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I just got done cleaning my entire tank. What a job! I took everything out of the tank and vacumed the gravel until the water ran almost clear, rinsed the decorations in tank water and rearranged the entire tank.

There must be an easier way.

I would be interested in hearing how other people do this necessary maintenance and how often.

Originally posted by Indy
I just got done cleaning my entire tank. What a job! I took everything out of the tank and vacumed the gravel until the water ran almost clear, rinsed the decorations in tank water and rearranged the entire tank.

There must be an easier way.

I would be interested in hearing how other people do this necessary maintenance and how often.

Never. Once one of my tanks is cycled, they get an occasional gravel vacuum (monthly, give or take), but not to the extent you describe; I scrub algae off the walls with a scotchbrite periodically; if a decoration gets too "algaed up" I take it out, let it dry, wait a couple of days and put it back in. Filter parts, especially on the H.O.T. get pulled and cleaned maybe twice a month. But I've never done a full break-down and cleaning like you describe. My oldest 55 is around 8, maybe 9 years old without any problems. As long as you keep your nitrosomonas and nitrobacter colonies alive somehow, like on filter elements or floating bio-wheels or something like that, I don't see a problem with how thoroughly you clean your tank; but I don't think it's necessary to do full breakdown cleaning.

--Mark:cool:

I do frequent fairly large water changes especially when I have alot of fish I'm trying to grow out fast.About half of my water changes I use a gravel vac.
My decorations (limited amount) don't usually get cleaned algae on them makes good fry food.

i recently cleaned out my 30G... easiest way i found (and probley the least healthy... but i had a huge snail problem... AGAIN)

take all the gravel out... put new gravel in.

worked a treat (i put all the fish and water into another 30 (lent from a friend) killed the snails with a chem solution then put the fish back in (took me a few days tho between work and stuff)..

altho, my 55s been set up 1.5 years and thats going fine,

I can't imagine not vacuming the gravel weekly. All those fish and especially the plecos leave a lot of "CRAP" (nicest word I could think of) behind. My nitrates are normally pretty high and then come down after I clean the tank.

Now, don't get me wrong, I only rinse the decorations and plastic plants I don't scrub tnem. I take everything out so I can get to all of the gravel. Besides, I only do this monthly and within that month my fish have uprooted most of the plants and moved some of the rocks anyway, so it needs to be put back together even if I didn't clean anything.

Which brings up another question. Is there a time when the gravel should be changed instead of vacumed?

IMO, only if you want to change gravel for some reason. I do a weekly gravel vac on the 75 and 125 -- both are slightly overstocked. The 55 I vac maybe once a month -- same for the 210, tho I don't do it when there are fairly new fry in there. Besides, with the spawning going on the gravel gets shifted around plenty. I can't think of any reason to take things out & clean them, other than just liking how they look that way. My water change routine is approx 50% twice a week. Hoses, baby! No way to carry that many buckets!