Fish Tanks Maintenance from Schmeg.com

   

What is Normal Fish Tank Maintenance?

What exactly should you do when you perform normal maintenance on your aquariums? A quick summary would be:

You should perform the checks and services that give your fish, plants, invertebrates (and other creatures like beneficial bacteria) the best chance of a happy, healthy life in the artificial environment they have been placed.

To be more specific, listed below is the normal checks and procedures. Most of these will be appropriate to your tank, but there will always be a few that are not applicable. For example, salinity is only checked on salt & brackish water tanks.

Water Change with prepared water
Arguably, this is the most important. Your fish are living in an artificial environment. When you consider the vast open spaces of the ocean, river or a lake that have no fish in it, you will realize that fish in nature have a huge volume of water that buffers them from other fish and pollutants that are created naturally just by living. :If Iwere to emulate this in an aquarium, you might have 1 small guppy in your tank, and in many cases, even that would be far too many grams/oz's of fish for the water size.

An aquarium needs water changes (not just topping up) to keep your fish healthy and happy for the long term.

I prepare your water ahead of time. For most aquariums it is prepared at least 48 hours prior to putting into your system.

For all fish, this means you don't have to add chemicals to get rid of Chlorine. While these chemicals are better than poisoning your fish with Chlorine gas (in the city water supply.) Some authors report that in some tanks, the frequent, or even occasional use of chemicals to remove Chlorine has side effects that are deleterious to your aquarium, this is most agreed upon by aquarists keeping sensitive fish and reef aquarists in specific. Our attitude on this is that, if is is bad for some fish, it probably isn't good for others - it is probably just less of a problem. The only reason the chorine removal chemicals are sold is because too many companies and people are to hurried to wait, and dumping in chorine laced water is very hazardous to most fish and invertebrates. The chlorine removers are, in our opinion "the better of two evils". But you don't need the better of 2 evils! If you are keeping your own aquariums, just keep a supply of aged water! In our case, Ikeep a supply of properly aged water, and that's what Ibring when Ido our service calls. Isuggest that the chorine removal chemicals be reserved for emergency purposes only where, since they are almost never used, there will not be any undesirable buildups and - in an emergency, it is clear that chlorine removers are much better than using water with chlorine in it.
For salt and brackish water this 48 hour treatment is critical. The manufacturers of salts say it is mandatory to give some of the salts time to dissolve properly. So why do some companies dump the salt in the water and then dump it in their/your aquarium when even the manufacturer says this is harmful to the fish? If they don't bring the water to your location, and you don't have the pretreatment facilities to have the water, they do it because they don't have a choice.
For fish that have special water requirements (soft water for some wild caught discus fur example).
Ifeel that water changes are very important to your aquariums well being, and Itreat this seemingly simple process will all the care it is due.

Artificial Storm
Detritus (gunk, muck, uneaten food) can collect on and around rocks and coral (also see the next section, for detritus in gravel.) In nature this is "cleaned" by the occasional good storm or minor hurricane (Major storms and hurricanes can rip the rock and coral up and throw it around - some of our live rock comes from this source - rescued before it putrefies.) In the aquarium Ineed a "storm" periodically to clear out the areas that the "currents" don't get to. Our approach to this is to create a "storm" with a power filter, just before siphoning out the water. In some cases Iwill also run a mechanical filter during and for a while after the "storm" to collect some of the detritus. While it may make the aquarium look "mucky" for a few hours (or in extreme cases - a couple days), it really is necessary for the long term benefit of your tank. Ireally are leaving your tank cleaner than when Icame!!!

Clean "gunk" out of the gravel
Any significant amount large particulate matter will decrease the quality of your tank. (In a reef tank it is appropriate to take the attitude that any accumulation of detritus: particulate matter like food, muck etc.., is bad.) Cleaning at least 1/4 of the gravel on each maintenance that includes removing water is a good idea. If you do not have an undergravel filter DSB (Deep Sand Bed) or Plenum sand bed filter, Iwill aim more for 75% or greater on each cleaning, especially on cold water and tropical aquaria with a large percentage of meat eaters (i.e. Cichlids). In a reef aquarium and others using DSB or Plenum based system Iwill simply and gently stir up the top surface to avoid clumping.

Depending on the circumstances, Imay vacuum your gravel first, then have the artificial storm, then complete the removal of water. This will be more common with fresh water aquaria than with marine aquaria.

Check water chemistry and take corrective action as appropriate
Ammonia NH3 & NH4
Deadly. Second only to Chlorine/Chloramine as a killer. Icheck this every time Icome, whether for regular or emergency maintenance.

Nitrites
Deadly. Right after Ammonia. Icheck this every time Icome, whether for regular or emergency maintenance

Nitrates
Deadly in high concentrations. Not harmful at "normal" concentrations but it can be a nuisance at the high end of normal - causing algae blooms for example. Notice that "normal" is in quotes, this is because in almost any aquarium setting, the Nitrates will be at a far higher concentration than would ever be found in nature. So "normal" means normal for aquariums. Nitrates will be tested for at most regular maintenance cycles and, if the last maintenance test showed high Nitrites Itest for Nitrates at the next visit - emergency or otherwise.

pH
For some fish this is critical, for others it is not. For most aquariums Iwill check this at least once a month. For aquariums with sensitive creatures such as Reef Aquariums or African Rift Lake tanks, I check this every week.

Salinity
For reef, marine and brackish water aquariums, this will be tested at each visit both before and after water changes.

Hardness
For most aquariums this will tested periodically.

Phosphate PO4
Checked each visit if you have a planted or marine aquarium.

Iron FE
For freshwater aquariums with plants this will be tested before applying any fertilizer and again after applying the fertilizer. Along with the other tests, FE is a good indicator of how other nutrients are being used.

Iodine
Marine aquarium Protein skimming removes iodine along with the bad thing it removes. Measuring Iodine lets us add the correct amount of micronutrients back into the system that the protein skimmer inappropriately removed. (And no, removing the protein skimmer is not a good idea.)

Copper
For reef aquariums this is tested every maintenance visit as it is highly poisonous to your invertebrates. In other tanks it is normally only tested the visit after a copper based medication was used. This is because Iperiodically test our water supply to ensure that Iare not adding copper into the system. If you are doing your own water changes from your water supply then Iwill test for copper more often as many buildings/households have copper pipes that can inject this poison into the tank. Note: if you are filling with water that may have run through copper pipes, be aware that although copper in low concentrations is safe for most fish, the key word is low concentrations. Similarity, since copper only comes out through water changes, never ever use two different copper based medications without first doing sufficient water changes to make sure that the copper levels have been lowered close to zero. Copper based medications typically put the maximum safe amount of copper into your water. While Iare at it ... if a copper medicine says "put 1 drop per gallon" - that means 1 drop per gallon of water. A 90 gallon tank, after rocks, gravel and so forth are considered may only have 70 gallons of water. This is even more so in a reef aquarium. For this reason, if Ibuild your system, Ikeep logs of the "volume" of rock and so forth that Iput into your system. (And Imeasure it in water so that gaps between the gravel for example, are not counted as part of the volume.

Micro Nutrients
For plants, this is tested indirectly through FE and P04 tests.

For reef and other marine aquariums this is

Fertilize plants
Count and inspect health of fish and record. Compare to last records.
This is a visual inspection. If you have notified us of any unusual activity, Iwill take extra care to check those more carefully.

Of course, if you have a tank with 1000 loaches, or 100 cardinal-tetras with your 8 discus, Iare not going to actually count the loaches or neon's, but Iwill ballpark it. If it is "100's" one month and "3" next month - there may be a problem - or you may be happy that your discus are eating so well.

Trim dead leaves and stems off plants
No leaf lasts for over. No plant last forever. Fish eat and kill plants/leaves. While it is true in nature these leaves/plants would decompose and become fertilizer, your tank - even if it only has 1 tiny fish in a large tank - has far more "life" per gallon compared to nature. As a result, you don't have the appropriate volume for dead material to be "treated" naturally. If you really want "dead" leaves because it fits the decor, it would be better to look at coating dead, dry leaves with epoxy or fiberglass resin and use them in the tank - or if you have brackish water, buy some "leaf fish" - they look like dead brown leaves right up to the moment when they inhale the live food that floats by them.

Remove excess plant growth
While some tanks have problems with plant deterioration, others have the opposite problem, too much plant growth. Indeed, you may have both in the same tank with some species doing well while others are doing poorly. In particular, if your large plants are shading the shorter plants too much, they need to be thinned or trimmed to allow light to reach the shorter plants. In general, Iwill look at trimming out a range of plants ranging from the oldest and youngest plants, or just do an individual plant trims. The reason for not taking all the youngest is, eventually your other plants will get too old and stop growing/reproducing leaving you with no new growth to replace it. And you don't normally want to always take the oldest plants because then the tank may perpetually look like it was recently set up. In general Iwould start by removing the stems/leaves/plants that have gotten too big for your aquarium and then look to remove others to achieve a natural looking balance.

Check and Clean filters, replace broken parts
Remove and clean all mechanical filter medium - pads, foam, floss, replace as appropriate

Syphon Bottom of Trickle filters

Trickle filters will have their mechanical filter sections cleaned but the biological section will be left alone except in extreme cases. The brown "gunk" you see on the balls in the filter is exactly what you WANT to see. The brown "gunk" is the bacteria that is working on your team. Cleaning this "gunk" can result in very quick death or at best, severe downgrade of quality in your tank. (Reef tanks are the most susceptible.) So ... if you ask us to clean the gunk off - Iwill politely refuse! What I are checking for in a trickle filter is any build up of foreign matter that doesn't belong there. If that happens Imay do a partial clean of the trickle section, but the main reason for checking is to ensure that the mechanical sections ahead of the trickle filter are working properly and, if not, Iwill take corrective action.

Replace all chemical filter material (i.e. activated charcoal)

Clean impellers of all filter pumps

Check and Clean Protein skimmers
Applies to salt water aquariums only. But it applies to ALL salt water aquariums - if you don't have a good one - you really need to get one!

Chemical Clean
While Iare working on other maintenance, Iwill on appropriate tanks (most reef systems as well as any others with any questions of water quality) run a chemical cleaning process with a filter Icarry with us. This filter is of course itself cleaned between each customer site as well to avoid cross-contamination. To be clear, this filter is cleaning chemicals OUT of your aquarium, not cleaning your aquarium "with" chemicals!

Add back micro and macro nutrients that are removed by items like Protein skimmers
Check and replenish fish food
Check automatic fish feeders
Evaluate amount of food waste - are fish being overfed?
I will bring any concerns to your attention.

Clean glass inside and out
On the outside Iuse vinegar and water. Ido not use any household or "glass cleaners" and Istrongly recommend you do not either - over spray could be deadly. On the inside Iuse "algae magnets" to clean the viewing glass. If you have algae eating fish, Ido not typically clean the other sides so that the fish have a ready food source. However, if the algae gets "out of hand" then Iwill look at more drastic measures. One of our favorite solutions is to loan you a good algae eater (as you know, I am only fond of chemical cures as a last resort.)

Clean any water or salt deposits and residue
Check air stones, replace as necessary
Check air lines, adjust or replace as necessary
Check heaters, replace as necessary
Ialways recommend a minimum of 2 heaters, both slightly "underpowered" so that if 1 heater goes on the blink by sticking "on" it won't fry your fish, if it goes on the blink by sticking "off" the other heater will normally be able to keep the temperature drop OK. If your room temperature changes at night or on the weekends, then these factors may change depending on the temperature outside.

Check thermometers, replace as necessary
Normally the only reason for replacement is that they have been broken. If your fish are the cause, the thermometers will be moved to a safe location such as inside a filter.

Check hydrometer, clean or replace as necessary
Check light levels, clean or replace as necessary
This is done by means of a light meter and visual inspection of the bulbs. Bulbs that have "black ends" should be replaced soon even if the light meter says things are OK.

Check UV sterilizer bulbs, clean or replace as necessary
Note that as a general rule, you shouldn't be using UV sterilizer bulbs on reef aquariums or aquariums with undergravel filters because they kill too much necessary creatures including the food of many reef creatures. If you buy live sand and then install a UV sterilizer bulb, you will be killing a lot of what you purchased!. Indeed, you don't recommend them in general because in most (not all) systems that they would benefit, they do or potentially do too much harm as well.

Check timers
Check all cords and electrical connections, remove any salt buildups, replace any worn cables, make sure cords have drip loops.
Check air pumps, clean, repair or replace as necessary
Remove dead fish & other animals.
Remove fish and other animals that have become too large or too aggressive for your tank.
If Ido not have a ready home for these, they may be donated to some deserving home or organization, or Iwill sell or auction them for you. In most cases, selling or auctioning them will bring very little money, but it will see your pets into a new home where they are more likely to be happy and healthy.

Bring in new (Irecommend quarantined in most cases) fish, plants, invertebrates, live rock, live sand, live beneficial bacteria cultures.
UPS checking. Batteries in particular.
UPS batteries typically last 18-24 months. You want to make sure that, if the power goes out for hours, the UPS will provide sufficient power to keep at least the bio filters running, and preferably the air pump and heater. Generally speaking Irecommend against hooking the lights up. If the lights are out for a few hours that is not a problem, better to leave the power for the filters, airpump and heater.

Do you want to take over maintenance?
And finally, if the times comes that you want to take over the maintenance, Iwill give you a copy of our maintenance logs so that you can continue in the most effective fashion.

Related Articles: