Major Tank Maintenance - Water/filter/tank.

[chen]

What a weekend....sigh....decided to do a major water change/clean on my 360gal, 120gal adn 65gal...took me pretty much the full day Saturday. Included in the clean was my Ehiem Pro 3 (last clean was 8months ago), 2 XP3's, and 4 AC110's and 50gal sump.....I do these types of major clean twice per year...MAN was I dead afterwards.

I removed all rocks from my 360 and kept them out after the clean as there was just too much S#@$ stuck between them and the tank, just put back some Malaysian driftwood in for a centre piece. Tank looks a bit emptier but cleaner and the Rays have more room to glide.

Just wonder for these types of major clean, how often do you guys do them for any of your large tanks....Wife was giving me **** as the entire day there was no Hot water left.....probably changed approx. 275gals worth of water...lol..

Oh yeah...my water change is once per week at approx. 25%, sometimes if work is keeping me busy (most of the time), it's once every 2 weeks, I just have to control feeding at busy times.

 

[shoefreak03]

with me a major cleaning is whenever it is required. I do 2x 50% waterchanges on all my tank and clean out the media pads at that time that a major cleaning isnt really required for me. my tanks pretty bare with little decorations so i can syphon the crap out during the water change and stir up the sand at the time also.

I think the last time i did a major cleaning was over a year ago when i did 100% wc and move the tanks around.

 

[Nic]

wow you are supposed to clean a tank who would have thought that





I don't remove my stones ever and my filters get cleaned when they trickle water or I remember once a year maybe twice I don't even know and water changes every week sometimes twice a week depends on my mood

 

[santoury]

Well, if you consider cleaning filters and doing a water change "MAJOR" then I do this every week on every tank, be it a one lungfish tank, or a snail tank.

There's absolutely no excuse for NOT cleaning the filter/tank regularly.

 

[Hawkfish3.0]

It's really relative to many factors: size of tank, type of fish, feeding schedule, density of tank population, so on and so on. I agree with nic though, why would you ever take out your gravel and wash it? You would only kill any beneficial bacteria in the substrate. That's why they make gravel vacs!

 

[santoury]

You're kidding, RIGHT???

 

[santoury]

Here's a cute little image for you...

Try placing a small piece of poo on your kitchen table (or under your dresser) and see how long you can bear with it.

Now, think about your fish living with that for... god knows how long. 6 months right?

 

[Darudist]

I do a 50% water change and a gravel vac 1x week on my 125. I clean my 3 AC 110's every couple of months. Crystal clear water, perfect params.

 

[KenyanSandBoa]

Here's a cute little image for you...

Try placing a small piece of poo on your kitchen table (or under your dresser) and see how long you can bear with it.

Now, think about your fish living with that for... god knows how long. 6 months right?

I don't think he's saying he cleans the tank every 6 months or so...I think he's saying that he does a complete overhaul of the tanks every six months. Chen says he does 25% once a week.

Chen, you don't take your substrate out, right? I'm assuming you're talking about moving large rocks and driftwood so you can get to detrius that has built up under and around them. I usually move big, hard to move stuff around every 2 weeks, with water changes of roughly 50% weekly. I have some VERY messy ]V[onsters in there,so a pretty hefty workload is cut out for me on a weekly basis.

 

[Hawkfish3.0]

Here's a cute little image for you...

Try placing a small piece of poo on your kitchen table (or under your dresser) and see how long you can bear with it.

Now, think about your fish living with that for... god knows how long. 6 months right?

I love your posts santoury! You can be so dramatic. That's an awesome analogy, not quite accurate imo, but awesome nonetheless.