Habitat - Indoor :: How often to clean the tank?

[JNZBCBnLIL]

We have a 20 gallon tank for our 2 inch RES- we had a different filter then the one we have now to start off with and it did not clean the water very well at all, the tank got pretty dirty after only about a weeks time! We were expecting to be cheaning the tank about once a week- but so far this new filter we got is working great! The water isn't cloudy at all and it doesn't seem we'll need to change it as often as we thought- but is there a recommended amount of time to clean a turtles tank no matter what the water clarity and conditions are?

[CountryGirl68]

You should do a partial water change (about 25%) once a week or week and a half. This helps keep ammonia and nitrite levels down. If you measure the ammonia and nitrite levels and they are fine (zero), then you don't need to do water changes every week. However, if your tank is fairly new, you should do them once a week because the bacteria needed to reduce ammonia and nitrite levels hasn't had a chance to developed yet.

Major tank cleaning should be done once a month or month and a half, where you clean out everything in the tank, including the filter.