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.

A vote for Fish: By Joy

Fish can be a fun hobby for the entire family.  Think of the fun of owning a pet and multiply by 5 or 10 maybe even 20.  Depending on the size tank you have you can have lots of little pets to enjoy watching.  The time spent together as a family deciding which tank.  Where you will place it in your home, as well as the fun of decorating the tank.  You and your loved ones can take special trips to plan the types of fish to have in the tank.   By going to the library and checking out books on fish.  Let’s go to the pet store to see the different varieties in living color. 

 Think of all the wonderful hours you can spend sitting in front of the tank watching them swim and chase each other.  While sitting and observing the conversations that can come up, such as why does that big fish pick on the littler ones?  This may lead to something in your child’s on life. Someone at school that they have witnessed being bullied or experienced themselves.  But, have been unsure how to bring how to talk about.  Keeping fish is a great past time that can be shared and enjoyed with your family and friends.

The joy of keeping fish started for me as a child watching my older brother and my mother.  They had a beautiful two gallon all glass tank with bright yellow rocks and black mollies.  The colors just jumped out at you.  They even had a tank for the mommies to stay in so the other fish wouldn’t eat the new babies.  The bright guppies were my mom’s favorite fish.  She and my brother would discuss which male had better colors over another.  Then to decide which female was easy, they all ways choose one that was already expecting.  My brother had four tanks in his bedroom upstairs and it was neat to watch him cleaning tanks and talking to me about the fish. 

The best hobby is keeping fish.  So why don’t you try a tank or two yourself.  It’s really easy!