Saturday, April 7, 2012

Keeping your Aquarium Clean: When and How to do It

By Kent Henry


Keeping your aquarium clean is your best defense against possible breakouts within the ecosystem of your freshwater aquarium. Your fish and plants will live a longer, healthier life in a clean aquarium, giving you longer time to enjoy the beautiful scenery that they give in return. The best system to keep an aquarium healthy is a regular system. Freshwater aquarium maintenance is simply having a regular schedule of keeping your freshwater aquarium clean.

Proper equipments are needed when you endeavor to keep your aquarium clean. Your little friends are very sensitive even to the minute change in their environment therefore you need to know how to do things properly.

Never use household cleaners to clean your fish tank. These are deadly to your fish. No matter how well you rinse, these chemicals leave a residue that is toxic to aquatic life.

One major advice for keeping your aquarium clean is to insure that the water supply is clean. A dirty pump is not going to fill your aquarium with clean water. A good, clean filter is vital to the life of your aquarium's ecosystem. However, a clean filter does not mean a spotless filter. Your filter media contains good bacteria that helps break down toxins and waste in your aquarium. Removing all of the bacteria can allow harmful levels of things like ammonia to develop in your water. Gently rinsing your filter media on a regular basis should be all it needs. Your filter manufacturer will provide a suggested maintenance schedule for you to follow. This will prevent you from cleaning it too often and harming the bacteria balance, or too seldom, allowing too great a buildup of waste in the media, which will prevent it from cycling the water as frequently as it should.

You can also clean the accessories you put inside your tank every two weeks. This would prevent the algae from mounting on them. However if what you have is an acrylic aquarium you need to clean it on a weekly basis.

Another maintenance test is to make sure that all the devices in your tank are functioning perfectly. Your air pump for instance, it should supply the adequate level of oxygen. And your filter should be able to circulate the clean and well oxygenated water.

For the most part, you do need to set a schedule for a fractional water change for your tank. This is extremely important in maintaining a healthy ecosystem inside your freshwater aquarium. Your little friends? haven is a closed environment what has been put inside will stay unless you get rid of it. Even if you have kept an eye on your masterpiece ammonia, algae, and other eye sore can grow right before your eyes. The ultimatum is to replace the water and vacuum the substrates to remove the accumulated excess waste.

One trick that you should not forget when you are replacing the water is to use water conditioners. These products have components that remove harmful chemicals such as chlorine and they also have the ability to eliminate excess ammonia.

Make a regular maintenance schedule for your tank. Your pets need you. Give time in keeping your aquarium clean your little friends have their own way to thank you that you never have thought of.




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