Fish tank cleaning and daily maintenance

 

As the saying goes, “lazy people don’t raise fish”. It must be a diligent person who can raise fish well. It is inevitable to maintain and clean the fish tank from time to time. This article adds some of my daily experience on the basis of summarizing common cleaning methods on the Internet. I hope Can be helpful to friends who raise fish:

1. Cleaning of the new fish tank. The new fish tank should be cleaned before use, mainly to disinfect and thoroughly clean the tank, equipment and filter materials to facilitate future maintenance. As far as my personal experience is concerned, disinfection is actually not necessary. My tank is basically not disinfected, but it is relatively clean, and no problems have occurred, but some aquarists are very particular about it. Here are the methods.

① Cleaning the fish tank. Generally, the fish tank you just bought is relatively clean, you only need to wipe it carefully with a sponge. If it is really dirty, you can use some vinegar. Just rinse it off after use. If it is turning over the tank, you can pour vinegar on a burlap cloth to scrub the fish tank. Wipe the particularly stubborn area with an old toothbrush. Don't use a hard brush or steel wire ball to brush, which will easily scratch the glass.

②Salt water disinfection method. This disinfection method is relatively simple and convenient. You can soak the fish tank with 200:1 concentration (5g salt in 1L of water), turn on the filter, and continue to soak for more than 1 hour, and then use it after pumping out the water. Soak in pure water for more than half an hour, and then drain the water to put it in the sun-dried water.

③ Potassium permanganate disinfection method. The steps are the same as the salt water disinfection method. The soaking time is about 10 minutes. Note that the concentration of potassium permanganate is 5000:1, that is, put 1g of potassium permanganate in 5L of water. Use cold water to prepare the solution. Invalidate. If the wall of the tank is dyed, you can put the vitamin C tablets in the water for reduction, and about 15 tablets for 100L of water will do.

2. There are two main methods for cleaning and daily maintenance of tank walls: physical methods and biological methods. Biological methods are mainly used to remove algae. Buy a scavenger or a large number of black-shelled shrimp and put them in. They will eat algae, but I don't think this method is very easy to use. One is that the gnawing is not so clean, and the other is that some people don't like scavengers or black-shelled shrimps, so here is the physical method.

① Algae scraper. The algae scraper is definitely an artifact, very invincible and easy to use. You can buy one for a dozen yuan on Taobao, and it will be no problem for a year and a half. After scraping, the algae will float in the water piece by piece. If it is a goldfish, you don’t need to worry about it, and it will be eaten in a while.

②Cup washing brush. The algae scraper can clean most of the dirt on the wall of the tank, but it does not work well for the corners and corners. At this time, you need to use another artifact, a long-handled cup-washing brush.

3. Clean the water body. There are two main reasons for the turbidity of the water in the fish tank. One is that the filtration is not strong enough, and the other is the explosion of algae, commonly known as green water. There is no good way to filter this. It is to increase the filtration intensity. My experience is that the amount of filtration must be at least 10 filtration cycles. Specifically, if the water in the fish tank is 40 liters, a 400 liters/hour filter should be equipped. At the same time, the space for holding the filter material should be as large as possible, preferably more than 1/4 of the water body. Here we will focus on the treatment methods of green water.

① Change the environment. On the one hand, algae bursting in water is due to eutrophication, and on the other hand, it is caused by too long and too much light. As long as the light is reduced and the feeding is reduced, the occurrence of green water can be effectively avoided.

② Germicidal lamp. For water that has become green, reducing light and feeding are often very slow. At this time, using a germicidal lamp can quickly take effect. Some filters have the installation position of the germicidal lamp, just install it directly. If not, buy a submersible germicidal lamp on Amazon. The germicidal lamp can be turned on for 1-2 hours a day, and the green can be removed quickly in 3-5 days. It should be noted here that the germicidal lamp must not be used naked, and cannot directly irradiate people or fish. Ultraviolet rays are harmful to the skin.

4. the cleaning of the filter material Generally speaking, the filter system has up to 4 layers: the first layer of filter cotton, the second layer of biochemical cotton, the third layer of glass ring (ceramic ring, bio-stone, etc.), and the fourth layer of activated carbon. The first layer belongs to physical filtration, mainly to block the solid residues in the water, so it is particularly easy to get dirty. The cleaning is also based on this layer. The other layers are usually seldom cleaned, but it is easy to lose the nitrifying bacteria when washed for half a year. Cleaning once a year is enough. Generally, you can wash the filter cotton 2 hours after scraping the algae, and just rub it a little bit. In fact, this is very cheap and it is no problem to change it directly. It is important to pay attention to the cleaning of the filter material, do not scrub, and do not need to be washed too clean, and do not wash directly with tap water, otherwise the nitrifying bacteria attached to the filter cotton will be destroyed in a large amount, and the effect of biological filtration will be lost.

Five, several points of attention for fish tank cleaning

①Do not wash the tank with detergent or other chemicals, as the residual chemicals will easily affect the fish.

②Do not wash the filter cotton while washing the tank, which will easily destroy the nitrifying bacteria community.

③Do not rub the old moss with hard objects such as steel wire balls, it is easy to scratch the glass and damage the silica gel.

④Do not thoroughly clean the fish tank under low water temperature (below 15°C), because the nitrification system and green moss recover very slowly, and some people like to grow goldfish with green moss.

Hope this article will be helpful to everyone! I also wish everyone a clean and beautiful fish tank!💓👧