General Care Discussion :: Cleaning Time! Hard but....how Hard?

[Skittles]

Im new to the forums and trying to get my posts into the right area....hopefully this is good. Anyways, i've had my RES for around 3 years and im wondering if i make things to hard on myself when cleaning. I've seen some of the pictures of peoples setups and ask myself how do they clean all of that. It takes me and my girlfriend over 1 hour to clean are small tank! So my questions are.....

1. How long does it take you to clean your tank/how big is it?

2. Do you take everything out and scrub it by hand?

3. Do you remove all the water and clean the side walls and do about 2 or 3 rinses/drains to remove all the cleaning product...(Turtle Safe Product)?

4. Do you take the filter completly apart and scrub it by hand? (I have a waterfall filter and was wondering if the canister is easier)

5. And finally....are your docks impossible to clean? I have to zoo-med suction dock and it gets that green alge in all the nooks and cracks and i use hot water and a tooth brush and still cant get it out. I replaced it once cause the old one was too bad.

I know turtle care is hard but am i making it even harder? Any tips on cleanig? Anyone ever tried a shop-vac instead of manually siphoning out the water....lol? Anyways, sorry for the long post but any help would be great....Thanks!

[seanwb]

1. How long does it take you to clean your tank/how big is it?

20 minutes - 300 gal indoor pond

10 minutes pumping out 20% of water (attach hose to pump at one end, drain at other, when near end of pumping, remove hose from filter and syphon any debris on the pond bottom.

Whilst draining check and clean filter and reassemble

10 minutes refilling with a hose
(in winter also using kettle to put in hot water to prevent large tempartature drop)


2. Do you take everything out and scrub it by hand?
No

3. Do you remove all the water and clean the side walls and do about 2 or 3 rinses/drains to remove all the cleaning product...(Turtle Safe Product)?

No, 20 - 25% water change only, quick scrub of sides where needed using water in pond only

4. Do you take the filter completly apart and scrub it by hand? (I have a waterfall filter and was wondering if the canister is easier)

Completely apart to check yes, scrub it by hand? no - it does not need to be clean.

All I do is rinse filter media in some of tank water I have drained. If you clean it too much (or in tap water), and change all the water, the filter will never fully mature

I am a great fan of cannister filters, though at the moment my RES has an internal filter. If you have spare tap and hose, you can use it to pump out water straight to the drain really quick!

5. And finally....are your docks impossible to clean? I have to zoo-med suction dock and it gets that green alge in all the nooks and cracks and i use hot water and a tooth brush and still cant get it out. I replaced it once cause the old one was too bad.

With a fully matured filter and regular water changes, I only have a very small amount of green algae and no brown. The algae does no harm, so I leave it. Algae is natural.

In summary, I think you are making your life hard, but interested to see what others have to say.

Although you may not realise it, the bigger a tank is, the easier it is to maintain as water quality is more stable and higher if all other variable (filter size, size of turtles, amount fed, frequency of maintenance etc) remain the same.

As for a shop-vac, i have a similar machine. Excellent for cleaning the carpet when you overflow the bucket when syphoning! (another case for syphoning / pumping staight to a drain).

Above all remember that a tank does not need to be spotless for your turtle. In the wild they live in water with mud, leaves, rotting vegetation and algae. It is us owners who like things clean. More important is the water quality, which is invisible, and can only be tested with a test kit. Crystal clear water can still be lethal.

[TheComputerGremlin]

1) I wipe down the sides of the tank weekly using a towel and tank water. No cleaning products ever go into my tank.

2) No, nothing has ever gotten dirty enough to need to be scrubbed. Also, my dock is pretty stuck in there.

3) No, living in an apartment, removing the water or moving the tank isn't really an option. A 25% water change every month should be adequate for removing the nitrates.

4) My canister filter gets completely rinsed down, minus my biological media. That sits in tank water while I'm cleaning the rest of it. All of it gets a really good spray using the spray function on my shower head. It's not like it's not going to get dirty right away anyways, and if I used cleaning product on it, I'd have to let it completely dry and I don't have time for that. My filter cleanings take about 20 minutes now.

5) I have a homemade plexiglass dock. It hasn't gotten that dirty, though I've found that there are mineral deposits that don't come off very easily. I have no algae buildup on it, though. I just wipe it down weekly.
_____________________________________________________
Now some questions for you:
How big is your tank? How big is your turtle? Often, if your turtle is too big for their tank, the tank becomes dirty faster and more intensely. You want 10 gallons of tank per 1 inch of shell, so a 3 year old turtle should be around 6 inches, you'll want a 60 gallon tank. A waterfall filter won't be very good with that size of a tank, and you'll want to upgrade to a canister filter. I have a Rena XP3 and it's amazing, though my tank is now a little small for my turtle. But she'll survive another 6 months and then get an upgrade. The Fluval FX5 canister filter also has a built-in water pump tool, so you can use that filter to remove or fill your tank. Otherwise, there is something called a Python which is for filling and removing the water using hoses. That will make things much easier. But I think that you'll find that the right size tank for your turtle and a good canister filter will lead to very few actual tank cleanings.

[laurapa]

When we had Oliver in that tiny sad little tank, we had to clean it the way you're describing. By the end of the month it was disgusting, even with regular water changes. It took forever to clean.

Now that we have a bigger tank, the water is so much cleaner. We use a Python siphon to do partial water changes every other week or so, and the tank is generally clean.

With the filter, all we do is rinse the prefilter every other week and change out the foam inside the filter once a month. We also change the carbon once a month cause I read somewhere that you're supposed to. Dunno if I'm wasting money.

Basically, the more water you have, the less turtle debris per ounce of water you have. So that's less concentrated dirtiness. The bigger the tank, the cleaner.

[BullDog]

Here's my setups:
1. How long does it take you to clean your tank/how big is it?
75 gallons and 90 gallons. I did a 100% water change with scrub down and full filter clean, and it darn near well took 3 hours.
However, that's not my usual cleaning. My usual cleaning is 25-50% of the water and a filter clean, which takes about 45 mins - 1 hour.
If I'm just changing the water, it takes about 10 minutes.

2. Do you take everything out and scrub it by hand?
Very rarely. Once a year, max.

3. Do you remove all the water and clean the side walls and do about 2 or 3 rinses/drains to remove all the cleaning product...(Turtle Safe Product)?
Again, really rarely. Once a year or less. When I do a full scrub down I use vinegar to clean the walls, then rinse. Sometimes, I'll just take a soft cloth or the algae magnet to get some algae off the walls.

4. Do you take the filter completly apart and scrub it by hand? (I have a waterfall filter and was wondering if the canister is easier)
Yes, I take it all apart, and scrub/rinse most parts of it every 1-2 months.
Trust me, you've got it easy with a waterfall filter. Not to put you off canister filters though. It's just the way it goes. A bigger tank means a bigger filter, means more to clean.

5. And finally....are your docks impossible to clean? I have to zoo-med suction dock and it gets that green alge in all the nooks and cracks and i use hot water and a tooth brush and still cant get it out. I replaced it once cause the old one was too bad.
I've got an eggcrate dock. Eventually, the algae gets in there, and it's tricky to scrub it out of the holes, but it's not really a big deal.


Like laurapa said, a bigger tank actually means less cleaning. The water stays cleaner for longer because of the bigger water volume.

[VanishingReality]

1. 29 gallons. It takes about five minutes to fill up the tank and do a quick side scrub for algae weekly. But every six months we take everything apart and clean it all. That takes about half an hour.

2. Only every six months.

3. No, we never do a full water change. The only time we did was before we got the canister filter and when we moved.

4. Once every six months. I had the tetra waterfall one and it was a pain. I got the small canister one and we pretty much love it. But we do replace the carbon every month and rinse out everything in the filter when we do.

5. We have one of those acrylic ones and to clean it we just get really hot water and use our filter cleaning brushes on it. There is a slight whiteness to it due to the mineral deposits but no more algae! We clean it every six months.

We scoop out his poop every day and it seems to help the filter do it's job better.

[Brearune]

1. How long does it take you to clean your tank/how big is it? takes under an hour... prolly more like 30 minutes but i don't actually time it so i dont know...

2. Do you take everything out and scrub it by hand? god no... we'd never get the tank cycled that way! we just do some siphoning of the bottom, and scooping out floating junk and any poop.

3. Do you remove all the water and clean the side walls and do about 2 or 3 rinses/drains to remove all the cleaning product...(Turtle Safe Product)? No. that kinda cancels out the cycling of the tank. We scrub the side walls with plain sponge every 5 months or so or as needed, while the water is still in it. i never use any chemicals, either.

4. Do you take the filter completly apart and scrub it by hand? every 6 months, yes, but I always keep some of the bio stuff safely in water for cycling stuff.... otherwise, just a quick wipe down of basic parts and making sure the hoses don't clog is all we do. Mostly just doing a daily siphon and scooping out big stuff handles that though!

5. And finally....are your docks impossible to clean? I have to zoo-med suction dock and it gets that green alge in all the nooks and cracks and i use hot water and a tooth brush and still cant get it out. I replaced it once cause the old one was too bad.: That happened to me too! I got rid of it! those things suck anyway, my turtle was able to eat it and I got very nervous about that, and it couldn't keep her fully out of the water once she got too big, so i built a really nice out of tank basking area for pretty cheap! I haven't had to clean it yet, and it looks gorgeous!



definitely agree- the bigger the tank, the better! GEt a good filter, should be MORE powerful than what it claims you need... IE: don't get a 55gal filter for a 55 gal.... those estimates are made for fish, turtles poop a lot more! or build your own filter for cheaper...
don't scrub everything down like that- just a daily siphon of like 10-20% if your water tends to get bad should be fine. It all depens i guess on the size of your turtle and what size tank. perhaps your tank is just too small right now! which would mean it gets dirty very quick, plus your turtle would probably want a bigger home anyway, if thats the case XD

[bradmeisel]

When I had my two turtles in a 20 gallon tank with three internal filters I was cleaning everything in the tank every 10-14 days. After emptying 20 things out of it, I would bring it into the bath tub and scrub it down with dishwashing liquid. It was starting to drive me crazy.

I would also run all the floating islands, rocks, filter plastic (propellors and all but not foams) thru the dishwasher because when I cleaned them it was never as clean.

This kept the 20 gallon very clean for the first week or so and then it started to look nasty. This schedule started to really cut into my free time so I bought a 75 gal and a fluval FX5.

Since then (over a month ago) I've only change the water, haven't cleaned a thing and still can't believe how clear my water is.

I agree with what BULLDOG said. and I can't stress how much better cleaning becomes after getting a big tank with a big filter .

Now i just have to learn how to clean this monster filter without putting 60 gallons of water onto my neighbor down stairs. If all else fails, I might have to read the MANUAL

[bigG]

I remove about 25% of the water and refill every other week using the Python system. About once a week I wipe down the glass with a towel. The Fluval filter gets a cleaning at least once a month. I usually feed my turtles in their feeding tank outside when the weather is warm enough. Otherwise, I will feed them in their regular tank. During the spring, summer, and fall, the tank stays fairly clean.

[TurtleLover_S&B]

I have the same basking dock and I know what your talking about.When I clean my tank I scrub it really good and let hot water run over it.Some will come off,but some won't.It won't hurt your turtles.Unless it just bothers you for it to be on there then you can just leave it on there,but still scrub it everytime.