Spring Cleaning

Now that spring has sprung I thought it would be a decent time to explain how to clean your fish tank. Yes, you have to clean your fish tank.

First your going to need a few items, if you don't already have them, here are a few of my choices.

Fluval 11059 Edge Gravel Cleaner                                                                     Hagen Gravel Vaccum

Available at Amazon.com                             

                                                                                                                      Available at Petsmart.com

The next item you will need, is a large bucket of some description. The most important thing to remember is to make sure this is your 'fish bucket'. Food containers are great to use because they won't have any elements leftover in the bucket that could potentially contaminate the water, and thereby causing the fish harm. Make absolutely certain, any liquids such as bleach, or vinegar, anything that would harm your fish, hasn't been in the bucket you plan to use as your 'fish bucket'. This is crucial.

Now that you have the proper tools you are ready to begin cleaning your fish tank.

First you need to create the suction so that you can suck the dirt out of the gravel. 

To do this, you should place the tube end of your vaccum hose into the tank, like the picture on the left.   You should only insert the tube into the top of the tank, make sure you don't have any fish go inside of it.

  

Lift the tube out of the tank, make sure you have a decent amount of water inside. The water should trickle down the hose. 

 Begin moving the water so that it wants to go down the hose, but keep the other end lifted up high so that it doesn't leave the hose yet. Remember you are trying to create a suction. This is really much simpler than it appears. It just takes alot of practice.

 

Continue this process, until you think you have a decent amount of water.

Once you can place the hose into your bucket, and keep the tube in the fish tank your suction has been created. Your vaccum will continue to siphon water out of the fish tank. Now you can begin cleaning!

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You should move your vaccum tube around the tank carefully keeping the edges of the tube in the gravel so that the water taken out is also removing dirt buildup in the bottom of your tank

You should be able to see the dirt move, as well as the gravel should be stirred up also.










If you have small fish you should be especially carefull and keep your eyes open to make sure that you don't suck them up accidentally.







Continue to siphon out the tank until you have taken about 1/4 of the water from the tank out.
I will continue on the next post on how to fill the tank back up properly.