-up and preliminary maintenance, but I want to find out how to maintain that look LONG TERM! That's the goal of every fish keeper, I believe.

Most of us will only have one tank, maybe two. So, how do you maintain that look without tearing it all apart and "starting over" every 6 months or so?


(Obviously, this topic is not restricted to waterdrop's musings on the subject. All views are welcomed!)

OK, here we go again with a few: There are many, many tasks and tricks to maintaining a beautiful tank. On TFF you are sitting among all sorts of people who keep beautiful tanks of various types. Probably lots of the quiet people keep the most beautiful tanks and the ones who like to write, like me, are behind in the game, lol. I myself, by the way, want to keep learning how to do this better.

If we think of cycling as main skill number one, then main skills numbers two and three are more important for keeping the tank beautiful in the long run. They are the substrate-clean-water-change and the act of adding filter maintenance on to one of those water changes.

For the record, the stuff discussed here is for "after fish." Perhaps the very first action after you put your big towel on the floor and lay out your gear is to sponge down all the inside glass to remove the beginnings of any glass algae. Do it even if you can't see any. I use pieces of white Fluval replacement sponges for this because I like their level of "scratchiness" but most of you will probably have algae scrapers you like and those are fine. A good next step is to sponge any algae off of all your larger leaves if you are seeing any there. The idea is to get all this stuff loose in the water just prior to the water change. If this is a weekend you are feeling ambitious about the decoratios, take them out and clean them under sink tap with a sponge or brush, whatever. This is an occasional or as needed thing. Then perform the usual substrate-clean-water-change.

It should be noted here that NOT doing the weekly clean of this sort is the -main- thing that begins to take the tank downhill. These weekly cleans are perhaps THE most powerful maintenance habit (and by the way a wonderful exercise in discipline for young people to learn as a life lesson.)

OK, so another special thing I like to do is pick some ODD thing to clean each week in addition. For instance, one week clean the glass top. One week clean the lighting systems. One week clean out your cabinet. One week clean your outside tank glass. Whatever! It also makes that week more interesting and gives you a good feeling. Some people never quite get that tanks are made to be fussed over and when you see beautiful ones, they didn't just stay that way by themselves!

OK, I'm not going to go over filter maintenance here (you can search my thousands of past posts lol) but it is of course critical too. And another ODD but key thing is very periodically to do a full clean of your hose system if you have external cannisters. This is major work by the way and periodically you should replace your hoses before they get old, stiff and fail on you.

OK, gotta run again! The TFFers will have lots more where this came from! (how come my laugh emoticon never laughs anymore? lol)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Caprichoso]

Weekly water changes
Rinse out filter media
Fertilize plants
Gravel Vac
Scrub rocks(I take them out)
Algae magnet for glass
Glass scraper for back wall
Wipe glass down and wipe the hood
Take air stone out and scrub it
Trim and thin out plants

This is what I do every week because I like a nice, neat, clean tank. It's pretty easy because I keep up with it and don't let it get out of control.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

(bump)

Comments from waterdrop added to first post...


Experts, please feel free to add more instructions to the list, and a few "best practices" along the way. I'm sure that there is a wealth of information that many of you just sort of take for granted, no direction is too basic. Also sharing a few bumps in the road that you've experienced, as well as what you were able to learn from it, would be another invaluable addition!

Help the newbies, who really still have no idea what to expect!!!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Weekly water changes
Rinse out filter media
Fertilize plants
Gravel Vac
Scrub rocks(I take them out)
Algae magnet for glass
Glass scraper for back wall
Wipe glass down and wipe the hood
Take air stone out and scrub it
Trim and thin out plants

This is what I do every week because I like a nice, neat, clean tank. It's pretty easy because I keep up with it and don't let it get out of control.

This is a great list... a few extra details for a few of these would be great... (i.e. rinse out filter media) How exactly does one go about that? I know you used old tank water, NOT tap water - as this would kill the bacteria that you have worked so hard to cultivate. But, do you use a tool? How do you recognize how much cleaning is enough, without going TOO FAR? A clean filter is a tricky thing to recognize, as I see it. You want to get off the debris, but you don't want to remove the bacteria.


Plant thinning... how much do you thin? What tool is best? I assume you thin the plants while the water level is low, is that correct?

 

[Caprichoso]

Weekly water changes
Rinse out filter media
Fertilize plants
Gravel Vac
Scrub rocks(I take them out)
Algae magnet for glass
Glass scraper for back wall
Wipe glass down and wipe the hood
Take air stone out and scrub it
Trim and thin out plants

This is what I do every week because I like a nice, neat, clean tank. It's pretty easy because I keep up with it and don't let it get out of control.

This is a great list... a few extra details for a few of these would be great... (i.e. rinse out filter media) How exactly does one go about that? I know you used old tank water, NOT tap water - as this would kill the bacteria that you have worked so hard to cultivate. But, do you use a tool? How do you recognize how much cleaning is enough, without going TOO FAR? A clean filter is a tricky thing to recognize, as I see it. You want to get off the debris, but you don't want to remove the bacteria.


Plant thinning... how much do you thin? What tool is best? I assume you thin the plants while the water level is low, is that correct?

Rinse filter media- I fill a 5g bucket 1/4 way with tank water and rinse by squeezing out the sponges, shaking the bio-rings in the water and cleaning out the filter compartment with a little piece of sponge and for the intake tubes, I use a long, skinny bristle brush. I keep squeezing the sponge until no more debris comes out, usually takes changing the bucket about 3 times. I don't have to worry about removing the bacteria because it sticks to the hard surface of the bio-rings(Fluval Biomax is what I use).

I can't tell you how much I thin my plants as it's a personal thing. Not as in it's a secret but some people like things more lush than others. Some plant scapes require heavy pruning while others do not. Some plants grow faster than others. I invested in a very nice stainless steel aquarium tool set. It has 2 scissors,2 long tweezers and a landscaping tool. None of these tools are a must, I went 15 years before I had fancy tools. I used to just snip leaves with my nails or a pair of kitchen scissors. I prune when the plant starts to look "leggy" and/or if it's touching the surface. I usually trim just below where I see a new set of leaves is starting. For stem plants, I take the trimmed bit and stick it in the gravel wherever I want it. If leaves have holes, are turning brown, have too much algae on them, I cut them out. I trim when the tank is full so that I can see the natural flow of the plant. I don't worry too much about shaping the plant as I like the natural look plus I like to keep things simple. Having an aquarium should be fairly easy and give you joy and should never leave you feeling like it's too complicated.

 

[Little_Nemo]

Every week I trim and maintain my plants - afterall they are viewed frequently as the fish so I like to have them looking ship shape and ready. I don't like seeing any dead bits on them and growing wildly out of control. Like many others I have an algae magnet and clean the glass every 3 or so days and have API tank wipes so I clean the hood and wipe off any water marks when ever I do maintenance. And the net is always kept hany so if ever see any floating debris bits of leaves, food etc I just fish it out :] my tank keeps me reasonably busy most days :]

 

[waterdrop]

<...>
Plant thinning... how much do you thin? What tool is best? I assume you thin the plants while the water level is low, is that correct?

Like the others, I do a bit of this each weekly water change. And of course whatever works for you.. What I happen to do is to be looking at my plants during that first scrape down of the inside glass, thinking about where there are any problems. Then, if I have any brown algae (diatoms) on larger leaves I may be gently sponging that off but at that point, with the water still full in the tank, so I can see better, I choose and trim off any leaves that no longer look the best for any reason, often just because they have grown so large that they are shading other things too much or blocking too much view (I happen to still be in a multiyear personal experiment with low-light plant growing and the plants are dense enough that one sees more plants than fish.) Most of my plants don't want to be moved of course because they might react by losing their leaves but I do have one Anubias attached to it's own rock that can come out and be cleaned and trimmed quite easily out of the tank, a joy compared to working inside the tank.

By the way, the lid of a large plastic box (kitchen food storage box) makes a great trimmed leaf tray because it can hold large puddles of water and in fact if you are a beginner at a big box store you could pick up a largish box of this sort such that the bottom would serve as a splash catcher for your external cannister filter and the lid would be your trimmed leaf tray. At the same time you could pick up a much larger translucent plastic box if you planned to leave a big bogwood piece soaking out back - that way you can just glance out the window and judge how much tannin is coming out per day (ie. once it takes a week for the water to look yellow, you know your weekly water changes would handle it if you didn't want too much yellow in the aquarium.)

On the subject of the filter media rinse: If you siphon water out to buckets and carry it then you save the last bucket of tank water. If you siphon out the window or door to the garden then use an "overflow bucket" so that there will be a bucket of tank water at the end. The filter media is rinsed in this. Rinsing is not "cleaning" but instead you just have to laugh that are both making the rinse water a mess and yet retaining a mess in your sponges and ceramics - it is all like kids playing in the mud a bit. Trays of ceramics can just be repeatedly dunked in the bucket water. Sponges right after fishless cycling is over might only need to be swished to get the larger surface debris off. Once it's been a few weeks they might start to benefit from a gentle squeeze. Six months old and older sponges can probably take a bit more serious squeeze and be fine - by then the bacteria will come back from almost anything.

So here is a mental trick to help beginners not clean too much: Even if you have only lightly rinsed the media, you will often see dirt-like debris come out at the end of pouring out your cleaning bucket (I consider clear translucent buckets to be great for this as once again you can see the nature of your debris better (better to notice baby plants or danios or neons that might have come down the siphoning hose lol)) and you therefor can tell yourself that the debris you see is now leaving your media less clogged.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[eaglesaquarium]

By the way, the lid of a large plastic box (kitchen food storage box) makes a great trimmed leaf tray because it can hold large puddles of water and in fact if you are a beginner at a big box store you could pick up a largish box of this sort such that the bottom would serve as a splash catcher for your external cannister filter and the lid would be your trimmed leaf tray. At the same time you could pick up a much larger translucent plastic box if you planned to leave a big bogwood piece soaking out back - that way you can just glance out the window and judge how much tannin is coming out per day (ie. once it takes a week for the water to look yellow, you know your weekly water changes would handle it if you didn't want too much yellow in the aquarium.)

...

So here is a mental trick to help beginners not clean too much: Even if you have only lightly rinsed the media, you will often see dirt-like debris come out at the end of pouring out your cleaning bucket (I consider clear translucent buckets to be great for this as once again you can see the nature of your debris better (better to notice baby plants or danios or neons that might have come down the siphoning hose lol)) and you therefor can tell yourself that the debris you see is now leaving your media less clogged.

~~waterdrop~~

These are the kinds of nuggets that beginners need! Thanks.