Fish Tips: How To Clean A Fish Tank

Fish are great because you don’t have to walk them or clean up after them, right?
Wrong! While you may not need to walk them, you DO need to clean up after them, unless you want a wall of algae between you and several unhealthy fish.
Aquatic Central has some tips on how to clean a fish tank:

“There are many answers to this question and they will vary from system to system. There are a few fundamentals though. Never compromise your biological filtration; this is usually a porous rock found in your filter which will grow a bacterial biofilm that many people erronously just assume needs to be cleaned. The mechanical and chemical components can more or less be changed at will, providing there is a stable biological part. Also, we generally tend not to disrupt the substrate in marine and planted aquariums, as there is usually enough going on bacterially, that we don’t need to intervene.
The cleaning of the front and side panels are practically mandatory. It is rare for a system to not grow at least a little bit of algae and let’s face it, it just isn’t visually appealing to look at our fish through a coat of algae. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, change the environment as little as possible. This holds true for all systems. Perhaps the number one mistake we make as aquarists is not realizing how much we tend to change the environment when we do little things like dose, or a water change. Stress is a very big, and frequently overlooked, factor in fish health.”

Keep your tank clean and the stress low and you’ll have yourself some healthy fishes!
[Image via TyneNews/WENN.]