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Freshwater Aquarium Maintenance

When i lived at home, my mom had one freshwater fish in a fish tank, with a few rocks . Her idea of freshwater maintenance, was to let the replacement water stand for one day. She said this was to remove the chlorine from the water. She  did  something right, for when we moved and had to give the fish away, the fish was even so alive after two and half years.  

Now that was a very basic fresh water fish . With today’s exotic fish for sale in the pet stores, it is going to take more than letting water stand for a day to remove the chlorine to keep your fish healthy and more importantly happy. Things you must consider for right maintenance of your freshwater aquarium are :

1. Having proper water quality is important, but it is much more than just letting it hang around for a day . There are a lot more items to think of . You will need a test kit to rate for proper ph, water hardness, nitrates, specific gravity, etc. You will need to test the water for these properties almost everyday and make proper adjustments.

2. Proper cleaning of the gravel is important. You will need to vacuum-clean the gravel to remove food, feces and other contaminants to prevent the build up of nitrate, nitrite and ammonia. All of these contaminants are harmful to your fish.

3. You should only replace 25% of the water every week . But if you must clean the entire tank, do not use chemicals on the inside for glass cleaning, use a algae scraper instead. Even a slight amount of home cleaners is toxic to freshwater fish. You can use them on the outside of the tank, but verify you do not get any of the chemicals inside the tank.

This is just the tip of the ice burg on proper freshwater aquarium maintenance, there is much more to learn.

To develop the best conditions for fresh water aquarium creatures to live, you need to be very specific in how you set it up. You need to have the correct amount of lighting per gallon, and keep the temperatures at a healthy amount. You also need to keep the water pH within the right parameters so that you don’t kill the fish with acidity or alkalinity. One of the best ways to maintain homeostasis in your tank is to get the right freshwater aquarium filtration.

Every fresh water aquarium needs some system of filtration in order to sustain a healthy environment. One other important thing that the filter does is air out the water inside the tank. Water creatures need this mix in order to endure. To set up an effective freshwater aquarium filtration you need to run the water in the tank completely through the filter every 15 to 20 minutes. There are several types of filters out there that can help you achieve these results. The two main ones are box filters and canister filters.

Box filters are some of the first fresh water aquarium filter accessories to be made available. The plus to these filters is that they are relatively cheap and they are easy to set up. The negative side of these filters is that they do not have a very powerful intake flow.

Canister filters are the more powerful version of the box filters, and are best used in larger tanks. They are located outside of the tank and can be easily hidden. The downside to these filters is that they are hard to take apart and clean out.

A Fish That Can Help You Clean

When you fill your aquarium with fish, get a bottom dweller. These fish are more than worth their keep because they live on the bottom and keep the gravel and plants clean from any food that has fallen down there. They also keep the bottom of the tank algae-free. One of the best algae eaters and a real boon to the fresh water aquarium maintenance is the plecostomus. This fish’s name has lots of letters and is hard to pronounce but it is the easiest answer to algae problems. They come in all sizes.

Do Daily Checkups

Each day you should check to make sure that there is no leftover food floating around the tank. Only feed an amount of food that your fish can eat in three to five minutes. Too much food could make the water unhealthy and will make your tank cloudy. Do a check to make sure that your water is clean, your heater is working (if you have fish that need one) and that the lights are going on and off when they are supposed to. The biggest thing is, of course, to make sure there are no sick fish in the tank.

Ideally, you need to have a small tank all ready to go for isolating sick fish . Not everyone does but it will make life a lot easier if you can manage to have one. A sick fish should be isolated until you can determine what is wrong with him or her and whether or not the illness is contagious. This is especially critical with an injury, as a fish that is not well will often be mistreated by the other fish in the tank. If the fish does have a contagious disease, you will have to treat all the other fish as well.

Aquarium Cleaning

Fresh water aquarium maintenance means doing water changes at least every two weeks. While this is necessary, it is not always the thing people most love about having an aquarium. Luckily, you only need to take out about 20% of the water, not all of it. Around once a month you will want to do a more thorough cleaning, where you take out one-half of the water. This too is when that second tank is going to come in handy. If you have one, you can keep the water in it just right so that when you clean the primary tank, you can move all the fish into the backup tank.

Water is usually removed from the tank using a siphon and fish are moved from one tank to another with a net. If you have to clean your tank with the fish still in it, be very measured not to hurt any of the fish.

A two-week cleaning means using a sponge to scrub the inside and outside of the aquarium. Do not ever use soap. A small amount of salt applied to the sponge will clean the glass beautifully. Either rinse or change your filter. Check the hoses if you have an air filter in your tank, and use a gravel cleaning device to get the substrate clean. If you have a bottom dwelling fish, this will be much easier as he will already have done most of the job.

Tank Refills

When you do your monthly cleaning, take out all of the structures and plants and clean them with water and salt as well. Check the pH of the water to make sure it is what it’s supposed to be. The best way to fill your tank up again after a cleaning is to use distilled water and heat it up to the right temperature before adding it. Tap water should only be used in an emergency as it is never the best choice for your fish. It often contains chlorine and other organisms which can be deadly to fish.

The biggest thing to recall about freshwater aquarium maintenance is that you must never change all of the water at once. Replace only small amounts of water to the pre-conditioned water in the tank–not more than 20% weekly or 50% when you clean the whole tank. Fish are a wonderful hobby and you can spend endless hours engrossed in watching their movements and behavior. Make sure that you help them to be as healthy as possible by feeding the right types of food and performing regular freshwater aquarium maintenance.