Habitat - Indoor :: Tank Cleaning

[myrtle1123]

Today I cleaned myrtles tank ... like the whole overall thing .. it took me forever!! I was wondering how often i should do that whole overall cleaning ( like rinse out aquarium) and how often to refill the water and clean the dock?

[SpotsMama]

It depends. You should clean it when it needs to be cleaned!

I clean mine about once a month, when I clean the filter. But I don't drain all the water ever - there are minnows in there so I always leave at least a few inches in the bottom.

I don't clean all the rocks and things in the tank except when they have unsightly algae. My rational is that I'm protecting the colonies of beneficial bacteria.

I scrub around with a plastic mesh scrubber and suction the bottom as well as I can with the python. (I do some of that when I do less extensive water changes every other week or so.)

The whole thing start to finish takes me maybe an hour, not counting cleaning the filter. The filter takes maybe 20 minutes.

It used to take a LOT longer when I had a smaller tank and crummy filter. Then I took all the water out and frequently rinsed it with a dilute bleach solution. I did this because it looked and smelled so bad. It just doesn't seem necessary any more to go to such extremes.

I always test water quality at the same time that I clean the tank and filter just to make sure everything is humming along like it should.

Everybody's cleaning routine is a little different, depending on their exact circumstances.

[scripta_elegans]

I clean once a week mildly, and once every 6 weeks majorly. The mild cleaning involves changing 1/4 of the water, and vacuuming the tank floor, as well as rinsing as decorations that might have an algae build up and scrubbing the tank sides a bit; the rocks I leave alone to retain the healthy bioflora of the tank. In major cleanings, everything gets scrubbed with hot water and a tooth brush, except the rocks, and 3/4 of the tank water gets changed. The filter gets cleaned out, and the charcoal and filter pad replaced. Once a year I completely dry out the tank, with the rocks and 5 gallons of water retained. In this cleaing I get the tubes to the in and out parts of the filter too. Yuck!

[Starchick]

Is it recommended to always leave some water? I've been doing 100% water changes every other week, is that a bad idea?

[steve]

It depends on the tank size. With adequate filtration and water volume, it's not necessary for weekly 100% water changes. With my tank, I try to do 33-50% weekly. I do a 100% change and clean out the filters every 6 weeks (in the summer, it's usually once a month).

[DavidY]

For turtles it's probably not that big a deal if you do thorough water changes or filter cleanings. Doing so may remove a lot of the beneficial bacteria causing another minor ammonia/nitrite cycling afterward. For delicate fish, this would be a problem. But turtles and amphibians are a lot tougher.