How to Clean a Dirty Fish Tank ?

A clean fish tank looks good and provides a better home for your fish. Over time, chemicals such as nitrates can design up in your fish tank, which guides to a cloudy appearance. Even if you use a fish tank filter, it’s most important to hand-clean your aquarium.

A fish tank can be an attractive piece of living art, a thriving aquatic ecosystem, and healthy home for swimming friends, but it won’t be any of those things if it is extra dirty, grimy, or algae-coated. Luckily, there are many simple tips and tricks to clean your fish tank and keep it in best condition for you and your lovable fish.

Why Cleanliness Matters

While you cleaning an aquarium is never the most beautiful chore, there are many reasons why it is important to clean your tank regularly and keep it in good condition.

• Health – A dirty tank can harbor bacteria, fungus, viruses, and other threats to your fish. Furthermore, a dirty tank may have an unbalanced pH, and the gasses and nutrients in the water will not be at the optimum levels for the health of the tank’s residents.

• Function – When a fish tank is full filled with floating debris and excess waste, the filter, pump, and other essential mechanisms can become clogged and sluggish. When this equipment stops working, the environment will be very dangerous, even deadly, for the fish.

• Viewing – A fish tank is not nearly as enjoyable if it has murky, dirty water and its walls are coated with slime and algae. It can become difficult to see the colors of plants and fish, and a very dirty tank may even put off foul, unpleasant odors.

The very cheap and best way to keep your fish tank clean is to keep up with the task. Doing a few cleaning every day will be easier than waiting until the whole tank wants a deep cleaning, and even if you miss a day now and then, the tank will still be reasonably clean and simple to enjoy. By keeping your tank clean both you and your fish will enjoy it more, and it will be a healthier, more pleasing environment where every inhabitant will arrive.

Steps for Cleaning

Before you begin. It’s best to stay your fish in the fish tank when you clean. Removing that unnecessary stress for your fish and you run the risk of accidentally hurting them. It is possible to keep your fish in the tank while you clean because you don’t want to remove all the water to clean the tank properly.

Completely replacing the water in the fish tank is not a good idea because it will remove beneficial bacteria that live in the tank and reset the nitrogen cycle, which could kill your fish. If you always clean your tank, doing a limited water change is the best option.

Also, when you make ready to clean your fish tank, it’s ok to leave plants and decorations in place. These only need to be cleaned when they start to look bad.

Start with the sides. To begin cleaning your fish tank, initiate by unplugging the heater and filter. You can then scrape algae off the sides of the fish tank. If the sides of your fish tank are made with acrylic instead of glass, it’s recommended to use a plastic scraper.

Clean the gravel. After you finish cleaning the sides, you can initiate with the gravel. You can use a siphon to vacuum dirt and other gunk off of the gravel. You can also use the siphon to remove a portion of the tank's dirty water. Remember to keep at least 50% of the water in the tank at all times in order to keep away from removing all of the beneficial bacteria from the tank.

Finish the cleaning. After the tank cleaning is fished up, you can refill the tank with new freshwater. Make sure the new water you put in the tank has already had the chlorine removed using a conditioning treatment. This is the only time you should add water to the fish tank.

Clean plants, rocks, and decorations. Occasionally, when plants, rocks, or decorations become visibly dirty, you will need to clean them. Remove all these unwanted items from the tank and scrub them under running water or leave them to soak in water overnight. After tank cleaning, you may carefully replace them in the fish tank.

How often you will need to clean your fish tank depends upon your aquarium's size, the number of fish, the types of fish, and the filtration system you have.

There is no need to clean your fish tank day by day unless you see the fish behaving strangely, if you see your fish not acting correct, consider doing a partial water change.

If you have an average-sized fish tank or large fish tank, weekly partial water changes can be very useful in maintaining the cleanliness of the tank and the health of your fish.

It’s also very important to keep an eye on the pH, nitrate, and ammonia levels in your fish tank. It will be useful to keep notes of each of these levels so you can track them and make sure they stay consistent over time. A level that is too high or too low for what is normal may specify a problem and lead to health issues for your fish or cloudy water in your water tank.

Here are some normal rules to assist you determine how often to clean your fish tank:

• Notice your fish make sure they’re behaving normally and aren’t gasping for air. If they are, it could be a sign that you want to do a partial water change.

• Fish depend on you for their survival and happiness, so spend time notice them and getting to know their routine.

• If the water in your fish tank appears cloudy, it is an indicator of water problems and should be addressed with a partial water change correct away.

• Notice for water evaporation.

• It's useful to examine all of the equipment in your fish tank twice a year to ensure the filters, pumps, and lights are in the best condition.